A PLACE IN THE WATERSHED
Caring for places that are meaningful, even if we don’t live there
Amanda Kruger poses at Cave Point County Park, enjoying the views of Lake Michigan.
“I’m most grateful for the sense of home. That I belong,” said Amanda Kruger, researcher. “I feel loved. I love others. I have a place.”
That place, however, is not in the Fox-Wolf Watershed. Amanda lives and works in Madison, Wisconsin, which shares many of the same water challenges we have here.
“In Madison, we’re always talking about beaches. They close regularly here. We lose access to open water swimming because of algae blooms,” she shared. “Not just swimming; it smells terrible. Do I want to go on the bike path near Lake Monona if it’s going to smell bad?”
Lakes Monona and Mendota may be close to home, but Amanda’s heart is with Lake Michigan. The first time she and her husband took a vacation together with just each other, they went car camping around the Upper Peninsula, around Lake Superior and Lake Michigan.
“My first favorite memories are there, looking out on the lake,” Amanda explained. She and her husband Ryan have also enjoyed Lake Michigan from Door County, attending weddings and running in the Door County Half Marathon. Amanda also joked that “in Sheboygan, you can’t tell if it’s Wisconsin or Miami!”
Amanda and Ryan don’t just love Lake Michigan. They feel like it’s home. And like so many other people living in Wisconsin, they want to protect it. Every year, when they do their taxes, they do something a little extra.
“We pay our taxes to the government, but then we do a voluntary carbon tax on ourselves,” she explained. Using an online calculator, they assess the impact of their life on the environment. After entering travel habits, food, shopping, and energy usage, they looked at the ideas for how to offset their choices.
“We heard about Fox-Wolf from your project on Restoring Green Bay with the Alliance of the Great Lakes,” said Amanda. She learned that the Fox-Wolf Watershed is one of the main feeders into Lake Michigan.
“Your mission is narrow and local, so I knew that our contribution could be meaningful,” she said.
Amanda knows that taking care of the places she loves isn’t as simple as making a single donation.
“We’re trying to live our lives in the best way we can. We make incremental changes every year,” she said.
A few years into this intentional living, she bikes to work every day (even in the winter). When the forecast warns of storms, she and Ryan go out to clean off the driveway and check that their storm drain is clear. Her garden benefits from her rain barrel.
She takes on these extra responsibilities because she sees how her life choices are connected to the water she loves.
“You can see when the lakes are no longer habitable,” she shared. “It’s always due to runoff in the watershed. It impacts the quality of our lives, here and now.”
Watershed Moments is a publication of Fox-Wolf Watershed Alliance, sharing the stories of how your donations have impacted lives in our community. Read our latest project updates, make a secure online donation, or become a member at www.fwwa.org
