The Division of Facilities, Planning & Management (FP&M) of UW-Madison has proposed building a new gravel service road to access the campus maintenance yard within the Preserve. With the publication on June 22, 2026, of the Draft Environmental Impact Assessment (dated June 12), the public and the Friends of the Lakeshore Nature Preserve board first became aware that building the proposed roadway will entail removing trees and other vegetation along a 14-ft-wide swath of the northern edge of Bill’s Woods. FP&M later stated that the road would be 860 feet long and would require the clearing of 0.53 acres of woods.
The proposed road would facilitate the continued use of the campus maintenance yard (servicing the entire campus), which had been proposed to be removed from the Preserve in two earlier UW facility Master Planning processes. If the maintenance yard were to be removed, the negatively impacted land (compacted soils and soil erosion from water drainage) could be returned to a healthier condition. A smaller modified area could be retained to accommodate Preserve needs, and existing service roads could accommodate Preserve needs.
The FLNP Board of Directors submitted written comments (see below) and participated in a public meeting held on July 7, along with numerous Friends members, UW faculty, staff, students, alumni, and community members; many expressed concern regarding the destructive nature of the proposed road within the Preserve.
Due in part to this advocacy, along with the presence of cremains in the same area as the proposed road, FP&M subsequently announced on September 25, 2026, that they would elevate the DEIA into a full Environmental Impact Statement, which could take up to a year. This is good news, and the process will include additional opportunities for public involvement. FLNP’s ad-hoc committee on this issue continues to monitor the situation and will alert members when it’s time to share your perspectives on the updated design.
Another piece of good news that came from this advocacy is that the service road project is now separated from the construction of the Frautschi Center, meaning that the ongoing deliberations about the service road will not delay progress on the Frautschi Center.
What can you do?
While we await further updates from FP&M, here are some things you can do to help preserve the Preserve:
- Talk with your friends and neighbors who enjoy hiking in the Lakeshore Nature Preserve as a way to connect with Wisconsin’s public land-grant university.
- Sign up to receive email updates on the project directly from FP&M by sending an email to communications+lnp@fpm.wisc.edu.
- Support the Friends of the Lakeshore Nature Preserve (an independent 501(c)(3) nonprofit) by becoming a Friends member and/or making a donation of any amount. Events like this demonstrate the importance of having a strong, independent voice of advocacy. Together, we can convey how deeply the Madison community cherishes the lands, waters, and ecosystems of the Preserve.
- If you have questions that are not addressed on this webpage or on FP&M’s webpage about the project, email communications@fpm.wisc.edu. You can send comments and questions to the FLNP board regarding our own webpage to preservefriends@gmail.com.
Recent updates
October 7, 2026: The Badger Herald published an article about the cremains, drawing in part from Isthmus’s reporting.
October 6, 2026: The Wisconsin State Journal published an article about the cremains that would be impacted by the construction of the road. The article features photos of the site and an interview with Cathie Bruner, who was the manager of the Preserve when some of the cremains were delivered to the Preserve and the berm was constructed. The article also mentions FLNP’s advocacy and includes a link to this webpage.
September 25, 2026: Ayres Associates emailed the following update to people who submitted comments or attended the July 7 meeting:
Dear public comment participants,
You are receiving this email because you submitted feedback and/or attended the public information session about the Draft Environmental Impact Assessment (DEIA) for the UW-Madison Lakeshore Nature Preserve service entrance and road. Thank you for your valuable participation in this process. You can find information about the project, as well as answers to FAQs on a new project page: go.wisc.edu/lnp-road.
Next steps
UW-Madison will move forward with an Environmental Impact Statement (EIS), anticipated to take up to 12 months. The EIS will evaluate the environmental impact of the proposed service road and entrance project and assist the team in the final design. Moving to an EIS means there is not a final Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA). Instead, the draft EIA becomes the basis for an EIS. However, FP&M has requested factual updates to the Draft EIA, which you will see online soon.
FAQs
In addition to valuable input, UW-Madison received a large number of questions, which have been organized, consolidated and addressed into 66 questions with answers in the attached PDF. Due to the quantity and detailed nature of the questions, extra care was taken to ensure all topics were addressed, whether they directly pertained to the Draft EIA or not. Your patience in waiting for an update is appreciated. These FAQs are also available on the project page.
Online hub for information
To provide detailed information, address questions, and post future updates, this project has a web page. Please visit go.wisc.edu/lnp-road for the most up-to-date information. Future opportunities to provide additional input or ask questions (including during the EIS) will be posted online, too. If you have questions, please email communications@fpm.wisc.edu.
Thank you again for sharing with us during the Draft EIA. On behalf of both Ayres Associates and UW-Madison, we appreciate your engagement. Community input is critical to this process, and we appreciate you taking time so submit your feedback.
Key information shared by FP&M on the new project webpage included:
- The area of Bill’s Woods that would be cleared for the service road is 0.53 acres.
- At this time, we are informed that no donor funds would be used to create the service road.
- Physical Plant and Preserve staff are removing some materials from the maintenance yard, and the university is considering options to relocate some activities that take place in the yard.
