Reader question: What’s going on with the ugly swamp mess property at the Lombardi exit from I-41 and next to Cabela’s? I thought something was going to be done to amend the property or return it to a grassy swampland. Not a beautiful view for tourists visiting the Green Bay Tourist Center to see. (Reporter’s note: Cabela’s in Ashwaubenon has rebranded as Bass Pro Shops, which acquired Cabela’s over a decade ago.)
Answer: Ashwaubenon is delayed three years into its management plan to rid invasive European reeds, called phragmites, from the roughly 6.75-acre wetland at the village’s main entrance. The associated landscaping plan, with trees and shrubs and native plants, has been pushed back as a consequence.
When the Green Bay Press-Gazette answered a reader question in winter 2024 about the same spot, the management plan was in its first year. Environmental consulting firm Stantec and the village had mowed down much of the wet meadow, which a Stantec document said became “completely infested” with the reed.
The firm has since been spraying herbicide in the fall to kill as many of the reeds as possible and mowing as needed, according to its implementation schedule.
Chris Caplan, an assistant project manager at Stantec, told the Village Board on May 28, 2024, that it would likely take several years to get the reeds under control.
The company had intended its plan to be adaptive, Caplan said. Tree planting, under its landscaping plan, would be postponed year after year under Stantec’s implementation schedule until fewer than 20% of phragmites were left in the areas marked to be planted.
Smaller vegetation, like sedges and rushes, would follow. The planting for those would happen “when the site’s ready,” Caplan told the Village Board. “So, it could be anywhere from two to three or four years down the road.”
“That full plan has been pushed back,” Rex Mehlberg, Ashwaubenon’s Parks director, wrote in an email to the Press-Gazette.
Annual herbicide spot-treating would continue this fall, as well as a round of tree and shrub planting, according to Mehlberg. Should weather permit, native seeds would be planted in 2027, then again in 2028, if needed, Mehlberg wrote.
The village still needs to determine what plantings are suitable, Mehlberg said.
In the interim, one recent afternoon, algae-bloomed water from a rainy Sunday pooled atop the wetland ground, which is “a mucky peat with groundwater within 6 inches of the ground surface during most of the year,” according to a Stantec document.
A pair of male and female mallard ducks took off from the water. They left behind red-winged blackbirds chitter-chattering in the collapsed stalks of phragmites, once over 10 feet tall. A cluster of yellow buds were sprouting through. Much of the greenery bordered the road.
“I’m not sure what people are expecting,” Mehlberg said. “It’s never going to look – it’s a swamp, right? We still have to follow DNR guidelines.”
Jesse Lin is a reporter covering the community of Green Bay and its surroundings, as well as politics in northeastern Wisconsin. He also writes a weekly column answering reader questions about Green Bay. Contact and send him questions at 920-834-4250 or jlin@usatodayco.com.
This article originally appeared on Green Bay Press-Gazette: Reader asks why swamp by Ashwaubenon Bass Pro Shops isn’t yet beautiful
Reporting by Jesse Lin, Green Bay Press-Gazette / Green Bay Press-Gazette
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