Program Notes from the Feb 22, 2010 Meeting of LKWA
February 22, 2010 at 6:00 pm
Milton Town Hall
1. Call to order and welcome – Rick Persson-Chair.
2. Minutes of October 27, 2009 and January 23, 2010 meetings as Emailed were approved.
3. Treasurer's report was approved
4. Sightings around the lake
a. Goldeneye have been sighted in the area.
5. Old Business
a. No news on the legal proceedings regarding lake levels.
b. The grant application for the Pulling Together Initiative was not funded. Penny Shackelford, Ann Riall and Susan Shultz have been members of a steering committee working on this application. The committee also was working to create a Cooperative Weed Management Area (CWMA), a partnership of governmental agencies, non-profit organizations, and private landowners to combat invasive plants and animals. The group will now decide whether or not to proceed with formation of the CWMA.
5. New business
a. Purple Loosestrife: Penny discussed plans for a Purple Loosestrife (PL) Project for LKWA. During the 2005 botanical survey of Lake Koshkonong's wetlands, only 4 areas were found to have PL. However, the survey was done in early July when many plants may not have been blooming and thus more difficult to find. Since the floods of 2008 and 2009, a marked increase has been observed in Thiebeau marsh and this can potentially spread quickly around the lake. Last fall, Don Bush noted that many areas along the Rock River have experienced an explosion of purple loosestrife, probably spread by the flood. This plant can crowd out all other native vegetation.
Cindy Wagner will present a program on Purple Loosestrife control at our next meeting on March 30. Our project will be to control PL using Galerucella beetles for bio-control. This approach has been successful statewide and locally (along Vogel Road). It is the only practical way to control this extremely invasive plant in large areas. The only other options are digging or herbicides. Mowing and burning do not work.
Our efforts last year to collect beetles from the Vogel Road sites and release them into Thiebeau marsh were unsuccessful because of the cool, rainy weather. Cindy and I have been in touch with Brock Woods, the state specialist in charge of loosestrife control. This year we definitely plan to raise and release beetles into Thiebeau Marsh. If we have a good hatch, perhaps we can release into other locations.
b. Penny presented a request from Frank Masterson to participate in a program called the "Rock River Sweep 2010 . Frank is a citizen of Oregon, IL and has started a not-for-profit organization dedicated to a cleaner and healthier Rock River. He contacted us and asked if LKWA would be interested in being the "section coordinator" for Lake Koshkonong on the 1st annual Great "Rock River Sweep". It is scheduled for July 31. We concluded that we should ask Frank to attend our next meeting and address these questions.
c. Linn reported that the current carp seiner, Tom Monsoor, is not having his contract renewed. The DNR had to put it out to bid and had to accept the best bid. This is a shame because Tom has done an excellent job and has been very respectful of shoreline property.
d. Linn also reported on the issue of open water hunting that is presently under consideration on 13 lakes in Wisconsin, including Lake Koshkonong. The proposal is undergoing consideration by "stakeholders' and then will go to the DNR Board. There also will be public hearings before the Board acts. It would not occur until at least 2011. We will have a presentation of this issue at our meeting on April 27 by Kent Van Horn, the DNR migratory waterfowl specialist.
Meeting adjourned at 6:20.
Program: James Congdon, DNR Rock River Basin supervisor. "Plans for Recovery of Rock River"
Jim began with a review of the history leading up to the present planning process for the recovery of the Rock River. The WI program is a result of the Clean Waters Act of 1972 that was spearheaded by Gaylord Nelson. The goal of the Act is to make public waters fishable and swimmable. The act required states to list their "impaired water" by 2006. The Rock River plans are part of the Wisconsin Impaired Waters Program. In 2006, 643 waters were placed on the list; by 2010 that list contains more "impaired " waters. Today, the main cause of impairment is contamination and sedimentation coming from "non-point" sources e.g. (agriculture, construction) and physical habitat problems (e.g. lack of proper stream-bank and lakeshore vegetation).