- The service road would be gravel and separated from the adjacent footpath by a chain link fence 4 inches off the ground to allow for the passage of small wildlife.
September 17, 2026: Isthmus published an article about the cremains that would be impacted by the construction of the road. As reported there, the Wisconsin State Historic Preservation Office has now established the berm containing the cremains as an uncatalogued burial site, which means that any proposed ground-disturbing work would need to be submitted to the Wisconsin Historical Society for review. The article also mentions that the university has found inaccuracies in Ayres’ DEIA.
August 13, 2026: No further information on the project has been released from Ayres Associates or the Division of Facilities, Planning & Management of UW-Madison, which is leading the project.
August 3, 2026: On July 31, FLNP and others who had submitted comments received this update from Ayres: “As a next step in the process, we will be engaging our UW-Madison partners to review your comments and answer questions. We will email you with more information as we move through the process.” FLNP board president Tom Zinnen requested an anticipated timeline of key dates for the review, and Ayres declined to provide any timeline.
July 8, 2026: FLNP has convened an ad-hoc committee of FLNP board members and general members to lead our advocacy efforts on this topic.
Foundational information
- Draft Environmental Impact Assessment A-22-007/2250-2218 Service Road to Campus Maintenance Yard, Lakeshore Nature Preserve Frautschi Center Amendment #04 (includes map and site photos)
- Preserve Master Plan that recommends removal of the maintenance yard (2023). Pages 43–44 give specific recommendations pertaining to the campus maintenance yard. The Preserve is just a part of the issues this document addresses.
- Willow Creek Master Plan Advanced Planning Report (2022). This provides a campus-wide view of where to relocate the campus maintenance yard.
The University of Wisconsin System Administration (UWSA) has retained Ayres Associates on behalf of the University of Wisconsin – Madison (UW-Madison) to prepare an Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) for the proposed Frautschi Center – Service Road to Campus Maintenance Yard project on the UW-Madison campus. The EIA will be prepared in accordance with the Wisconsin Environmental Policy Act (WEPA), Wisconsin Statutes 1.11, and UWSA guidelines (Board of Regents’ Resolution 2508, November 6, 1981).
The attached Draft EIA is being made available on June 22, 2026, for a 15-day public review period. A public notice is also being posted in the Wisconsin State Journal to present the draft findings of the EIA and to request public input before finalizing the EIA. Copies of this Draft EIA are available at UW-Madison Library and Madison Public Library and are available for download at the following website.
The public meeting to present the Draft EIA findings will begin at 5:00 p.m. on Tuesday, July 7, 2026. The meeting will be held virtually and can be attended online at https://teams.microsoft.com/
If you are interested in this project, we welcome any comments, suggestions, or other input you feel is important. Please submit your comments related to this project in writing, using the form available on the website above, by July 7, 2026, for consideration in the Final EIA report.
Please do not ‘reply all.’ If you would like to be removed from this distribution list, please reply to me with the subject line ‘REMOVE FROM UWM EIA LIST,’ and you will not receive further correspondence on this project.
Best regards,
Pete Kaufmann‑Luft
Environmental Scientist
3433 Oakwood Hills Parkway | Eau Claire, WI 54701‑7698
Office: 715.834.3161 | Direct: 715.831.7545
Ayres Associates Inc. | www.AyresAssociates.com
The university proposes to build a new 14-foot-wide service road through the Bill’s Woods portion of the UW Lakeshore Nature Preserve to provide heavy trucks and other vehicles access to the campus maintenance yard north of Bill’s Woods and southeast of the Eagle Heights Community Gardens.
As noted in the Draft Environmental Impact Assessment, “The project site also resides entirely within the Lakeshore Nature Preserve.…” However, the same DEIA also states, “This facility (the Lakeshore Nature Preserve) is directly adjacent to the project site on the south side and is located on a different parcel.” Both statements cannot be true; the former statement is true, and this proposed service road will be carved 100% from the Lakeshore Nature Preserve.
The new roadway will run parallel to and immediately south of the current crushed-gravel road that serves the Eagle Heights Community Gardens. Relocating the service road – currently running through the Stone Gate entry and along the eastern edge of Bill’s Woods – would reduce pedestrian-vehicle conflicts in that vicinity. However, it will simply relocate the same safety concerns to a new location with high visitation from Eagle Heights residents and Eagle Heights Community Garden members.
The new roadway will be at least 14 feet wide, but nowhere in the report is the length of the road quantified. Based on the maps provided in the DEIS (Exhibit A; Appendix C Soil Map), the road will run through from 400 linear feet to 600 linear feet of forested parts of Bill’s Woods, plus another approximately 100 to 200 feet of the grassy approach to the berm on the north edge of the campus maintenance yard. In any event, the DEIS states in Section IV (A) that the project area exceeds one acre (43,560 sq ft). However one measures it, this new roadway means a significant swath of Bill’s Woods will be destroyed, amounting to at least 5,600 sq feet (14’ width x 400’ road length) to as much as 8,400 sq ft of forested land. Mature trees including walnuts, hickories, oaks, catalpa, maples and others will likely be bulldozed. We can’t determine the count of eliminated trees for certain because the precise borderlines of the new roadway have not been made public.
