Focus on Wetlands
A project of the WINTER 2012
Dear Fish Creek Landowner, Welcome to the first newsletter of the Fish Creek Partnership! You are receiving this newsletter because you live within the Fish Creek Watershed, a region of more than 100,000 acres, encompassing everything from the city of Ashland to the houses along the south and north forks of Fish Creek.
The Fish Creek Partnership is a new effort aimed at engaging the local community in issues affecting the health of Fish Creek. The effort is being led by the Chequamegon Bay Area Partnership, a coalition of federal, state, and local natural resource agencies, tribes, municipalities, non-profit, and educational institutions working together to maintain and improve the health of Chequamegon Bay and the streams and rivers that flow into it.
This newsletter is our first attempt at reaching out and explaining some of the issues facing Fish Creek, some of the projects going on to help the river, and ideas on how you can be a part of the process.
The Chequamegon Bay Area Partnership has identified sediment as one of the primary issues facing Fish Creek and Chequamegon Bay. Too much sediment is a problem for many reasons, including covering important habitat used by fish (like trout and sturgeon) and other aquatic life, causing navigation problems, and increasing costs for providing clean drinking water.
Fish Creek is one of the largest contributors of sediment to Chequamegon Bay, delivering more than 1,000 dump truck loads of sediment, every year, as was evidenced by the large plumes of red clay for weeks following large storm events this past June.
With a focus on wetlands, this newsletter highlights what some citizens of Fish Creek are already doing to improve the situation. You’ll also find another article about landowners in the Marengo River Partnership Project – a sister project to Fish Creek -- taking similar steps to improve the health of the water and land.
We plan to send three more newsletters in 2013 with more ideas, information, notices and events. We’re interested in what interests you regarding Fish Creek. Your answers will help shape future communication on the project. Please take a few moments to fill out the survey and drop it in the mail.
Sincerely,
Julie Buckles Outreach Coordinator (715) 682-1878
Fish Creek Watershed
Bayfield County
Barksdale
Ashland County
Fish Creek Facts
Size: 100,096 acres (about one-seventh the size of Rhode Island).
Location: Ashland (25%) and Bayfield (75%) Counties, including all or most of the city of Ashland and the towns of Eileen, Keystone and Pilsen, and smaller portions of Delta, Iron River, Mason, Kelly, Gingles, and Sanborn.
Tributaries: North Fish Creek, South Fish Creek, Slaughterhouse Creek, Bay City Creek
Fish Creek is one of the largest contributors of sediment to Chequamegon Bay of Lake Superior, delivering more than 1,000 dump truck loads of sediment to Chequamegon Bay per year.
Fish Creek Landowners Slow the Flow
By Julie Buckles, Outreach CoordinatorBefore Anne and Craig Wickman even closed on their 170-acre property at the junction of the north fork and south fork of Fish Creek last September, Craig called Bayfield County Land and Water Conservation Department about a “pond project.” The lifetime Ashland resident has a passion for wildlife and finally, armed with 170 acres, he planned to create wildlife habitat.
One year later, he has wetland ponds—seven of them—and a few ducks and geese have already dropped by to explore the dry ponds. Funded in part by the Great Lakes Restoration Initiative (GLRI), a federal program to restore and protect
the Great Lakes, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) Partners for Fish and Wildlife, and Bayfield County Land and Water Conservation Department (BCLWD), these ponds will serve several purposes.
Ponds attract waterfowl, create aquatic habitat, and will act as buffer for water running off the land, slowing its flow before it reaches Fish Creek Slough, the 1200-acre coastal wetland that links the watershed to Chequamegon Bay, said USFWS biologist Ted Koehler .
Sediment is the number one pollutant affecting Fish Creek, according to the Chequamegon Bay Area Partnership (CBAP), a coalition of government agnecies and non-profits, including USFWS and BCLWD, that secured the
GLRI funding.
“It was one of our best projects this year,” said Koehler, citing the number and types of ponds that were created.
Waterfowl seem to prefer three or more wetlands sites in close proximity to one another that have varying depths of water, Koehler explained. “For example rather than a single square or circle with steep banks filled with water, waterfowl desire multiple pond sites with shallow areas that gradually lead to deeper water.”
This provides habitat for wetland plants that are used by many species—waterfowl and other migratory birds such as song sparrows, marsh wrens, (continued on following page)
Fish Creek property owners, Craig and Anne Wickman, converted farm fields to waterfowl habitat—and as a way to slow the flow of rainfall and snow melt to Fish Creek.Pilsen
Mason
River
Keystone Eileen Kelly
Gingles Sanborn City of Ashland Delta Iron
Wisconsin
Lake Superior Chequamegon Bay
(continued from previous page) sora rails and green herons, he said. “The more complex the wetland, the more attractive the wetland becomes to birds.”
