Story originally printed in the La Crosse Tribune or online at www.lacrossetribune.com
Published - Wednesday, September 05, 2007
Preserving Holland Sand Prairie a collaborative effort
 Jay Fernholz (from left), George Varnum and Pete Putnam have all put in significant time and effort into restoring and maintaining the Holland Sand Prairie located on County Hwy. MH in the Town of Holland near Holmen. PETER THOMSON photo |
It could have been a strip mall.
You could have turned west on McHugh Road off Hwy. 53/35 and in less than three minutes have been in a food court.
Or it could have been an industrial park.
Instead, the 61 acres in the town of Holland will remain what nature started developing them into about 12,000 years ago: sand prairie.
This month, the Mississippi Valley Conservancy plans to transfer ownership of the Holland Sand Prairie to the town of Holland. It’s the final step in a preservation effort that has taken years and the cooperation of everyone from town residents to conservationists to a landowner.
George Howe, conservation director at the Mississippi Valley Conservancy, said even some of the developers who had been looking at the property are happy about the way things turned out.
“They understand that when something is that rare and precious,” Howe said, “it might not be the best use to go ahead and pave that over, too.”
Howe calls the land “precious” because of this: Before it was plowed into farms and covered in concrete, nearly all of the land that stretches from La Crosse to Galesville, Wis., was sand prairie. The 61 acres that form the Holland Sand Prairie are some of the last of that land that remains untouched.
On a recent afternoon, George Varnum, Pete Putnam and Jay Fernholz — three members of the Friends of the Holland Sand Prairie — stood at the entrance to the land.
They looked through Fernholz’s bird book, talked about some wildflower roots being as thick as carrots and going 12 feet down, and how Varnum and Putnam, who live across the street, have called the cops on dirt bikes roaring on the prairie.
Varnum was one of the earliest of those who began working to preserve the land.
He discovered its diversity in 1983, when he and his daughter collected wildflowers from his neighbor’s property for his daughter’s high school biology class.
He made the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources aware of its value in the 1990s.
Victor Chalsma, the landowner, died in 2004. Around that time, developers became interested in the land, as did others, including the Mississippi Valley Conservancy.
“It was close to being developed,” Fernholz said. “We had a great display of democracy.”
Jim Fowler, a member of the Conservancy’s board, purchased the land for $1.3 million, taking it off the market.
Eventually, town residents, the Conservancy and the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources purchased the land from Fowler, with the DNR paying 50 percent and the residents and Conservancy splitting the rest of the cost.
On Aug. 22, Gov. Jim Doyle approved the 61 acres to be a state natural area, which Howe said grants it the highest level of legal protection.
The land can never be developed, even into a park. Although the Conservancy plans to transfer ownership of the land to the Town of Holland this month, they’ll hold a permanent conservation easement.
They’ll also continue to work with the town and others in restoring native species to the prairie.
And the public, like Holmen High School students who have used the prairie for classes for years, will continue to be able to stroll the prairie.
“It’s too bad that we’ve lost most all of our river terrace and prairies,” Howe said, “but it is a motivator to protect what’s remaining.”
And there’s another deal in the works.
Although the land is not as untouched as the 61 acres, Howe said the Conservancy is working on preserving 320 acres of grasslands a mile north of the Holland Sand Prairie.
Joe Orso can be reached at (608) 791-8429 or jorso@lacrossetribune.com.
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