Wisconsin Assembly set to pass burial site changes

By: Associated Press//November 9, 2017//

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MADISON, Wis. (AP) — The Wisconsin Assembly is scheduled to approve a bill that would require the state historical director to first consider evidence that land might have a burial ground before adding it to the state’s burial sites catalog.

Developers need permits to excavate land listed in the catalog. Republicans introduced a bill two years ago that would have allowed quarry owners to excavate Ho-Chunk Nation burial grounds to prove human remains are buried there.

That bill went nowhere but spurred a legislative study committee to devise a new proposal. It requires the director to consider whether the evidence of remains exists before cataloguing a site and establishes a process for challenging decisions and removing sites from the list.

The Assembly was set to vote on the bill Thursday. Approval would send the measure to the state Senate.

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