The Wickman ponds are just the start of the Fish Creek Partnership, an initiative by CBAP to work with landowners on voluntary “slow the flow” projects like wetland ponds.
“The Fish Creek Partnership hopes to engage landowners and assist them in finding funding and expertise for projects that help the Fish Creek watershed and ultimately, Chequamegon Bay and Lake Superior,” said Tom Fratt, Ashland County Land and Water Conservation Department.
Fratt’s office completed the Fish Creek Watershed Restoration and Management Plan in 2011. The plan addresses the dramatic changes Fish Creek has undergone since the days when French explorers and missionaries extolled the biological richness of Fish Creek and explorer Pierre Esprit Radisson described seven-foot long pike and large sturgeon.
Fur trapping and trading dominated the economy of the region for 200 years. Then came logging that peaked in the late 1890s and lasted until the 1920s, when the lumber companies sold much of the cutover lands to immigrant laborers for family farms.
Fish Creek Watershed Restoration and Management Plan
With participation from citizens, and town, city, county, state and federal governments, Ashland County Land and Water Conservation Department completed the Fish Creek Watershed Restoration and Management Plan in the spring of 2011. The goals of the plan are to:
• Protect and restore water quality;
• Conserve productive soil resources;
• Protect and restore aquatic and terrestrial habitats;
It Pays to Save Wetlands
Wetlands are a key to healthy economies as well as healthy ecosystems.
• 90 percent of the fish recreational anglers catch nationally spend some part of their life in wetlands. In Wisconsin, sport fishing generates $2.7 billion in business and provides $200 million in tax revenues for local and state government.
• Wetlands can reduce flooding peaks by as much as 60 percent and EPA estimates that an acre of wetlands can store 1 to 1-1/2 million gallons of floodwaters.
For the most part, the sandy soil proved unsuitable for farming.
Research suggests that the change in land use and development of the watershed dramatically altered the rate of surface water runoff from the land to the creeks after a heavy rain.
“Over the course of a year Fish Creek delivers more than 1,000 dump truck loads of sediment to Chequamegon Bay—and most of the sediment reaches Chequamegon Bay over a handful of days when it rains or during snowmelt,” said USGS research hydrologist Faith Fitzpatrick, who has conducted research on the north fork of Fish Creek.
The Fish Creek Partnership wants to join with landowners to find and implement solutions to sediment issues by encouraging rain barrels, tree plantings and rain gardens to slow the flow of roof runoff; installing wetland ponds that offer a resting spot for water on the run, and creating buffers to Fish Creek.
Craig Wickman has provided even more enticement for wildlife by planting fruit trees, raspberry bushes, and corn. The Fish Creek Partnership and the Wickmans will invite the public to the view the ponds in the spring of 2013.
• Manage urban and rural surface water runoff to reduce nutrient and contaminant inputs to streams and to Lake Superior;
• Reduce erosive effects of peak flows; and
• Restore wetland functions in upland landscapes.
For a copy of the plan visit our website or contact Julie Buckles at jbuckles@northland.edu or by calling (715) 682-1878.
• Half of North American bird species nest or feed in wetlands. In Wisconsin, bird-watchers and wildlife watchers spend $271 million waiting for a glimpse of their favorites.
• Polluted runoff from cities, farms, and construction sites is filtered by wetlands before entering lakes and rivers. Clean lakes and rivers are the backbone of Wisconsin’s tourism industry, which generated $12 billion in 2007.
• The filtering capability of wetlands cuts the cost of treating drinking water. Some wetlands can remove a quantity of pollutants from the watershed equivalent to that removed from a $5 million treatment plant.
Source: “Reversing the Loss: A Strategy to Protect, Restore and Explore Wisconsin Wetlands,” www.wisconsinwetlands.org
The Chequamegon Bay Area Partnership is a coalition of federal, state and local natural resource agencies, tribes, municipalities, nonprofit organizations, and Northland College staff and faculty.
The Sigurd Olson Environmental Institute at Northland College coordinates the partnership, which collaborates to provide more effective and efficient natural resource management in the Chequamegon Bay region of Lake Superior. For more information and a list of partners, visit the CBAP website at
To receive occasional news updates from CBAP about projects and the Fish Creek Partnership, “Like” us at the Sigurd Olson Environmental Institute on Facebook.
northland.edu/cbap
Ted May, academic dean for renewable energy and sustainability at WITC, credits a lot of elbow grease in the success of the gardens, as well as assistance from Northland College students who installed native plants.
