On:
In: Agriculture, Bay of Green Bay, conservation, Fox-Wolf Basin, Fox-Wolf Watershed Alliance, FWWA, Keepers of the Fox, Lower Fox River, non point pollution, Outreach and Education, phosphorus, restoration, runoff, soil health, Water quality

This fall, travelers along the Highway 41 cooridor in Brown County were greeted with a conservation message flashing on digital billboards along their route:

At Fox-Wolf, we’re invested in making impacts to water quality from all sources – residential, commercial, municipal, and agricultural.  We partner with people and organizations from across all these sources to reduce the amount of the phosphorus and sediment that’s delivered to our local waters and downstream through the Fox River and into the bay of Green Bay.  Collectively, these impacts lessen the “green” (algae) in Green Bay.

That’s why education and outreach is key!  Each of us has an opportunity to contribute in our own way.  By sharing how our local farmers are investing in water quality by adopting conservation practices, our communities can see how agriculture is doing its part as well.

Cover crops planted in the fall keep soil in place throughout the winter

Cover Crops Keep Fields Green in the Fall and Water Blue in the Spring

As you drive by the many agricultural fields in the greater Fox Cities area, you may notice a variety of colors peeking out from the snow.  Some fields are still have green bits of vegetation, some have bits of corn stalks left poking from the ground, and some are bare soil.  In traditional farming, after the fall harvest of row crops, such as corn or soybeans, the soil surface of a field will be left bare until the next crop is planted and a new plant canopy is established. Here in Wisconsin, that next planting may be 5-7 months away. That’s a long time for the bare soil to be vulnerable to erosion caused by rainfall, snowmelt, or wind. For that reason, conservation-minded farmers utilize cover crops to have vegetation established and growing in the fall months and remain in place during the winter.

In the spring, cover crops are terminated and left on the surface as residue for conservation tillage or are incorporated into the soil.  Properly planned and executed, cover crops will protect soil during this vulnerable period. This topsoil is full of nutrients such as phosphorous and nitrogen, so by keeping soil in place, these nutrients are kept on the land where they benefit crops and prevented from running into waterways where they contribute to degraded water conditions and algal blooms.  Keeping soil in place also keeps pesticides, herbicides, and manure out of nearby streams, rivers, and lakes.

Cover crops do more than just improve water quality.  As a benefit to the farmer, cover crops can also:

  • Slow runoff from rainfall and snowmelt, reducing soil loss due to erosion
  • Increase soil organic matter, leading to improvements in soil structure that benefits plant growth
  • Increase soil quality by improving the biological, chemical, and physical soil properties
  • Store nutrients from manure until the following years’ crop can utilize them
  • Reduce or mitigate soil compaction as deep tap roots are able to grow in fall and spring
  • Provide a natural means of suppressing soil diseases and pests and serve as a mulch to assist in suppressing weeds
  • Provide high-quality material for grazing livestockand can provide food and habitat for wildlife, beneficial insects, and pollinators

Thank you conservation farmers!

The post Billboard Campaign Educates on Cover Crops appeared first on Fox-Wolf Watershed Alliance.

Original Article

Fox-Wolf Watershed Alliance

Fox-Wolf Watershed Alliance

https://fwwa.org/2024/01/26/kof_billboard/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=kof_billboard

Katie Woodrow

On:
In: 2023, erosion, Fox-Wolf Basin, Fox-Wolf Watershed Alliance, FWWA, habitat, Lake, Lake Management, Lake Winnebago, lwcd, phosphorus, phosphorus removal, project, recreation map, recreational use, restoration, Stream, streambank, survey, Water quality, Watershed Project, wetland, Winnebago, Winnebago Waterways, Wisconsin, wwpHomeProject

Fox-Wolf Watershed Alliance is implementing conservation projects to protect our waters for future generations. Help us prioritize future restoration projects and strengthen funding requests by telling us how you enjoy the lakes!

