Recently our photographer Laura Giammattei was given the opportunity to take a look at the Tainter and Menomin Lakes with Dick Lamers. She was able to see how The Tainter/Menomin Lake Improvement Association (TMLIA) plans to use the grant they received.
2018 is the year TMLIA has set to make the waters of Lakes Menomin and Tainter clean and safe. Education is of key importance to accomplishing this goal. Other organizations within Dunn County and the state of Wisconsin are also working with TMLIA to make this goal a reality.
The grant requested from TMLIA was to assist funding “The Red Cedar: Land, Water & People Coming Together Conference” in July 2013. The funds went directly towards travel expenses for three key experts to attend this conference. Two of these experts were brought to this conference from Iowa. They had started and were mentoring a program called Farmer Led Councils. This new program is being used as a guide for the initiative in Northwest Wisconsin to clean up the Red Cedar watershed. This program brings farmers together on a volunteer basis to work on how they personally can impact the quality of water in their immediate area.
The third expert brought in was Professor Haans Paerl out of the University of North Carolina. He is a national and international expert on blue-green algea. He stated that blue-green algea is not just a rising problem in our Red Cedar watershed, but lakes all over the country and overseas as well. This matter is a global issue that has been getting more attention as the years go on. His hope is that this issue continues to attract more attention, thus creating more solutions.
One other professional that was brought to this conference with the grant fund was from the Wisconsin Wetlands Association. He spoke about how people are getting involved and creating solutions and hopes that more people will take initiative and join future projects.
Education is key, and is expanding as more conferences are held and more residents are attending. At the July 2013 conference, over 260 were in attendance and an additional 90 were streaming the conference online. While this is a wonderful turnout, there are still over 44 thousand Dunn County residents that are not aware of this initiative or even how much of a problem this algae is for our health and economy.
To put it in perspective, the DNR has said they track 100 recreational days in the summertime. Lake Menomin/Tainter is imparied for 92 of these 100 days. The goal is to reduce that number to less than 26 days of impairment.
As these conference continue, so does the educating of the public. These conferences have thus far created attention throughout the state (as far north as Hayward, south to Madison, east to Green Bay and west into the Twin Cities).
Currently, one of the major ongoing projects is the Farmer Led Council. This organization specifically targets certain erosion zones (there are currently 58 erosion sites along the Red Cedar River in Dunn County alone) where phospherous is being dumped into the river and carried into Lake Menomin and Lake Tainter. Thirty five feet of sedement enters these waters annually. The biggest obstacle currently, is getting funding to fix and clean up these sites and lower the amount of sedement entering the river.
(Photos and Interview by Laura Giammattei)