“It’s satisfying to see,” said May. “The gardens serve as a visual reminder of the merits of planning and maintaining diverse plantings for storm water management, as well as the ecological benefits these bring to the environment and community.”
The project was part of an effort to demonstrate storm water management in urban settings as part of the Fish Creek Watershed management plan, which encompasses the City of Ashland. The Fish Creek Watershed plan identifies sediment as one of the primary water quality issues facing Fish Creek and Chequamegon Bay.
The Ashland County Land and Water Conservation Department provided engineering expertise. Northland College students working at the Sigurd Olson Environmental Institute (SOEI) were enlisted to help install subsurface drainage, complete final grading of the gardens, and plant hundreds of native plants and place mulch to minimize weed growth.
Every Action Counts.
Ways that you can help slow the flow:
• Rain gardens capture water and provide and an attractive way to slow and filter runoff. Rain garden designs can be as simple as installing eight inches of sandy loam topsoil behind a permeable berm.
• Rain barrels are a simple way to capture roof runoff. Installed under a down-spout, each barrel holds up to 55 gallons of water.
Storm Water Demonstration Project Beautiful Example
Members of the Chequamegon Bay Area Partnership (CBAP) have been working to ensure that hopes for improved water quality in the Lake Superior Watershed don’t go down the drain— literally.
A drain funneling rainfall into Bay City Creek, which then flows into Lake Superior, has become a series of native wildflower rain gardens that
capture runoff water from the Ashland Campus of the Wisconsin Indianhead Technical College (WITC).
WITC and the Ashland County Land and Water Conservation Department, a CBAP partner, worked along with Northern Native Plantscapes and contractor K&D Excavating to complete the $35,000 project in summer 2010. The National Fish and Wildlife Foundation funded the work along with another CBAP partner, the City of Ashland.
The three rain gardens at WITC are not only pleasing to
the eye, but they also serve a practical purpose. When heavy rains fell on June 20, the gardens filtered runoff streaming out of the technical college parking lot and slowed the flow of water into the adjacent creek.
“If we’re not filtering the runoff from roofs, streets and parking lots during rainstorms, then litter, sediment and pollution are running straight into Bay City Creek and eventually Lake Superior,” said Tom Fratt, conservationist for the Ashland County Land and Water Conservation Department.
• Grass swales gather runoff in shallow channels that direct flow over a lawn to a street or drainage ditch. Swales are designed to be wide and flat so that water spreads out and particles settle out.
• Research says that planting trees yields results. Data shows that when land has 60 percent or more forest cover, there is a direct correlation with reduced runoff.
Above: Volunteers work to maintain a rain garden on the WITC campus in Ashland. Opposite page: Ted May, academic dean for renewable energy and sustainability at WITC, removes unwanted plants from the rain garden.Marengo River Landowners Slow the Flow
Marengo River Valley
landowner Elmer Lippo wanted ponds on his 80-acre parcel because his nephew wanted ponds for deer. Lippo also wanted ponds — for ducks, mostly — and to do the right thing because rain runs through his fields and down a ravine that dumps into the Marengo River.
According to the Chequamegon Bay Area Partnership (CBAP), sediment is the number one pollutant affecting the Marengo River and Fish Creek watersheds. The partnership is a coalition of local, state, federal and tribal agencies, governments, and nonprofits that have recently begun making inroads with landowners to restore wetlands in the region.
Lippo had heard from neighbor Charlie Ylitalo that he installed three ponds in a hayfield on his
The BRWA helped get the ball rolling by connecting Ylitalo to regional funding for conservation programs.
“Truth is, I wanted to make less hay,” said Ylitalo. “I always wanted ponds but needed help.”
farm at no cost by working in cooperation with CBAP. Not long after, Lippo followed suit.
“Restoring wetlands like Charlie’s and Elmer’s is an important tool to reducing this problem,” said Matt Hudson, formerly of Bad River Watershed Association.
Ylitalo and Lippo provided the inspiration behind efforts to secure grant funding to encourage landowner-agency partnerships in improving the watershed health of the Marengo River and Fish Creek watersheds. A combination of funding from the federal Great Lakes Restoration Initiative, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and Ashland County Land and Water Conservation Department financed construction of the two landowners’ ponds, as well as other wetland restoration projects in the Marengo River and Fish Creek watersheds.
To view videos of Charlie Ylitalo and Elmer Lippo visit northland.edu/cbap and click on Fish Creek Partnership.
