Wisconsin Committee To Vote On Burial Sites Bill

A Wisconsin legislative committee is set to vote on a bill that would require the state historical director to consider evidence for adding land to the state’s burial sites catalog.

Catalog inclusion means developers need a permit from the Wisconsin Historical Society director.

Republicans introduced a bill in 2015 that would have allowed quarry owners to excavate Ho-Chunk Nation burial mounds to prove human remains are buried there. The measure went nowhere but spurred legislative leaders to appoint a committee to study burial site protections.

The committee came up with a bill that requires the director to consider whether evidence of human remains exist before cataloguing a site and establishes a process for challenging decisions.

The Assembly Committee on Environment and Forestry is set to vote on the bill Thursday.