Please be specific – we are interested in the areas you use the most (we are looking to improve your spots, not steal them!). The map will be made public but your name will not be tied to the points you add.

To get started, please click the button “Take the Survey Now!” or use the QR Code on the right.

Once on the map, click the “Edit” icon located on the upper left corner underneath the search bar. The icon looks like a list with a pencil. Select the type of activity that you would like to add, then click on the map where you do this activity to add it.

Add as many points as you’d like, keeping in mind we are interested in the areas most important to YOU. Adding an area that covers a whole lake is not as helpful as adding three points of the areas you fish the most and the boat launch you use to access it.

If you enjoy our waters in a way not listed, please select the most similar activity or select “other”, and add a description of the activity in the notes.

Thank you for your help and participation!

Take the Survey Now!

Contact Katie R with any questions or concerns at katherine@fwwa.org

Winnebago Waterways is a Fox-Wolf Watershed Alliance recovery initiative. Contact us at wwinfo@fwwa.org

The post Tell us where and how you use the waterways! appeared first on Fox-Wolf Watershed Alliance.

Original Article

Fox-Wolf Watershed Alliance

Fox-Wolf Watershed Alliance

https://fwwa.org/2024/01/15/recreationsurvey/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=recreationsurvey

Katie Reed

On:
In: 2023, erosion, Fox-Wolf Basin, Fox-Wolf Watershed Alliance, FWWA, habitat, Lake, Lake Management, Lake Winnebago, lwcd, phosphorus, phosphorus removal, project, restoration, Stream, streambank, Water quality, Watershed Project, wetland, Winnebago, Winnebago Waterways, Wisconsin, wwpHomeProject

Project Overview

In 2020, the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources (WDNR) developed a Total Maximum Daily Load (TMDL) for the Upper Fox and Wolf River (UFW).  A TMDL is a calculation of the maximum amount of a pollutant that a body of water can absorb and still meet water quality.  The TMDL was utilized in the creation of the EPA’s Nine Key Elements (9KE). Within the 9KE there is a requirement for reductions in pollution to meet water quality goals.  The goals within this plan are to reduce Total Phosphorus (TP) which also relates to the reduction of Total Suspended Solids (TSS) such as erosion and flooding.

Approximately 34% of the reduction from the TMDL needs to come from the Winnebago Waterways Recovery Area with 51% of that reduction assigned to agriculture.  Alteration in farming practices and structural changes will help make reductions.

Currently, a missing piece in the TMDL and draft 9KE plan is streambank erosion. Streambank erosion is lumped in with agricultural loading estimates and required reductions in the TMDL. In some watersheds, we anticipate streambank erosion being a significant contributor to the total TMDL agricultural load. We need to inventory the streambanks in each HUC12 so that we can estimate potential TP/TSS reductions that could come from stabilizing streambanks to stop streambank erosion and to prioritize project locations. Stabilizing streambanks would be paired with efforts to increase infiltration on the land to reduce the volume and rate of flow that damages streambanks during storm events.

For this project, we will begin by completing streambank inventories in the four highest loading HUC12s located within the WWRA. The pollutant load from these HUC12s significantly contributes to water quality impairments of the streams within each HUC12, the Winnebago Lakes, and Lake Michigan. In addition to providing loading estimates from streambank erosion, this project also seeks to identify and prioritize potential locations for future restoration projects to help reduce nutrient loading and protect or enhance existing habitat. Going forward, this project will serve as a template for completing future streambank inventories for the remaining 28 HUC12s located in the WWRA.

Target HUC12 Subwatersheds in the 2023 Streambank Erosion Inventory

HUC12 to be Inventoried                                HUC12 Code                                Stream Miles

Town of Dale-Rat River                                      040202022102                                         60

Eldorado Marsh-Fond Du Lac River                 040302020204                                         63

Lake Poygan – Willow Creek                             040302022006                                          88

Pipe Creek – Frontal Lake Winnebago            040302020303                                          91

Project Timeline

In the Spring of 2023, a method was developed using GIS to determine streambanks to be physically inventoried as they are representative of the HUC12 they are located in. The method developed has been recorded in SOP#1: Streambank Erosion Inventory Desktop Review so it can be duplicated.

