Kohler Co. is proposing a golf course on land it has owned for 75 years. The 247-acre parcel along Lake Michigan lies just north of Kohler-Andrae State Park. Credit: Journal Sentinel

By of the

The Kohler Co. has brought the golf world — along with hundreds of millions of tourism dollars — to Wisconsin with its acclaimed courses at Blackwolf Run and Whistling Straits in Sheboygan County.

The company wants to build a fifth world-class course on land it owns in the Town of Wilson. From the reaction of many, you'd think Kohler was proposing to erect a maximum-security prison or a landfill on its 247-acre beachfront parcel.

It will destroy wetlands and dunes! It will harm endangered species such as the beach dune tiger beetle! It will disturb a rich trove of cultural artifacts!

I'm not making light of these concerns. They're legitimate. But none of them are reasons to kill a project that would do so much good for the area.

When fully operational the proposed course would create the equivalent of 227 new full-time jobs, generate more than $1.1 million annually in new tax revenue (the Sheboygan school system would gain $100,000 each year from the project) and generate an annual $20.6 million economic impact in Sheboygan County, according to an economic analysis prepared by the Chicago-based consulting firm SB Friedman Development.

Some of the strongest opposition to the project comes from environmental groups such as Friends of the Black River Forest, who contend that a golf course would ruin dunes, destroy wetlands and harm the Black River.

Have the environmentalists ever set foot on the River Course at Blackwolf Run? It's a great example of a course that beautifully melds golf and nature, and it hasn't laid waste to the Sheboygan River.

How about Whistling Straits? I sat in on a Town of Wilson plan commission public hearing in 2014 in which people stood up and claimed runoff from the Straits was polluting Lake Michigan, citing, of course, no studies or research.

Perhaps they wished the site of three PGA Championships was still an abandoned military base with eroding bluffs, strewn with toxic waste and garbage and used by drug dealers to transfer product.

"What people are bringing up about Whistling Straits, that's all ignorance," said Mark Johnson, associate director of environmental programs for the Golf Course Superintendents Association of America.

Kohler Co. has proved time and again that it is an exceptional steward of the land. Chairman Herbert V. Kohler Jr. is an avowed tree-hugger who once fired (and later rehired) course architect Pete Dye for cutting down a stand of trees without permission during the construction of Blackwolf Run.

Jim Richerson, general manager and group director of golf, said in an email that none of Kohler's courses has ever been cited with an environmental violation and that fertilizers were used at 20% of authorized state and federal levels.

The discovery on the proposed golf course site of thousands of cultural artifacts dating back 2,000 years is important, but preserving the relics and building the course don't have to be mutually exclusive.

Much of the material was classified as "debitage," or bits of rock left when stone tools were fashioned. Makes you wonder how much debitage was disturbed when the Timberlake subdivision was built just north of the proposed course site — or, for that matter, under any development up and down Lake Michigan.

Then there are those who complain, "Kohler doesn't need another golf course." They must know something the board of directors does not. As if the global company would throw up another course for the heck of it, without doing marketing studies and determining it would be successful.

Others decry another "playground for the rich" without stopping to think about how everyone in Sheboygan County would benefit from the tourism dollars, jobs and tax revenue.

More than two years have passed since Kohler announced it was scrapping plans for a luxury wilderness retreat on the property and planned instead to build a fifth Dye-designed golf course.

Richerson, who is traveling but answered questions by email, wrote, "We are waiting for the DNR to issue its draft environmental impact statement. The state DNR reviews the project and its environmental impact and establishes a set of standards that will have to be met for permits to be issued. This would cover topics like water use, wetland protection, wildlife and related matters."

The Town of Wilson's approval process is separate and will focus on traffic, zoning and other local issues over which it has jurisdiction.

"There is strong local support for the new golf course, and we understand that not everyone favors it," Richerson wrote. "We respect everyone's right to express their own opinions."

Here's mine: As long as Kohler Co. adheres to the law, obtains the permits and complies with the DNR, it should be able to build a golf course on land it has owned for 75 years.

With all due respect to the beach dune tiger beetle, I can't wait to see it.

Send email to gdamato@journalsentinel.com