Red Cedar River Watershed Conference Announcement, 2016, 2020-2023

Abstract

A project funded by the Army Corps of Engineers, Wisconsin DNR, as well as matching funding from many of the stakeholders in the Red Cedar River Water Quality Partnership was completed in 2020. Monitoring done by Bill James of UW-Stout showed that, compared to monitoring done for the Total Maximum Daily Load project in the 1990s, there was a drop in the amount of phosphorus moving through the Red Cedar River system. In the 1990s, about 506,000 lbs of phosphorus was estimated to be entering Lake Tainter on an annual basis from the watershed above. Monitoring done over the last five years indicates that amount is currently at approximately 427,000 lbs per year, meaning there has been a reduction of about 79,000 lbs over that time period. Using this data and other parameters, Jim Noren of the US Army Corps of Engineers created a model for Tainter and Menomin Lakes that shows that, if the amount of soluble reactive phosphorus (which is the type of phosphorus more readily available to algae) can be reduced by 50%, that will produce a corresponding reduction of also about 50% in the amount of chlorophyll (a measure of algae present) in the lakes. Recommendations from the project include working to further reduce soil erosion in the watershed, and also to decrease the amount of phosphorus applied to land (mostly as manure). The project also involved work from UW-Stout looking at economic impacts of clean water in the Red Cedar River Basin, and other socio-economic data of interest. The final report for all work done for this project can be found here, and you can go to the “Maps and Publications” page for the detailed reports of the various parts of the project (under “Research”).