Fieldwork was accomplished in the summer of 2023. Streambank information from the desktop review was utilized to complete a physical inventory of these sections.

December 2023 – February 2024: Streambank Inventory Data Analysis was developed along with the extrapolation. These tools will allow an estimation of sediment loss and load & phosphorus loss and load for an entire watershed.

Project Funding & Partners

Winnebago Waterways is a Fox-Wolf Watershed Alliance recovery initiative. Contact us at wwinfo@fwwa.org

The post Prioritizing stabilization projects using streambank erosion inventories in the Fox-Wolf River Basin appeared first on Fox-Wolf Watershed Alliance.

Original Article

Fox-Wolf Watershed Alliance

Fox-Wolf Watershed Alliance

https://fwwa.org/2024/01/11/streambank-inventory/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=streambank-inventory

Katie Reed

On:
In: Agriculture, air seeder, Bay of Green Bay, Fox-Wolf Basin, Fox-Wolf Watershed Alliance, FWWA, interseeder, interseeding, Keepers of the Fox, low disturbance manure application, Lower Fox River, NEW Water, no till drill, non point pollution, Oneida Nation, Outagamie County, Outreach and Education, phosphorus, planter, restoration, roller crimper, runoff, sediment, shed, soil health, soil health education and demonstration, Surface water, trial plot, Water quality

When making conservation plans, producers and conservation professionals alike want to know the impact that farm practices have on our local water.  Through work funded by Great Lakes Restoration Initiative, Fox-Wolf Watershed Alliance and Outagamie County have developed a Farm Progress Report to tell the story of conservation, one farm at a time.

The Farm Progress Report utilizes data from SNAP+, a program widely used by Wisconsin farmers, to generate modeled soil and phosphorus loss on each field based on soil type, phosphorus test results, and field management (tillage, manure management, crop cycle, etc).

This information is then compiled to create per field and per farm loss data, which is compared to the local conservation goal of 1 lb per acre per year of phosphorus loss and 0.5 tons per acre per year of soil loss.  This information is visualized in the Farm Progress Report through simple to read graphs that include the annual average compared to the community goal as well as tables that list the top ten fields to improve.

The Farm Progress Report has two purposes:

  1. Farm Knowledge: For farmers to understand the impact of their current farm practices on water quality, the goals for the community, and how they can make changes on their farm to improve their phosphorus and soil loss
  2. Communication: Farmers can utilize the Farm Progress Report to communicate with their local communities to show the positive impact they are having as well as to their processors to show that they have adopted conservation practices that may meet the processor’s environmental standards

A Farm Progress report was generated for each producer participating in the GLRI grant project and Fox-Wolf Watershed Alliance and Outagamie County LWCD met with each farm, along with their agronomist.  The Farm Progress Report was presented to each farm with an explanation of where the data was derived from, the community goal, and where their current farm practices compared to the goal.  Feedback was solicited from the producer and their agronomist on the information presented and the response was positive.  Producers understood the how the data was derived, how their on-field practices generated that data, and were interested in the potential of using the Farm Progress Report to communicate the great work they are doing to meet conservation goals in their watershed.

Further work will need to be done to streamline the data collection and input process and to ensure that the SNAP+ system is used consistently across the basin.  Overall, the Farm Progress Report was well received by farmers and they expressed interest in continuing to use it to watch their progress toward improving water quality.  Fox-Wolf Watershed Alliance intends to continue developing the report and promoting its widespread adoption to producers outside of this project.