The new roadway will also mean at least 5,600 sq ft of new, rather impermeable road surface, and the increased runoff from this roadway has the potential to exacerbate the erosion chronically damaging Bill’s Woods downhill from the current roadway.
Building a 400-to-800-foot-long, 14 foot roadway through the UW Lakeshore Nature Preserve will scar the forest ecosystem and cut the size of the natural area of the Lakeshore Nature Preserve.
All of this ultimately calls into question the university’s pledges to protect the Preserve as part of the campus’s strategies for advancing sustainability as a leading university goal – given that other options exist.
The Friends of Lakeshore Nature Preserve strongly recommends the option laid out in multiple Master Plans the University has invested in:
The latest master plan for the Lakeshore Nature Preserve calls for the removal of the campus maintenance yard from the Preserve (2023 Lakeshore Nature Preserve Master Plan Update, page 44). The 2022 Willow Creek Master Plan – Advanced Planning Report calls for the removal of the campus maintenance yard from the Lakeshore Nature Preserve (page 16). And the university announced in February 2024 the gift from Jerry Frautschi to support the Lakeshore Nature Preserve Frautschi Center. And we note the university by spring 2024 selected the site just outside and to the south of the Stone Gate Entry for the location of the Frautschi Center. This site will preclude heavy trucks from using the roadway through the Stone Gate to the campus maintenance yard. Thus nearly 2.5 years have passed since the time it became clear that the university had two options: move the campus maintenance yard out of the Lakeshore Nature Preserve to another site on campus as master planned, or sacrifice a swath of Bill’s Woods for the new roadway.
Building this roadway through the Lakeshore Nature Preserve when other options are available, and when the university’s master plans have called for the removal of the maintenance yard from the Preserve, will have significant social effects of alienating many of the most dedicated supporters of the Preserve who have long helped to steward and sustain the Preserve. One need only look back 25 years to the origin story of the Preserve as an entity distinct from the UW Arboretum to estimate the fervor that can be anticipated when people see the scope and scale of the damage to Bill’s Woods that this project portends.
Therefore we call on the university to solve multiple problems with one decision: take this once-in-a-generation opportunity to enhance and advance the Lakeshore Nature Preserve by moving the campus maintenance yard for all the reasons given in the plans above and preclude the destruction of a 14-foot-wide by (at least) 400-foot-long swath of Bill’s Wood while providing for the safety of users of the current community gardens access road.
To Members of the University Committee,
At the request of the Board of Directors of the Friends of the Lakeshore Nature Preserve, a 501c3 organization dedicated to supporting the UW-Madison Lakeshore Nature Preserve, I write to share with you our concerns regarding the proposal to bulldoze a new, 14-foot-wide road through at least 400 feet of the Preserve running along the north edge of the portion of the Preserve known as Bill’s Woods. This road will be parallel to the current road that serves the Eagle Heights Community Gardens.
Originally many of us were under the impression that the new access road referred to upgrading and strengthening the current road, to give UW dump trucks and other heavy vehicles access to the campus maintenance yard that lies north of Bills Woods and southeast of the Eagle Heights Community Garden. This access is needed for two reasons: 1. the university chooses to continue to keep the campus maintenance yard in the Lakeshore Nature Preserve; and 2. the current access road through the Stone Gate Entry will no longer be available to big trucks once the new Frautschi Center is built at the Stone Gate Entry.
However, only recently with the publication of the Draft Environmental Impact Assessment released on June 12 by Ayres Associates did the actual scope of the construction come into clear view: this will be a totally new road, 14 feet wide, of unquantified length but by my estimate close to 600 feet long, to be carved out of Bill’s Woods.
We note that the Environmental Impact Plan for the Frautschi Center included a detailed analysis of the pros and cons of the four sites considered for the Center, and a justification for the site that was selected.
In contrast, the Draft Environmental Impact Assessment of this proposed access road merely mentions that the possibilities of moving the campus maintenance yard to other sites on campus were considered but no other sites were found to be adequate. There is no list of the other sites considered, and no discussion of the analysis of the costs and benefits of the various options.
Thus the current plan is for the university to spend $400,000 of donor money to carve a new road through Bill’s Woods, without any public explanation as to why the university is choosing not to move the maintenance yard to another location, as recommended by the 2023 Lakeshore Nature Preserve Master Plan Update (page 44) and by the 2022 Willow Creek Master Plan – Advanced Planning Report (page 16).
We are also aware of a person who is willing to donate $1 million to help defray costs of moving the maintenance yard from the Preserve. By adding in the $400,000 slated for the new road and instead putting that money towards removing the yard, this means the university now has a once-in-a-generation opportunity to affirm its commitments to sustainability through its stewardship of the Preserve, and thereby advance the Preserve’s academic missions in instruction, research and outreach.
I am pleased to inform you of our concerns about this situation and I would be happy to respond to any questions or suggestions you may have.
Sincerely,
Tom Zinnen
President, Board of Directors
Friends of the Lakeshore Nature Preserve