By Mary Lacy
Northside News
ATC (American Transmission Com-pany) has been working on a project replacing 23 old and aging steel electric poles in a roughly 3-mile project area that runs through Maple Bluff and along Woodward Drive, west of Warner Park. The project is expected to be completed sometime in mid-2025. There is also a related project in the same area — stringing fiber optic cable between several electric poles — that is scheduled to be completed by the end of 2026.
There are some signs in the project area that remind the work crews to take care while working. One sign indicates that it is a “Cultural Resource Area.” When contacted about what that means, ATC responded, “When a project such as this one overlaps with a Wisconsin Historical Society mapped site, we consult with the Wisconsin Historical Society and develop site-specific plans to minimize impacts.”
Looking at a Dane County Cultural Resources map, it is apparent that the project zone is in an area that is considered to be Tribal Lands Ceded to the United States, and includes archaeological and burial sites. This includes effigies and burial mounds. According to a note on the map, Sites are aggregated by square-mile Public Land Survey System sections to obscure precise locations to prevent vandalism, damage or looting. The signs are to remind work crews to limit ground disturbances in the area, even if it doesn’t disturb an ancient site.
There is also a sign in the work area indicating that the project area is near a “protected/sensitive resource.” Heavy brush has been cleared from along the railroad grade, and this was done during a time when a certain protected species (confidential, under Wisconsin law) would not be active in or near the work area.
Another sign cautions that the work is occurring in a wetland area. Permits have been obtained from the Wisconsin DNR and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers for the project. Conditions of the permits require that material that is displaced by digging foundations for the new poles must be removed. Construction matting is used to distribute the weight of construction equipment and protect the wetland soils.
When construction is complete, the plan is for the disturbed area to be seeded with a seed mix that is “comparable to the surrounding vegetation.” The statement continues, “While all properties are different, ATC’s goal is to encourage native compatible species to vegetate the rights-of-way…. This is an ongoing process over multiple vegetation management cycles.”
It will be interesting to see what the project area looks like in the coming years.
