You may have seen the news in the Appleton Post-Crescent or Green Bay Press-Gazette – a restoration project is coming to Plum Creek! We are excited to partner with the Village of Wrightstown and Outagamie Land Conservation Department to install water storage and streambank restoration practices at and near Plum Creek. Through a grant awarded to Fox-Wolf and Keepers of the Fox from Great Lakes Restoration Initiative (GLRI), this project will leverage $600,000 in GLRI funding and $200,00 from the Village of Wrightstown to reduce sediment and nutrients as well as restore a degraded area for the benefit of the community.
The Village of Wrightstown will be installing ARTS (learn more about ARTS here) to capture the runoff from agricultural fields just on the outskirts of residential development, and Outagamie County will design and install check dams to continue to control and slow the water as it flows to Plum Creek. Lastly, streambank restoration techniques will be employed in Plum Creek near the mouth of the Fox River to return the stream to it’s natural width and restore healthy streambank conditions.
Fox-Wolf’s Executive Director Jessica Schultz said it best -“Increasing water storage on the landscape is an important component to improve water quality as increased intensity of storms is causing increased runoff and major erosion to our streambanks. Partnerships like this increase chances that these federal grants will be awarded and important conservation work can be done in our community.”
Project siting is underway with construction expected to begin in 2023. We’ll keep you updated as this exciting project continues!
Keepers of the Fox is a program of the Fox-Wolf Watershed Alliance that works cooperatively to protect, sustain, and restore the water resources of the Lower Fox River watershed. For more information, contact Katie Woodrow, Lower Fox River Watershed Program Director at Katie@fwwa.org or 920.915.5767
