February moved quickly here at FWWA!
Korin, the Winnebago Waterways Coordinator, began her maternity leave and gave birth to a healthy baby girl on February 12th! In other great news, FWWA received surface water grants from WDNR that will allow us to hire a Project Assistant for the Winnebago Waterways Program to further Outreach and Engagement efforts needed to finalize the Lake Management Plan and move the Winnebago Waterways program toward widespread plan adoption. The grants will also fund a full-point intercept aquatic vegetation survey of Lake Winnebago, Poygan, Butte des Morts and Winneconne. A study that has never been done before! More information can be found below.
Project tasks this month, included working on the Aquatic Invasive Species Strategic Plan, working to appoint three Members at Large to the Steering Committee, and working with Technical Teams on Habitat issues while also developing the Watershed Management and Water Quality Technical Teams. Additional details about project progress is provided below. If you have any questions or suggestions, please don’t hesitate to contact us at the information listed on the right hand side of this article.
Project Outreach and Engagement
Oshkosh Boat Club invited the Winnebago Waterways Program to give a presentation about the Round goby to their members at their February 28th meeting. Members were very interested in learning about the goby and discussing current AIS work being done in the system. We also attended the Winnebagoland Conservation Alliance monthly meeting which took place on January 18th and February 15th. The Winnebago Waterways Program gave a presentation to the Winnebago County Board on January 9th with project updates.
Our online presence through our project webpages, e-newsletter, and social media continues to grow. We invite you to follow us on Facebook or Twitter!
Winnebago Waterways Steering Committee:
The Steering Committee holds, on average, two meetings per month; one in-person and the other through a conference call. For the month of January, the meeting occurred on the 30th. In February, a conference call meeting was held on February 23rd. The next scheduled meeting is March 9th.
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Technical Team Updates – as of 2/28/2018:
Aquatic invasive species (AIS)/Aquatic plant management Technical Team:
We are pleased to announce that all four grant applications for full point-intercept aquatic vegetation surveys were accepted and funded! FWWA will be sub-contracting the work to two companies who will be doing the point-intercept surveys on Lakes Winnebago, Butte des Morts, Poygan, and Winneconne this coming field season.
After Fox-Wolf Watershed Alliance submitted the grant applications for full point-intercept aquatic vegetation surveys on all four Winnebago Lakes in December, the Technical Team switched gears to begin drafting the AIS Strategic Plan for the Winnebago System. The first scheduled meeting was supposed to occur on January 22nd, 2018, but was rescheduled due to inclement weather. On February 7th, the Tech team met to discuss some initial questions regarding how to start drafting the AIS Strategic Plan for the Winnebago System. Previous drafts of AIS Strategic Plans were used as a starting point to discuss what needed to be added, updated, etc. AIS Coordinator for the Winnebago Waterways Chris Acy will begin drafting an updated Plan.
Water Quality Technical Team:
The Team continues to work on adding water quality related documents and data to the project inventory. The purpose of the inventory is to have information at the finger tips of the Technical Teams as they work to develop management recommendations. Our long-term goal is to eventually make the documents and data we’ve collected available to the public.
We’ve also been collaborating with another project taking place on Lake Winnebago related to water quality. The DNR, with funding assistance from the EPA, is working to develop a conceptual model to better understand the drivers of water quality in the lake and help determine the potential for restoration activities with the goal of improving water quality. A study with recommendations on which conceptual models to use will be released soon.
Watershed Management Technical Team:
The Team is beginning to be formed and the first meeting is slated to be in April. Invitations to individuals are starting to be sent out to experts in the field on agriculture and urban stormwater. Background work is occurring to compile information that will be useful for this team.
Habitat, Fish & Wildlife Technical Team:
The Team met for a full Team meeting on January 16th after working in smaller sub-groups in December. Each sub-group gave a presentation followed by a discussion covering topics including habitat zones, a natural communities matrix, a species matrix, etc. The Team also worked to develop a habitat area priority polygon map. Different subgroups were utilized to help define habitat types and work to determine restoration projects to increase habitat types as needed. This included evaluation methods for areas with potential for habitat restoration in all four Winnebago Lakes.
Questions or suggestions about lake management planning? Please contact Korin Doering, Winnebago Waterways Program Coordinator at (920) 851-0948 or korin@fwwa.org.
Follow the Fox Wolf Watershed Alliance’s Winnebago Waterways Program on our Winnebago Waterways Facebook Page or @WinnWaterways on Twitter! You can also sign-up for email updates at WinnebagoWaterways.org.
