County seeks grant for Ulao nature area in village

Ozaukee County is one step closer to developing the Ulao Trails Nature Preserve  in the Village of Grafton east of I-43.

The county has applied for a $1,000 grant from the state Department of Natural Resources Foundation to develop a trail and build a boardwalk at the 400-yard stretch of woods known as the Ulao Creek Nature Preserve County Park between Gateway Drive and the Union Pacific railroad tracks south of Ulao Road.

The county Natural Resources Committee also voted to accept the grant if it is awarded.

“The Department has been successful with several NRF grants in the past,” county Parks and Planning Director Andrew Struck told the committee in a memo.

The grant also will help pay for removing invasive species and ash tree management, native tree planting and construction of a small parking lot, Struck said.

Total project cost is $6,685.

“The invasive emerald ash borer beetle has killed a significant number of native ash trees, the dominant tree species in the preserve, stimulating invasive species growth and requiring management efforts to remove hazardous trees and invasive species within planned trail corridors,” Struck wrote in the memo.

Plans call for using a youth conservation corps team and volunteers for vegetation management and trail construction, he said.

The preserve is part of the Ulao Creek Watershed, a 16-square-mile area mostly in the town and village of Grafton. Most of it is on private land.

The watershed includes the nine-mile Ulao Creek and the 490-acre Ulao swamp.

According to the county website, the watershed contains 28% of the wetlands suitable for northern pike spawning in the Milwaukee River Watershed and provides fish refuge from drought and low-flow conditions in the form of pools and deep runs.

Over the years, local farmers and landowners have dredged and straightened 90% of the creek’s channel, separating it from floodplains and wetlands and damaging local habitat for native fish, wildlife and migratory bird species.

Private landowners, in the form of the  Ulao Creek Partnership, and the county have worked to plant trees, help remeander waterways and remove invasive plants.

Most of the watershed is on private land and inaccessible to the public, except for the nature preserve.