To the editor:

About 1972, the city of Lawrence built a sewage lift station in front of Haskell’s cemetery. This key facility services much of the development west of Iowa Street. It pumps waste uphill to the treatment plant in East Lawrence. Students at Haskell have complained for years about the odor and, especially, the disrespect shown for more than 100 Indian children buried so nearby. Too late, the cemetery was listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

Now our community is set to add insult to odiferous injury by permitting a local developer to construct two ugly noisy storage buildings on adjacent private property. This small triangle of land west of the city’s rails-to-trails was recently cleared of trees, filled and raised. These buildings would undoubtedly include security fences and lights that would loom over this peaceful resting place. There are also ceremonial sweat lodges located just to the south. “Security” lights from the area already glare down onto Haskell’s medicine wheel, obscuring the starry night sky, once so visible from that powerful circle of healing and renewal.

I propose that ECO2 help negotiate a trade. Give this landowner an equivalent parcel of land in a prime industrial location. Transform this pending monstrosity into a pocket park overlook for users of the rails to trails. This would save a nationally recognized historic site from further insult and abuse. It would also help atone for choosing one of the most inappropriate spots imaginable to facilitate our city’s westward expansion.

Mike Caron,

Lawrence