Acker Property Update (January 2020)

When Dane County purchased the Acker property last summer, they set a deadline of December 31, 2019, for the Acker family to conduct a number of cleanup activities and move off the property. 

With that process complete, the country will take steps over the winter to stabilize the site, including the removal of a number of buildings on the property. County staff provided a summary of activities they expect will occur at the site through February or March 2020. These include: 

• Fire training by the Middleton Fire Department, which began in mid-December with a barn burn and will be followed by a second fire training to burn additional buildings at a later date. 
• Parks staff will clean up, remove and recycle all remaining building material after the fire training is done. It is anticipated that concrete removal and final grading will be contracted out and be done in late summer/early fall 2020. Concrete will be crushed and used for a temporary access/maintenance/storage area located by the driveway entrance. 
• Construction of temporary stormwater diversion and containment berms for protecting water quality until the buildings/ concrete are fully removed and the final grading and site restoration is complete. 

The county has prepared a draft concept plan for the property and additional planning and design work is underway for the wetland restoration and other components identified in the plan. County staff indicate they intend to bring all of the partners and stakeholders together for a meeting later this winter to discuss the restoration plans for the property. Several of our board members will participate in these discussions and the board anticipates working closely with county staff as restoration planning and implementation proceeds. 

One anticipated benefit of restoring the Acker property to natural prairie is to reduce the nutrients flowing downstream into Lake Mendota.