Ice Age complex At cross plAIns, WIsconsIn DrAft generAl mAnAgement plAn/envIronmentAl ImpAct stAtement h e I c e A g e c o m p l e x A t c r o s s p l ai n s , W I s c o n s I n comprises land within a T unit of the Ice Age National Scientific Reserve and includes the interpretive site for the Ice Age National Scenic Trail. Within the Complex are lands owned and managed by the National Park Service, the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources, Dane County Parks, and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. This general management plan is needed to establish a consistent vision for the Ice Age Complex that is shared by all of these partners. This document establishes a framework to The potential environmental impacts of all assist in making decisions about the Complex. alternatives have been identified and assessed. It examines five alternatives for managing this The following impact topics are addressed site over the next 15 to 20 years, identifying in this GMP/EIS: soil resources, water desired conditions and analyzing the impacts quality, soundscapes, vegetation and wildlife, of implementing each alternative. Alternative socioeconomics, and visitor use and experience. 1: No Action, Continuation of Current Management looks into the future of The key impacts of Alternative 1 would be current management and provides a basis for short and long-term, minor to moderate, comparison to other alternatives. Alternative adverse impacts on soils from agricultural 2: Ecological Restoration Emphasis would use on some lands and unauthorized trails on restore vegetative conditions to those present others, but beneficial impacts to soils which prior to European settlement, supporting are converted from farmland to prairie. There interpretation of the post-glacial period. would be negligible to minor benefits to visitor Alternative 3: Interpretation and Education experience under current management and Emphasis would focus on interpreting how negligible impacts in all other areas. the glacial landscape evolved over time, and ecological resources would be managed to The key impacts of Alternative 2 would be reveal the glacial landscape. Alternative 4: short and long term, mild to moderate, adverse Outdoor Recreation Emphasis would offer impacts on soils from compaction from visitor visitors a variety of low-impact recreational use, but beneficial impacts to soils which are experiences supporting, and compatible converted from farmland to prairie. There with, the preservation and interpretation of would be temporary adverse impacts to the glacial significance.Alternative 5: Preferred soundscape from construction activities and Alternative would provide interpretation a moderate beneficial impact on vegetation of the landscape since glacial retreat and wildlife from ecological restoration. There and appropriate low-impact outdoor would be negligible to minor benefit to visitor recreation opportunities. experience under this alternative. The key impacts of Alternative 3 would be How to comment on this document minor to moderate adverse impacts to soils from building and trail construction as well as Comments on this draft general management compaction due to trail use, but also beneficial plan / environmental impact statement are impacts to soils as they are converted from welcome and will be accepted during the farmland to prairie. There would be minor to 60-day public review and comment period. moderate adverse impacts to the soundscape During the comment period, comments from construction and increased visitation and may be submitted using the several methods a negligible to moderate beneficial impact on noted below. vegetation and wildlife. There would be minor benefit to visitor experience from indoor We prefer that readers submit comments online exhibits and interpretive programs. (through the park planning website identified below) so the comments become incorporated The key impacts of Alternative 4 would be in the NPS Planning, Environment, and would be minor to moderate adverse impacts Public Comment System. An electronic public to soils from construction and trail use under comment form is provided through this website. this alternative, but also beneficial impacts to soils as they are converted from farmland Please submit comments to prairie. There would be minor beneficial impact on vegetation and wildlife. This online at: http://www.planning.nps.gov alternative would have a minor to moderate benefit to visitor experience by offering broad or by mail: Ice Age Complex outdoor experience and extensive exhibits. at Cross Plains Draft GMP/EIS The key impacts of Alternative 5 would be National Park Service minor to moderate adverse impacts on soils Attn: Christina Miller construction and trail use but also beneficial 12795 W. Alameda Parkway impacts to soils as they are converted from P.O. Box 25287 farmland to prairie. There would be minor Denver, CO 80225 beneficial impact on vegetation and wildlife under this alternative. This alternative would or hand delivery: at public meetings to be have a moderate benefit to visitor experience announced in the media through broad outdoor experience and following the release of this interpretive programming. draft general management plan / environmental This Draft General Management Plan/ impact statement. Environmental Impact Statement has been distributed to other agencies and interested Before including your address, phone number, organizations and individuals for review email address, or other personal identifying and comment. The public comment period information in your comment, you should for the document lasts 60 days. For more be aware your entire comment — including information, contact Superintendent, Ice Age your personal identifying information — may National Scenic Trail, 700 Rayovac Drive, be publicly available at any time. While you may Suite 100, Madison, Wisconsin 53711. ask us in your comment to withhold personal identifying information from public review, we cannot guarantee that we will be able to do so. Summary summAry BAckgrounD glaciation, including moraines, eskers, kames, kettleholes, drumlins, swamps, lakes, and other A mere 20,000 years ago, two-thirds of what reminders of the ice age.” The continental is today the state of Wisconsin lay under the glaciers last advanced and retreated over the grip of colossal ice sheets. The climate warmed state some 30,000 to 10,000 years ago. and the ice sheets began to melt back. They left in their wake an impressive landscape Congress envisioned the Ice Age Reserve as a of fascinating glacial landforms: moraines, network of distinct areas, each exhibiting an drumlins, kames, kettles, eskers, outwash plains, outstanding example of one type of landscape or meltwater channels, driftless (unglaciated) landform resulting from continental glaciation. topography, glacial lake beds and islands, and The legislation’s intention is that the reserve more. These Wisconsin Ice Age remnants are would be owned and managed by the state of considered among the world’s finest examples Wisconsin, with the assistance and collaboration of how continental glaciation sculpts our planet. of the Secretary of the Interior (acting through Located just west of Madison near the village of the National Park Service). Several of the Cross Plains is a 1,500-acre area that contains outstanding sites selected were already an outstanding collection of glacial landforms, Wisconsin state parks. The legislation made including a gorge carved by meltwater and reference to the Ice Age National Scenic Trail expansive views of both driftless and glaciated but made no provisions for it. terrain. These acres comprise a park called, for the purpose of this planning effort, the “Ice Age When the study was completed, nine sites were Complex at Cross Plains” (henceforth “Ice Age identified to be protected and managed by the Complex” or “complex”) (see figure ES-1). This Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources site, however, has a rich history of different (WDNR) as units of the Ice Age Reserve (see legal designations. figure ES-2). On May 29, 1971, the Secretary of the Interior published an order in the Federal The lands and landscape of the Ice Age Complex Register that formally brought the Ice Age have been deemed nationally significant under Reserve into existence. two related, but distinct, federal designations. The elements recognized in both designations As noted in Black (1974), “The Cross Plains are parts of the singular concept advanced by area was selected for inclusion in the Reserve in Wisconsin citizens in the late 1950s and early part because it contains a typical portion of the 1960s to protect and showcase Wisconsin’s Johnstown Moraine on the uplands and a typical heritage from continental glaciation. Congress proglacial stream in Black Earth Creek Valley, authorized the concept in two parts, at two and is close to a center of population. More different times, and through two different importantly, it is the only place . where the legislative vehicles. terminal moraine rests directly on well exposed, weathered dolomite bedrock and where small In 1964 Congress enacted legislation (Public marginal proglacial lakes, a marginal drainage Law [PL] 88-655; 78 Stat. 1087; 16 United States way, and a subglacial drainage way may all be Code [USC] 469d, et seq.) directing the Secretary seen in a small area. The various glacial features of the Interior to cooperate with the governor associated with the moraine in the vicinity of of Wisconsin in studying and subsequently