Covid-19 slowed us down one sampling month however we will be able to still get a great monitoring year out of 2020!
Connecting Our Waters and our partners have been working to expand the water quality sampling around Shawano County. This summer we expanded both the lake monitoring and stream monitoring occurring around the county.
Read about the efforts being made by our awesome volunteers this summer!
Monitoring the Embarrass River
We are monitoring the stream quality of the North Branch of the Embarrass River at four different spots along its path.
Total phosphorus, total nitrogen, total suspended solids, and dissolved phosphorus are being sampled at the northern most of our sites on the Embarrass River. It is a beautiful spot near the Town of Bowler. This type of samping is more advanced than the WAV monitoring described below. These results will be monitoring the nutrients entered the North Branch of the Embarrass near Bowler. These nutrients will continue their trek down the Wolf River and eventually reach the Bay of Green Bay.
As we move south along the river, we have a volunteer sampling just south of the Town of Leopolis. This section of the river is just north of Pella Pond. Our volunteer is a middle school science and math teacher among a number of other things. She will be sampling this portion of the river using WAV methods, looking at temperature, dissolved oxygen, flow, and water clarity. This sampling will occur once a month through October.
While we were out at the training for this site, we saw a number of cool insects and mussels. We also met a pet raccoon!
Two sites are being monitored below of Pella Pond along the North Branch of the Embarrass. One of these two sites runs in a WDNR Wildlife Management area. The sign at the wildlife area lists the stream as a big sturgeon spawning site.
The two sites below Pella Pond will be sampled using WAV methods similar to the site in Leopolis.
Schoenick Creek Watershed Sampling
Schoenick Creek watershed includes two lakes and drains directly into the Wolf River.
WAMSCO has been sampling the Schoenick Creek at two spots for years. They sample at a site before the creek heads into Long Lake and after it passes through Long Lake before heading into Schoenick Lake.
This year we were able to add one more sampling site in the watershed thanks to our volunteers. The unnamed tributary that drains enters Schoenick Creek is also being sampled. This little stream is being sampled using WAV methods by a great young couple.
Through the addition of this site in 2020, we will have a more complete picture of what is happening in the Schoenick Creek watershed.
In Lake Deep Hole Water Quality Sampling
We were able to add four more volunteers to the list of lake monitors around Shawano County.
Kolpack Lake is being monitored by our volunteer Mark. He was the first volunteer we trained and was a great sport while we worked out some bugs during the training.
Kolpack Lake is located on the western side of the county near Bowler. It is a 19-acre seepage lake that is 19 feet deep. Mark will be sampling the lake one a month for temperature, dissolved oxygen and water clarity through September.
The Pensaukee Lakes are being monitored by a pair of brothers. Neither live on the lake full time but are excited to make the excuse to come visit the lake once a month.
The Pensaukee Lakes are located on the eastern side of Shawano County. The watershed that the Pensaukee Lakes are within drains towards the Bay of Green Bay rather than the Wolf River. There are three basins that make up the 109 acres of the Pensaukee Lakes. The deep hole is in the second basin and is 49 feet deep.
White Lake is being monitored by a woman who lives right off the lake. Located in southeastern Shawano County, White Lake is a 163-acre seepage lake that is 11 feet deep.
We completed the in-lake training from a kayaks. We found out that our brave volunteer had never been out in a kayak before but she was so interested in becoming a volunteer she just rolled with it!
Finally, one of our volunteers will be monitoring the deep hole on the Wolf River Pond. The deep hole is located just above the Little Rapids Plant and just below where the Shawano Ski Sharks hold their shows.
Our volunteer for the site is the boat driver for many of the Shawano Ski Sharks shows so we were lucky enough to take a ride in the boat. He showed us a portion of the speed of the boat and we can only saw WOW!
We hope that the work of these volunteers will further the interest of stream and lake monitoring throughout Shawano County as well as the rest of the Fox and Wolf River Basins.