Questions? Contact us:

Basin Agriculture Coordinator: Justin Loehrke, 920.841-6938 or justin@fwwwa.org

Climate Smart Agriculture Project Manager: Katie Woodrow, 920.915.5767 or katie@fwwa.org

To receive periodic updates on these projects as well as many others, please subscribe to our newsletters: CLICK HERE

The post Farm Progress Report – A Tool to Tell the Conservation Story appeared first on Fox-Wolf Watershed Alliance.

Original Article

Fox-Wolf Watershed Alliance

Fox-Wolf Watershed Alliance

https://fwwa.org/2023/09/29/farm-progress-report/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=farm-progress-report

Katie Woodrow

On:
In: Charlie Berens, Dan Egan, Jake Vander Zanden, phosphorus, Randy Jackson

Late last week, Wisconsin Sea Grant sponsored a panel about the effect of phosphorus flowing off surrounding land and into waterways. An excess of the nutrient can lead to the growth of a bacteria known as cyanobacteria, also called blue-green algae.  

Blue-green algae blooms are potentially fatal to pets, fish and other wildlife. They can also consume all the oxygen in a waterbody, destroying the biodiversity of an ecosystem that may have formerly teemed with plants, fish, frogs and mussels.

For people, there is some concern that just being near affected water could cause neurological conditions, such as ALS, said one of the panelists, Dan Egan. “You don’t want toxic blue-green algae in your life, in your neighborhood. You don’t want it anywhere.”

More than 1,500 people attended the event held at the University of Wisconsin—Madison  Memorial Union Terrace on the shore of Lake Mendota, which Egan has called “ground zero” due to frequent and toxic blue-green algal blooms and its status as a what’s been termed the most studied lake in the world because the Center for Limnology is located along it. UW—Madison is where the field of American limnology began in the 1800s.

Last spring, Egan published “The Devil’s Element: Phosphorus and a World Out of Balance,” which outlines the world’s mining, processing and use of phosphorus. It also explains the element’s paradox—phosphorus brings agricultural plenty but can lead to devastation in waterways.

Four people sitting on a stage with a lake behind them.

A panel hosted by entertainer Charlie Berens brought together experts and a journalist to discuss water qualty.

Jake Vander Zanden, an expert on freshwater lakes and director of the Center for Limnology, and Randy Jackson, a professor from the university’s Department of Agronomy who spoke about agriculture’s role in nutrient loading, rounded out the panel.

The conversation among the trio was moderated by popular entertainer Charlie Berens, known for his humorous takes on Wisconsin norms, speech and food choices as host of the Manitowoc Minute newscast and through his bestselling book, “The Midwest Survival Guide.”

For this event, though, Berens used his notoriety and established platform—his Cripescast podcast, which explores Midwestern themes and people and where the recorded panel discussion from late August will ultimately be archived—to call attention to this important environmental topic.

Egan noted that phosphorus is in every single cell on Earth. It doesn’t go away and since time immemorial has been part of a cycle that allowed a trickle of phosphorus into the world. However, he noted, “We’ve turned that cycle into a straight line and that line runs into the water” when phosphorus in the form of fertilizer is applied to farm fields, golf courses and lawns.

“Phosphorus puts food on our table. It’s existed forever, but in the last 120 years we’ve figured out how to turn a slow trickle of this essential nutrient into a gusher.” Egan continued, “We are also burning through it at such a pace that it’s getting into the water, and when it gets into the water, it’s not gonna grow a kernel of corn or a soybean, it’s gonna grow algae. And too often it’s toxic algae.”

Vander Zanden highlighted other contributors, such as urban runoff. He used the Madison, Wisconsin, location as his demonstration case: Lake Mendota receives all the stormwater runoff from streets. “It’s important for you all to know that that water that runs off is not treated. It goes directly to the lake. It’s phosphorus that comes off, also oils and metals and all sorts of other pollutants.

