Submitted by Melanie Kalmerton, Watershed Coordinator- Fond du Lac County Land & Water

In December of 2020, our department found out we received a Targeted Runoff Management grant from the Wisconsin DNR. We were awarded a total of $364,000 to spend in the Pipe Creek watershed on streambank restoration projects with private landowners and agricultural best management practices in the watershed.

Phase one of this project is in the books and we are looking towards 2022 to continue our work on Pipe Creek. In 2021, many staff members played a role in the TRM grant project to make what we could control (i.e. everything but the weather) a success. The biggest challenge we dealt with was three large rainstorms that each dropped between 4 and 6 inches of rain in June, mid-July, and the first part of September. In a flashy system like Pipe Creek, that amount of water makes the stream flow well outside of its banks and flow very quickly. After each rain, some catch-up work and re-doing what was already done was a common theme. Everything finally wrapped up in September and most of the work planned for 2021 was completed as planned, even though it took longer than anticipated. We’re happy to report that 1,000’ of streambank was stabilized utilizing rock riprap, streambank grading, root-wads (also known as toe wood structures), stream barbs, erosion control blanket, native grass & flower seed planting, and live stake installation (cuttings of willow and dogwood). We spent one-third of our grant funding on this first phase project, with projects planned for 2022 utilizing the remaining grant funds.

Our planned work for 2022 is to implement phase 2 of our initial project, to start stream restoration work further upstream with other private landowners, and to install other agricultural practices near Pipe Creek.

Planned for the phase 2 project is a wetland scrape installation, implementation of a larger native grass and forb planting on upland areas adjacent to the immediate riparian area, and tree seedling planting. Further, upstream, we will continue the stream restoration with other landowners utilizing similar practices to those already implemented this year. Finally, grassed waterways are planned for areas of concern in farm fields that border the creek.

Through 2021 we posted updates about this project on our social media accounts, and will continue to do so as this project continues. Feel free to follow along!

· Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/FDLLandandWater/

· YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCnxqMJ-jEoSLdOKNgfmJ7pQ

· Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/fonddulac_landwater/?hl=en

· Twitter: https://twitter.com/fondwater?lang=en