The Connecting Our Waters Program is wrapping up in June.

We wanted to thank everyone for following along with us the past three years and we were so glad to bring Fox-Wolf further up into the Wolf River watershed.

We were able to complete shoreline surveys on just over 52 miles of shoreline. These surveys, along with some gumption, led to the adoption of 1,445 linear feet of shoreline buffer and five rain gardens being implemented in Shawano County. A survey on White Clay Lake also lead to the addition of a fish sticks project to the lake.

Connecting Our Waters sent out semi-annual newsletters to farmers around Shawano County to share success stories of farmers and more information about regenerative practices to explore on their landscape.

We were able to increase the volunteer led water quality efforts in 2020 and 2021. We added, in total, 20 volunteers to Shawano County sampling both streams and lakes. This large scale monitoring effort wouldn’t have been possible without support from Shawano County LCD, the Wisconsin DNR, and WAMSCO.

Our AIS program coordinator was able to partner with Menominee County and the Menominee Indian Tribe of Wisconsin to get a decontamination station installed on Legend Lake to help in the fight against invasive species. We contacted over 1,000 people at the boat launches around Shawano and Menominee County and helped the LaMotte Lake Association identify and report a zebra mussel infestation.

We met with 25 different groups around Shawano and Menominee Counties, gaining commitment for Healthy Lakes projects, shoreline cost share projects, as well as water quality monitoring projects. We also partnered with these groups to present at their annual meetings, exhibit at their events, and aid them in other gaps they needed help filling.

Due to a few successful press releases, we were able to reach tens of thousands of individuals over the last three years to promote the good work occurring in Shawano and Menominee County. These news stories also helped add to our volunteer base.

We wouldn’t be able to end our program without one last event, so we are happy to host a farmer field day with partners including Shawano County LCD, UW-Extension, the Upper Fox-Wolf Demo Farm Network, NRCS, and the WDNR. You can sign up by visiting https://fwwa.org/ShawanoCoFieldDay2021

Sign up closes on June 17th.

Look for WAMSCO, Shawano and Menominee Counties, and the WDNR to continue these efforts starting in June 2021.