“Another is sewage treatment effluents. That’s not a huge source in the grand scheme of things. And then there are other sources as well, industrial sources, factories and so on; those are actually minor. So, the Clean Water Act from 1972 addressed these sources quite nicely. The amount of phosphorus coming from those types has gone down a lot, and now what we are left with is agricultural and urban runoff from the landscape,” he said.

Agriculturally targeted solutions discussed included:

  • Subsidizing not cropland but grassland that holds on to phosphorus and carbon and promoting biodiversity. This involves planting cover crops such as switchgrass and following no-till practices.
  • Adopting agricultural practices such as avoiding manure spreading if the ground is frozen or if rain is predicted.
  • Using alum treatments. Alum is a chemical that binds phosphorus. There are examples from around the world where alum was added to polluted waters. Vander Zanden said, “It sort of sucks up the phosphorus and sort of holds it. That’s a technical solution that may or may not be financially viable here.”
Close-up of four black and white cows.

Photo by Althea Dotzour/ UW–Madison

The speakers also said the collective use of these solutions, holistically, could be a good approach to make progress.

Keying off that holistic approach, Jackson stressed the actors in the phosphorus-use cycle are “not nefarious. They are just reacting to the system we have set up.”

He offered a rallying cry, “The system only changes when we come together as a community and embrace the idea of collective action. This is how a lot of big things have happened in the world. Civil rights is an example of this. People come together in communities and engage in collective action so that the powers actually have to listen.”

Egan put a Badger State spin on it, “We have a license plate that shows a barn and water. Both are things that define this great state and should not be working at cross purposes. Often, they are. I think everybody values what’s on the right side, the barn. Everybody eats…but everybody also needs water, and you know, there’s no reason why we can’t have both.”

The post Sea Grant-hosted water quality panel discussed solutions on phosphorus use first appeared on Wisconsin Sea Grant.

Original Article

News Releases | Wisconsin Sea Grant

News Releases | Wisconsin Sea Grant

https://www.seagrant.wisc.edu/news/sea-grant-hosted-water-quality-panel-discussed-solutions-on-phosphorus-use/

Moira Harrington

On:
In: Charlie Berens, Cripescast, Dan Egan, harmful algal blooms, phosphorus, podcast

Demonstrates the Wisconsin Idea in action

Wisconsin Sea Grant is sponsoring a panel headlined by entertainer Charlie Berens and author Dan Egan at the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Memorial Union Terrace, on the shore of Lake Mendota, to discuss the lake and its blues—seasonal blue-green algae blooms—and the larger issues surrounding the use of phosphorus.

The event is scheduled for 5 to 6:30 p.m. Thursday, Aug. 31, Memorial Union, 800 Langdon St., Madison, Wisconsin. It will also be video livestreamed at https://go.wisc.edu/terracecripescast as part of Berens’s Cripescast podcast series. The series focuses on Midwestern people and themes.

Emmy Award-winning journalist Charlie Berens will devote an upcoming podcast episode to harmful algal blooms as part of a live event and livestream.

This spring, Egan published “The Devil’s Element: Phosphorus and a World Out of Balance,” which outlines the world’s mining, processing and use of phosphorus. It also explains the element’s paradox—phosphorus brings agricultural plenty but can lead to environmental devastation, such as the growth of a bacteria known as blue-green algae that chokes the oxygen from aquatic ecosystems and creates dead zones.

Berens and Egan will be joined by Jake Vander Zanden, an expert on freshwater lakes and director of UW-Madison’s Center for Limnology, and Randy Jackson from the Department of Agronomy at UW-Madison who will speak to successful agricultural systems using reduced inputs. The panel will highlight the Wisconsin Idea, how the university’s research can inform policymaking and practices to reduce phosphorus input or reuse of the element, leading to healthier waters across the state and nation.

person sampling water filled with harmful algal blooms

A researcher samples water affected by a large harmful algal bloom.

Berens is an Emmy-Award-winning journalist, comedian and New York Times best-selling author of “The Midwest Survival Guide.”

