Are you concerned about the water quality in your local stream, river or lake?
Shawano County, the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources, Connecting Our Waters, the Waterways of Menominee and Shawano Counties, and the Fox-Wolf Watershed Alliance are working together to create a volunteer water quality monitoring program for Shawano County.
We are looking for both in-lake water quality monitors and tributary monitoring volunteers!
You do not need to live on the lake to consider volunteering for this program! If you like to get out and fish, boat, or water-ski – you can also monitor the lake!
We offer the equipment and the training, all we need is your time!
If you are interested in volunteering, please contact Emily Henrigillis: emily@fwwa.org or 920-851-6472.
More information about the two sampling programs can be found below.
In-lake water quality monitoring program:
The specific lakes we are hoping to gain volunteer monitors on are: Pleasant Lake, Kolpack Lake, Pella Pond, White Lake, White Clay Lake, Pensaukee Lakes, and Washington Lake. All lakes are present within Shawano County.
We are also hoping to expand on the work done by the WDNR for the Wolf River Management Plan, so we are looking for volunteers to monitor the Wolf River Pond and the Balsam Row Pond.
In-lake water quality monitoring will follow the WDNR CLMN monitoring protocol. This means that a volunteer would need to take a Secchi disk depth reading every 10-14 days starting in May and ending in October. During these sample events, volunteers would also sample dissolved oxygen and temperature with a digital probe.
More detailed information can be found here: You can find more information here: https://dnr.wi.gov/lakes/CLMN/qualityassurance/CLMNQAPP2010.pdf
We would supply the training, sampling equipment, and a GPS to help guide you to the water quality point.
Tributary Monitoring Program:
A TMDL study was conducted for the Upper Fox-Wolf Watershed and as a part of that study, watersheds were identified as having different priorities regarding sediment loading, restoration needed, etc.
We are hoping to monitor a few of the higher priority watersheds around Shawano County. We are looking for volunteers to help monitor tributaries around Shawano Lake, Schoenick Lake, and White Clay Lake. We are also looking for volunteers to help monitor the Embarrass River near Pella Pond and Strassburg Creek near the Town of Almon.
Tributary monitoring will follow the WAV monitoring protocol. This means taht volunteers would need to commit to six sampling events a year – one sample every month from May to October. Volunteers would sample anywhere from 1 to 5 locations a month, depending on availability. At each location the follow parameters would be measured: temperature, dissolved oxygen, streamflow, transparency, habitat, and the biotic index.
More detailed information can be found here: http://watermonitoring.uwex.edu/wav/monitoring/index.html
We would supply the training, sampling equipment, and a GPS to help guide you to the sampling locations.
Read more on the Upper Fox-Wolf Watershed TMDL here: https://dnr.wi.gov/topic/tmdls/foxwolf/index.html
If you live outside Shawano County and either one of these programs is of interest to you, please still contact us!
Volunteers are needed statewide to help monitor the water around us.
You can find more information about monitoring needs in the Upper Fox-Wolf Watershed here: https://fwwa.org/2019/07/29/the-dnr-needs-your-help-in-the-upper-fox-wolf-basins/