The present 3-step process to improve our water resources is
- To evaluate waters
- To establish a TMDL (Total Maximum Daily Load) (of pollutants)
- To implement a plan to decrease loads to that level.
In this process, Wisconsin has been declared a "delegated state" meaning that the state can act in lieu of the US government to implement these steps.
The first step (still not completed) includes trying to develop water quality standards for dissolved oxygen, temperature, pH, bacterial contamination, phosphorus, taste and odor. The most controversial of these in WI is phosphorus. WI also uses a system of "use designations" to set the TMDL, i.e. what would the water be used for – fish and aquatic life, public health, recreation?
The TMDL is the amount of pollutant a water body can allow and still meet the quality standards. The TMDL is the foundation for developing a detailed implementation plan. A model is set up based on the land use around a water body (or stream) and the characteristics such as geography and water flow are considered. An implementation team is formed and they generate restoration scenarios, conduct feasibility analysis and select the best option that achieves pollutant load reduction.
In 2006, the EPA funded contractors to model the situation for the Rock River Basin. The draft of their results will be available in a few months. The process turned out to be more complex that anticipated. Much of the Rock River Basin is "impaired".
Now it will be up to Jim and his team to develop a plan. He has selected 5 staff members to serve as team leaders. Each will lead a committee: Agriculture, Industrial /municipal point pollution, Urban non-point pollution, Education, and Monitoring. The kickoff of the plans for implementation will be on March 10 and stakeholders (e.g. farmers, city leaders, industrialists) and technical advisors will be invited. It is open to the public.
Jim next reviewed some facts regarding pollution of our waters. In 2000, 1,680,000 pounds per year of phosphorus drained into the Rock River Basin. Of this, 40% came from point sources (68 municipalities and 3 industrial sites). 60% came from non-point sources. 160,000 tons per year of sediment entered the Rock River waters and 99% came from non-point sources.
New laws were enacted to require point source polluters to decrease these loads and phosphorus declined to < 1 part/million. Prior to the law, some sources were discharging 15-20 parts/million (ppm).
As of 2007, the contribution from point sources was well controlled, but now 80% of the phosphorus is non-point in origin, primarily from agriculture.
Q: Do buffer strips work? Yes, but when NR 151 was enacted (agricultural regulations), there was huge resistance to buffers. Proposed was a 20 ft. strip around all waterways, mainly for bank stabilization. They came up with a P index using the slope and the soil P content. If the index was exceeded, buffer practices were required. In practice, this is not widely implemented.
The law also requires a nutrient management plan, but farmers cannot be forced to comply unless they receive over 70% cost shares. There is a lot of NRCS (Natural Resources Conservation Service) money for practices to prevent and control pollution, but they are all voluntary. The new program for farmland preservation requires compliance with NR151.
Thus, planning for improving the waters of the Rock River Basin requires a heavy emphasis on education. The lands in the basin are 73% agricultural, 12% residential and 7% wetlands. The Rock River Basin is heavily agricultural. It contains 9% of Wisconsin's land and 19% of Wisconsin's farmland.
The phosphorus levels in the soil of the basin are increasing. In 1974, they were at 37 ppm and in 2002 were 52 ppm. In some areas they are in the 100s ppm! For reference, to achieve good crop production, about 30 ppm are needed.
A recent study of construction site run-off in Madison showed that although <1/2% of the land is under construction, those sites contribute 20% of the sediment running into the Madison lakes.
Also of increasing concern is our drinking water. Increasing amounts of nitrates have been measured in well water. A safe level is <10ppm. In Columbia County, many wells have 40-50ppm nitrates. In addition to concerns for human health, it is known that when cows drink water containing over 10-15ppm nitrates, their milk production decreases. So it is a farmer's own interest to control nitrate use and run-off.
A large source of federal funds for implementing practices to decrease pollution of the Rock River basin will be available through the NRCS program called the Mississippi River Healthy Watershed. However, a problem with this funding is that it does not pay for staff, so it is difficult for groups receiving funds to get things going.
Respectfully submitted,
Penny Shackelford, Secretary-Treasurer