2019 Lake Protection Grant – Green Lake County
The WI DNR just announced that the Lake Protection Grant application submitted by the GLSD in February has been chosen for funding. The grant, written by Charlie Marks with the help of the GLA and Green Lake Co. Land Conservation Dept., was the highest ranked Protection Grant application in the state. The grant will help fund approximately $300,000 worth of projects [roughly 20 Best Management Practices (BMP’s)] within the Big Green Lake watershed. These practices range from agricultural sediment retention basins and cover crops to streambank stabilization and wetland restoration. The installation of these practices is estimated to reduce over a million lbs of phosphorus-rich soil from entering Green Lake and causing additional algae growth and other water quality impairments.
The Green Lake Sanitary District would like to thank our partners in this project, the Green Lake County Land Conservation Department, Green Lake Association, the Natural Resource Conservation Service, WI DNR, and our agricultural partners in the watershed. A lot of effort goes into determining what work needs to be done, coordinating agreements with landowners, engineering projects, and overseeing installation. These efforts are rarely recognized but very impactful to our lake. Thank you to all who help make these projects a reality.
2016 Lake Protection Grant – Fond du Lac County
In 2016, the Green Lake Sanitary District was awarded a Lake Protection Grant to install $270,000 of BMP’s in the Fond Du Lac County portion of the Big Green Lake watershed. Nearly all the funding has been spent. To complete the grant work in 2019, Fond du Lac County Land Conservation has provided the necessary designs and construction plans for 5 critical sediment basins on farmlands in the Dakin Creek watershed. These sediment basins are an important tool to keep farmland runoff from reaching Green Lake. We thank the Fond du Lac County Land Conservation Department for their engineering work, the WI DNR, NRCS and GLA for providing additional funding, Steve Prissel for his outreach and guidance, and partnering landowners. We know there is much more work to be done. The GLSD and Fond du Lac County LCD have begun plans to apply for new funding in 2020.