Eight Reasons to the Slow the Flow
1. Chequamegon Bay is the source of drinking water for the City of Ashland. Turbidity, or cloudy water, and sedimentation increase the cost of water treatment through additional filtering and disinfection of the water. The wear on the equipment shortens the lifespan of the system.
2. Erosion results in the loss of farmland, degrading the quality of the soil and increasing agricultural expenses through increased fertilizer use.
3. Erosion destroys roads, tearing out culverts, isolating people, and increasing maintenance costs.
4. Suspended clay particles color the water, reducing the beauty of the lake and degrade recreational activities such as swimming, boating and fishing.
5. The clouded water reduces light penetration, reducing growth of “weed beds” and impacting the fish and bugs that hide and feed there.
6. Excessive sedimentation results in the loss of aquatic habitat by smothering fish eggs and larvae, clogging the gills of fish and bugs, and reducing the ability of some critters to resist disease.
7. Excess sediment can impede navigation and access to Chequamegon Bay, resulting in higher dredging costs.
8. Sediments may also contain toxic chemicals or bacteria that threaten our health and carry nutrients such as phosphorus that can lead to harmful algae blooms.
Sediment is the number one pollutant affecting Fish Creek, as seen in this aerial shot of Fish Creek following a June rainstorm.
Above: Elmer Lippo and Matt Hudson, formerly of Bad River Watershed Association, discuss work done on the land.
Below: Charlie Ylitalo and Hudson talk about the success of the ponds on Ylitalo’s Farm.
Wetland Restoration 101
What are the functions and values of wetlands?
Scientists investigating wetland ecosystems have found that wetlands have many functions and provide numerous benefits to the environment and us. These benefits vary, depending on the type of wetland, its size, proximity to other wetlands, and a number of other factors. However, some of the typical wetlands functions include:
• Habitat for wildlife and plants
• Fish spawning and nursery areas
• Water filtration and cleansing
• Flood reduction, and
• Anchoring shorelines and stream banks
Many of the values that we place on wetlands are associated with these functions. Hunting, fishing, bird watching, and aesthetic enjoyment are direct wetland values with immediate benefits. The primary wetland values include ecological, aesthetic, recreational, economic, and environmental “services.”
How does restoring wetlands on my property help Fish Creek?
Sediment is the number one pollutant affecting Fish Creek. The fine sand and other sediment running over the surface of the land and into the river covers gravel and cobble stream bed that is used by fish for spawning and makes the stream shallower.
Wetlands help this problem by retaining water and slowing the flow of runoff off the land. They also trap the sediments coming from upland areas and keep it from entering the river. As a plus, these wetlands also provide additional habitat for animals like for waterfowl and amphibians.
Source: “Restoration Handbook for Wisconsin Landowners,” by Thompson and Luthin, a publication of the Wisconsin Wetlands Association. Download a free copy at dnr.wi.gov/topic/Wetlands
Where can I learn more about restoring wetlands on my property?
If you’d like to learn more about more about possible landowner projects to slow the flow contact any one of the following:
• Ashland County Land and Water Conservation Department * Tom Fratt*715-682-7187
• Bayfield County Land and Water Conservation Department *Ben Dufford* 715-373-6167
• U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service*Ted Koehler*(715) 682-6185 x15
• Chequamegon Bay Area Partnership *Julie Buckles *715-682-1878
Fish Creek Facts
Infiltration of surface water in the uplands of South Fish Creek watershed near Highway 118 is the primary source of groundwater that feeds the artesian springs of Ashland.
Participating CBAP partners:
• Ashland County Land and Water Conservation Department
• Bad River Band of Lake Superior Chippewa
• Bad River Watershed Association
• Bayfield County Land and Water Conservation Department
• Bayfield Regional Conservancy
• City of Ashland, City of Bayfield
• Iron County Land and Water Conservation Department
• Northland College (sponsoring organization)
• Northwoods Cooperative Weed Management Area
• Red Cliff Band of Lake Superior Chippewa
• Sigurd Olson Environmental Institute (coordinating partner)
• U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service
• University of Wisconsin Extension-Basin Education
• Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources
Fish Creek Outreach Committee
Julie Buckles, SOEI
Al House, Town of Bayview
Ben Dufford, Bayfield LWCD
Bill Heart, Fish Creek Resident
Faith Fitzpatrick, USGS
Randy Lehr, SOEI
Sara Hudson, City of Ashland
Ted Koehler, USFWS
Tom Fratt, Ashland LWCD
Val Damstra, BRWA
The Fish Creek Partnership is a project of the Chequamegon Bay Area Partnership and funded by the Great Lakes Restoration Initiative. This material is paid for by support from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Great Lakes Restoration Initiative under Assistance Agreement No.GL-00E00819-0.