Egan wrote  the bestseller “The Death and Life of the Great Lakes,” which was the 2018 UW-Madison Go Big Read selection. He was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize twice. He is currently journalist in residence at the Center for Water Policy at UW-Milwaukee’s School of Freshwater Sciences.

A book signing will follow the panel.

In case of inclement weather, the event will take place in Shannon Hall of the Memorial Union.

The post Aug. 31 event and livestream to explore phosphorus in aquatic ecosystems first appeared on Wisconsin Sea Grant.

Original Article

News Releases | Wisconsin Sea Grant

News Releases | Wisconsin Sea Grant

https://www.seagrant.wisc.edu/news/aug-31-event-and-livestream-to-explore-phosphorus-in-aquatic-ecosystems/

Moira Harrington

On:
In: fox-wolf, Fox-Wolf Basin, FWWA, Katie, lakes, monitoring, Outreach and Education, phosphorus, pollution, Poygan, program, reed, sediment, streams, system, volunteer opportunity, volunteers, Water quality, watershed, Winnebago, Winnebago Waterways, Winneconne

Our wonderful water quality monitoring volunteers have kicked off the 2023 monitoring season!

Volunteers are monitoring sites located throughout the Winnebago Waterways Recovery Area. During the growing season, volunteers monitor once a month for physical, chemical, and biological data as part of the Winnebago Waterways Water Quality Monitoring Program. Their hard work and effort results in data that allows us to monitor the water quality from month to month and year to year. Already this season, they’ve faced dry, rainy, and smoky/hazy conditions. Thank you for all you do water quality monitoring volunteers!!

Read more about the Winnebago Waterways Water Quality Monitoring Program by clicking here!

Winnebago Waterways is a Fox-Wolf Watershed Alliance recovery initiative. Contact us at wwinfo@fwwa.org

The post Water Quality Monitoring Season off to a good start! appeared first on Fox-Wolf Watershed Alliance.

Original Article

Fox-Wolf Watershed Alliance

Fox-Wolf Watershed Alliance

https://fwwa.org/2023/06/29/ww-wq-volunteers-2023-season-start/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=ww-wq-volunteers-2023-season-start

Katie Reed

On:
In: Barron County, Brian Mahoney, groundwater, Mud Lake, phosphorus, Sarah Vitale, UW-Eau Claire

March 27, 2020

By Jennifer A. Smith

Unsightly and potentially toxic algal blooms have grabbed headlines in Wisconsin. Such blooms are driven by excessive levels of phosphorus or other nutrients. This can result in eutrophication, a process in which oxygen becomes depleted from a body of water, causing ill effects for fish and other aquatic life—and harming human activities like tourism and commercial fishing.

While agricultural runoff is a frequent source of excess phosphorus, research funded by the University of Wisconsin Water Resources Institute (WRI) looks at a complex example in western Wisconsin where the answers are not so clear.

Researchers from the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire are investigating the possibility that naturally occurring phosphorus deep in the aquifer is the driver behind elevated levels of phosphorus in both surface water and groundwater. The study is regional and includes a case study focused on the Mud Lake area in Barron County, about 45 miles north of Eau Claire.

The study’s principal investigators are Assistant Professor Sarah Vitale and Professor J. Brian Mahoney, both of the UW-Eau Claire geology department. They received funding in WRI’s 2019-20 cycle for the study assessing the source and mobility of phosphorus in the hydrologic system in western Wisconsin. Joining them as a collaborator is Anna Baker, a hydrologist with the U.S. Geological Survey’s Upper Midwest Water Science Center.

Five UW-Eau Claire geology majors are gaining valuable hands-on experience by assisting the research team with fieldwork, collecting and interpreting data, and giving presentations at professional meetings.

