Life is Better by the Lake

Wisconsin has 84,000 miles of rivers and streams, 15,000 lakes, and more than 5 million acres of wetlands. This may be the number one reason that those of us who live here love it so much, and those who visit come back time after time.

We play on it. We swim in it. We drop a line and we fish in it. And of course, we drink it and bathe in it. Luckily, there is an abundance of it now, and forever. Right?

Wrong.

The truth is, like every resource on the planet, if we don’t protect it from overuse or misuse, it won’t be here tomorrow. And the problem is, we, as humans, sometimes don’t think about tomorrow. That’s why the rivers and streams, lakes, and wetlands are not as plentiful and healthy as they once were.

The Department of Natural Resources (DNR) has identified only 80% of Wisconsin’s waters as being healthy. That’s a little scary. Simple math tells us that 20%, therefore, are unhealthy. And it goes without saying that unhealthy water has a negative effect on fish, wildlife, and our own ability to fully use and enjoy Wisconsin’s primary natural resource.

That’s the bad news. The good news? That ratio is trending toward the better.

The number of “impaired waters” has decreased steadily in recent years due primarily to the efforts of organizations and individuals who don’t take what nature has given us for granted, but rather take it upon themselves to protect, restore, and sustain our waters for all future generations.

Leading the effort here in Rome, Wisconsin is an organization called the 14 Mile Watershed Alliance - a citizen-led group of representatives from each of our lakes (Arrowhead, Camelot, Sherwood, and Petenwell), advisors from Adams County and the DNR, and other cooperators like Petenwell and Castle Rock Stewards (PACRS) and Tri-Lakes Management District.

With scientifically credible information in hand, they work diligently to identify and begin to resolve human contributions to water quality issues. For example, the biggest contributors to unhealthy water are phosphorus and nitrogen. Too much phosphorus and nitrogen from residential, industrial, municipal, or farm runoff can fuel the growth of algae in our lakes and streams. And algae is not just unsightly, it’s detrimental to the entire ecosystem. It steals oxygen and blocks sunlight to all aquatic life making it difficult to survive. And algae has toxic blooms - what we see as scum on the water’s surface - that can be incredibly harmful to all living things, including us and our pets.

So what is a watershed anyway? And what is the 14 Mile Watershed? A watershed is an area of land that drains or “sheds” water into specific bodies of water. Every body of water has a watershed which drains rainfall and snowmelt from miles around. The 55,000 acre 14 Mile Watershed is located primarily in the Central Sand Plains of central Wisconsin and includes portions of Adams, Wood, Portage, and Waushara counties, extending eastward to surround the Village of Plainfield. Included in the watershed is the Town of Rome and the lakes we all love and enjoy.

With 23.4 million gallons of water flowing through the watershed on average each day, concern and care for our waters must be watershed-wide. It’s everyone’s issue - land owners, recreational users, farmers, and industrial contributors.

“Simply put, each one of us, living in, working in, or visiting the watershed, needs to be a steward of good, sustainable water habits.”

                                                         Dave Trudeau, President
14 Mile Watershed Alliance

With that in mind, you may be asking yourself, what can I do? For starters, take some time to do some research. There is an abundance of information on water concerns and water conservation on the web. The 14 Mile Watershed Alliance website is rich in information at the local level. There you can read up on things we do today that we shouldn’t be doing, and things that we should be doing. There are news articles, newsletters, answers to frequently asked questions, and updates on current projects.  During the warmer seasons, lakefront property owners should reduce fertilizer application, use the lake as their source for watering lawns, and install native plant buffers to capture runoff and promote infiltration.

And if you’re interested in taking it a step further, the alliance would love your help and support as a volunteer. Everyone is welcome, no matter your skills or experience. That said, they are actively seeking help from people with backgrounds in water sciences, government relations, and data management.

And since education and communication are the biggest facilitators of change, if you have experience in web and graphic design, public relations, or social media content development, your contributions would make a world of difference.

To find out more about the 14 Mile Watershed Alliance, and see how you can help, visit their website; 14milewatershed.org.

Yes, life at the lake is indeed better, so let’s keep it that way.

Written by: Lydell Capritta