The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Detroit District released the Obelisk Alternatives Analysis Report for a 30-day public review on June 9, 2025.The analysis addresses the cultural effects of removing the obelisk from a burial site, determined eligible for the National Register of Historic Places as a Traditional Cultural Place, located at Brady Park at the St. Marys Falls Canal (Soo Locks), Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan.
The Bay Mills Indian Community and Sault Ste. Marie Tribe of Michigan conducts cultural and religious practices at the burial site. Those practices in the presence of an obelisk celebrating the semi-centennial of the construction of locks, which destroyed most of the burial site, continue to have an ongoing negative effect on their members. The Bay Mills Indian Community and Sault Ste. Marie Tribe of Michigan have requested that the Corps of Engineers remove the obelisk from the burial site to mitigate this effect.