UW-Eau Claire students Chloe Malin and Jonah Gagnon install a mini well in Mud Lake for the 2018 field season. (Submitted photo)

In fact, three of those undergraduates—Emily Finger, Evan Lundeen and Jacob Erickson— had a scientific poster accepted to the annual “Posters on the Hill” event hosted by the Council on Undergraduate Research in Washington, D.C. While the April 2020 event has since been canceled due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the students’ selection to present their research to members of Congress and their staffers remains a badge of honor.

And before state travel restrictions were in effect, Mahoney and some of his students presented their work at a “Research in the Rotunda” poster session in the Wisconsin State Capitol.

Building on earlier work to address “red flags”

While the WRI-funded portion of this project began in summer 2019, the work had its beginnings three years earlier.

Said Vitale of her colleague, Mahoney: “Brian initially started the foundations of this project in 2016. He started having students look at water quality in western Wisconsin because there was a lot of concern over what the increase in silica sand mining would do to water quality in this part of the state.”

At the time, Mahoney and his students analyzed water from a variety of sources, like municipal wells and streams. They were surprised to find a large amount of phosphorus in both groundwater and surface water in the area.

“That stood out as a really big red flag, because everybody says there’s not supposed to be phosphorus in groundwater. It’s just always been assumed it will absorb onto sediment surfaces—and so the fact that there were really high concentrations of phosphorus in groundwater led to this project’s current form,” said Vitale.

This sparked curiosity about possible natural sources of phosphorus and how that phosphorus might be moving through the system.

In 2018, Vitale and Mahoney began a case study investigating groundwater discharge into Mud Lake, a lake known to have eutrophication problems. “The way we wrote this [WRI] proposal was to help continue the investigation. It’s been able to fund a second season of investigation for Mud Lake, as well as continued investigation of regional water quality.”

Vitale and her collaborators plan to use the funding to draw conclusions about where naturally occurring phosphorus is coming from.

Summarized Vitale, “We hope to wrap up the regional investigation and to really constrain which aquifers seem to be the biggest problem. Where is phosphorus concentrated the most in different aquifers? And in these deeper aquifers, the phosphorus is probably sourced from the rock itself, so which rocks are the main contributors to that?”

UW-Eau Claire student Jacob Erickson, a UW Water Research Fellow, prepares to collect a water sample from a mini well at Mud Lake. (Submitted photo)

The team’s WRI funding runs through June 2020. Other funds supporting this work have come from UW-Eau Claire’s Office of Research and Sponsored Programs. In addition, backing from the UW System Water Research Fellowship Program has allowed the project to expand to Lake Altoona in Eau Claire County.

The team has also recently been awarded a fiscal year 2021 grant from the State of Wisconsin Groundwater Research and Monitoring Program (for “Source to sink evaluation of phosphorus in the hydrologic system in Wisconsin: Implications for lake eutrophication”).

Three experts, working together

Vitale, Mahoney and Baker all bring different areas of expertise to the study. Vitale is a hydrogeologist who specializes in aquifer flow characterization (how water moves through various types of geology). Mahoney brings a background in rock chemistry, and so his primary focus is on understanding what the chemistry of the geology looks like and the likelihood of its influencing the water quality.

Baker’s primary expertise is in phosphorus migration through sediment transport. Because phosphorus does migrate through sediment runoff and other surface processes, Baker is helping the team understand, in Vitale’s words, “What do we need to look at to understand which components of this might be the water side, and which components might be the sediment influence? Anna is bringing that nutrient-loading background.”

Last spring, Vitale shared some results from this project at the meeting of the American Water Resources Association—Wisconsin Section. As the research progress, findings are also being shared with key stakeholders like the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources, U.S. Geological Survey, Wisconsin Geological and Natural History Survey, and organizations local to the Eau Claire area.

Original Article

News Release – WRI

News Release – WRI

https://www.wri.wisc.edu/news/uw-eau-claire-research-untangles-complex-phosphorus-issue/

Jennifer Smith