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News

Joe Parisi press conference

MADISON, Wis. — On Monday, Dane County Executive Joe Parisi announced an aggressive 2018 budget, with numerous projects aimed at diverting and removing algae-causing phosphorus from lakes in the Yahara Watershed. The multi-million dollar proposed budget calls for continuing to remove legacy sediment from streams feeding into Madison’s lakes, as well as new projects like prairie restorations and a pilot “algae pump” to remove scum from surface water.

“Our mission looks to build a community of people, businesses, organizations, and government agencies dedicated to improving and protecting water quality in the Yahara River watershed,” said Clean Lakes Alliance Executive Director James Tye. “The county executive’s lake projects are a strong step in the right direction towards cleaner and healthier lakes.”

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Water Quality Monitoring

2017 monitoring season

What started in 2013 as a handful of Clean Lakes Alliance board members testing the water has now grown into a network of over 70 volunteers doing weekly water quality monitoring on all five lakes.

Each week this summer, our team of monitors gathered data on water clarity and temperature. They also made visual observations on beach conditions and identified potentially harmful cyanobacteria (blue-green algae) blooms. And what a summer it was!

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Foley and Lardner Volunteer Day

With 58 miles of lakeshore in our watershed, shoreline maintenance is a big job. We’re lucky to have dedicated staff and community groups working to keep our parks and beaches healthy – but sometimes, there just aren’t enough hands to get the job done. That’s where our summer volunteer groups come in!

A summer to remember

So far this season, there have been 15 Renew the Blue volunteer days, for a total of 457 volunteers and 1,481 hours maintaining our lakeshores over the season. These events serve double duty: our lakeshore parks get some much-needed TLC, and volunteers learn more about keeping our watershed healthy.

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yahara watershed academy 2017 education overview

Clean Lakes Alliance sees a future where everybody realizes that the lakes are the center of the community. Education is central to this goal! Read on for a snapshot of this summer’s educational programs.

Yahara Watershed Academy

Who it’s for:

Anyone who wants to incorporate watershed sustainability into their personal or professional life, especially those with the desire to lead.

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Farm field and tractor

Here in Wisconsin, manure is on the mind as we work to improve local water quality. A recent Isthmus interview with retiring University of Wisconsin-Madison Center for Limnology director Steve Carpenter reminded all of us of the scale of the phosphorus problem facing our lakes. We often are asked what Clean Lakes Alliance is doing to tackle these issues locally.

Dane County is made up of a large urban population and thriving agricultural community. We greatly value the need to partner with farmers on solutions that will really work.

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Clean Lakes Alliance, in partnership with Yahara Pride Farms and Endres Berryridge Farms, hosted our fourth annual Farm Tour on Tuesday, August 22nd, 2017. The event was held at the Endres Berryridge Farms manure compost site in Waunakee, Wisconsin.

The event brought together more than 120 attendees (farmers and suburbanites alike) to learn about manure composting as a manure management technique. Roughly 50 guests were members of the North American Manure Expo traveling from as far as Ontario, Canada to participate.

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Thanks to the support of donors like you, Clean Lakes Alliance is able to contribute $100,000 per year to fund phosphorus reduction practices through watershed adaptive management. Learn more about how this cooperative approach is helping our community meet its water quality goals.

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2016 State of the Lakes Annual Report

Luck from “Mother Nature”

MADISON, Wis. — Today at the sixth annual Save Our Lakes community breakfast, Clean Lakes Alliance released the 2016 State of the Lakes Annual Report. The report looks at phosphorus reduction efforts through the 2016 calendar year. It shows as a community, progress is being made. Phosphorus is the root cause of algae – just one pound of the nutrient is capable of producing 500 pounds of algae.

“2016 was a great year. The water was as clear as it’s been in a long time in our lakes, but we got lucky,” said Clean Lakes Alliance Executive Director James Tye. “A slow spring melt and fewer intense rain events meant phosphorus-rich runoff to our lakes was down, but it shows us if we control runoff regularly, we can impact our lake clarity.”

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James Madison Park Lake and Fog

Lake Mendota is the largest of the lakes in the Yahara chain. The watershed surrounding the lake is primarily agricultural, including many fourth and fifth generation dairy farms to the north, but is experiencing rapid urban growth.

Phosphorus that enters Lake Mendota from its tributaries are carried down the chain of lakes via the Yahara River and represent the largest sources of excess nutrients in the lower lakes. To improve water quality in the chain of lakes, we need to make improvements in the land surrounding Lake Mendota.

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message from Paul Soglin

In the City of Madison, we believe that stormwater runoff and the effects associated with it directly impacts the lives of our residents and our entire community, and we work diligently to protect those resources. Often we think of stormwater as a “public works problem,” but this is not always the case.

The more we work on water quality problems, we find that drinking water, stormwater and sewer treatment are linked in real ways by our actions. While it is possible to use the traditional model, it can produce unintended consequences including increased cost.

As we talk about the lakes and water quality today, it is important that we recognize we each have a role in the creation of stormwater runoff, and each of us needs to take part in reducing the impact of our actions.

Recently, Madison Water Utility, City Engineering, and many other partners have begun to create a voluntary certification program working with road salt applicators to reduce the amount of salt applied to parking lots and roads. The goal is to apply an amount needed for safety, because chloride can impact surface waters, wells, and even the sewer treatment plant.

Solutions to this and other stormwater pollutant problems, such as the phosphorous associated with fall leaf collection, may call for some non-traditional public works solutions, including source reduction and engaging the public to help us toward those efforts. This follows a long understood idea that it is better to avoid putting something in the water than it is to try and get it out down the road.

Expect Madison to continue to lead in finding new ways to address common problems like leaf collection and salt reduction. We are all in this together.

 

This message was originally published in May of 2017 for the 2016 State of the Lakes Annual Report.