Tainter Lake Rehabilitation District exploring engineering grant for two erosion sites
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By LeAnn R. Ralph
MENOMONIE — The Tainter Lake Rehabilitation District Board of Commissioners is exploring the possibility of submitting an application for an engineering grant concerning erosion from two sites on the Red Cedar River.
The sedimentation committee is taking a break from meetings until there is more information about an engineering grant that would help determine the best way to stop erosion from two sites on the Red Cedar River between Tainter Lake and Colfax, said Tom Bilse, a member of the Board of Commissioners, representative for the Town of Tainter, and chair of the sedimentation committee, at the Board of Commissioners’ October 17 meeting.
Over the past several months, Bilse said, he has met with various officials 15 times about the two erosion sites and the possibility of an engineering grant.
The grant would help pay for figuring out the best way to stabilize the two erosions sites and how much the two projects would cost, he said, noting that there is no guarantee the Tainter Lake Rehabilitation District would be awarded a grant.
Grant application
Who would write the grant application, and who would implement the projects? asked Al Brown, chair of the Board of Commissioners.
Bilse said he had talked with the two landowners, and then a representative from the Natural Resources Conservation Service had contacted him.
The two erosion sites would be a group project involving the Lake District, the NRCS, Dunn County and the two landowners, Bilse said.
After he has more information on the grant and the project, Bilse said he would take the information to the sedimentation committee.
Sediment has been deposited in Tainter Lake since the dam was built on the Red Cedar River at Cedar Falls in the early 1900s. The upper end of Tainter Lake also has been filling in with sediment deposited by the Hay River.
There are several people serving on the sedimentation committee who have experience in writing grants. The plan is to group the two properties together into one project for a grant application submitted to NRCS, Bilse said.
Another application would be written for a different grant to actually do the work on the two properties, he said.
Upstream
Brown asked Bilse to explain why the Lake District would be involved in stabilizing erosion from two sites that are far upstream from the Tainter Lake Rehabilitation Lake District.
One of the erosion sites is three miles out of the Lake District, and the other erosion site is about six miles out of the Lake District, Bilse said.
The erosion from the two sites forms the bulk of the sediment that is filling in the delta on Tainter Lake, he said.
Bilse said he had talked briefly with Chase Cummings, Dunn County conservationist, about the sediment project.
This is the time of year that Cummings is working on a budget for his department, “and while there are discussions to be had, now is not the time,” he said.
In three parts
There are three parts to solving sediment problems, Brown said.
Part one is to find out where the sediment is coming from. Part two is figuring out where the sediment is being deposited, and the third part is to find a way to get rid of the sediment, he said.
If you only find out where the sediment is coming from but do not take action on steps two and three, then the sediment problem will never solved, Brown said.
The project will take years, and it will be very expensive, Bilse said.
“We are just dipping our toe in and lining up resources,” Brown said.
Bilse said he had contacted one of the landowners in January.
The landowner for the largest of the erosion sites had called the NRCS because he wanted to do something about the sediment, and then NRCS had contacted him, Bilse said.
The landowner of the next largest erosion site would like something done with the erosion, too, he said.
Reaching out to the landowners to start a pathway for discussion is a good place to begin, Brown said.
Red Cedar Partnership
Earlier in the meeting, Dan Zerr, who the Regional Natural Resources Educator with the UW-Division and chair of the Red Cedar Partnership, spoke to the Board of Commissioners.
A 10-year plan for improving water quality in the Red Cedar Watershed was approved by the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources in 2016, he said.
The plan requires nine elements, and those key elements will help in qualifying for grants and will help improve the scoring on the grant applications, Zerr said.
The Total Maximum Daily Load (TMDL) for the Red Cedar River System was written in 2012 and deals with how much phosphorus is contributing to algae blooms and how to reduce the phosphorus in the watershed, he said.
The plan expires in 2026 and must be updated with information on what has been learned and what can be done differently, Zerr said.
Zerr noted that he works in a 10-county area from Clark County to St. Croix County.
Watershed
The Red Cedar Watershed covers 1,900 square miles, is part of nine counties and contains 58 smaller watersheds, such as the Eighteen Mile Creek watershed, Zerr said.
The Red Cedar Watershed is part of the Chippewa River Watershed that then empties into the Mississippi River and goes to the Gulf of Mexico, where there is a dead zone the size of Massachusetts where nothing will live, he said.
All together, 45 to 50 percent of the Red Cedar Watershed is agricultural land. Forested land is good at soaking up water and preventing run-off, but ag land and urban areas contribute to the run-off, Zerr said.
The Red Cedar Partnership started in 2013 and includes the land and water conservation departments in Dunn County, Barron County, Chippewa County and Rusk County, along with the Farmers of Barron County Watersheds, other farmer-led watershed groups, the DNR and NRCS, along with the City of Menomonie, 3M, Landmark Conservancy, UW-Stout, the Tainter Lake District, Desair Lake Restoration, the Red Cedar Lakes Association, the Chetek Lake Protection Association, Farmers’ Union and UW-Extension, Zerr said.
The farmer-led groups are very effective at keeping soil in place and improving water quality, he said.
The plan expires in 2026 and defines water quality issues, proposes solutions, and includes maps on how those solutions are to be implemented, Zerr said.
Solutions include no-till farming, planting cover crops, installing grass waterways, creating rain gardens, managing septic systems and urban run-off control, he said.
Since agricultural land is 45 to 50 percent of the watershed, working with farmers is important to help water quality and to help the farmers, Zerr said, noting that no-till saves fuel.
Wetlands
Wetlands are important to water quality, too, because wetlands soak up nutrients, Zerr said.
Some plants that are located in rivers and lakes are highly beneficial, he said.
Iowa has lost 99 percent of the state’s natural wetlands, so when it rains heavily in Iowa, there is flooding from run-off, Zerr said.
Wisconsin has lost 50 percent of the natural wetlands, he said.
Having a “clean” lake front, where landowners mow the grass right down to the water, is not a good thing, Zerr said.
The more vegetation there is along the shoreline, the better. Aquatic plants, blue-flag iris, shrubs and trees will hold the soil in place when water runs downhill into the lake, he said.
Grass clippings and leaves being washed into the lake also create problems. Keeping the shoreline as natural as possible is helpful for water quality, Zerr said.
When 133 properties around Mead Lake were surveyed, 60 percent of the septic systems were failing, he said.
Mead Lake is located in Clark County.
The property owners were willing, by and large, to replace their failing septic systems, Zerr said, which helped to improve the water quality in the lake.
Sediment in Tainter
A flowage like Tainter Lake has a fixed lifespan, Kerr said.
When the dam was built at Cedar Falls, that slowed the water down, which allows sediment to drop out and creates a limited lifespan for the lake, he said.
The lifespan of the lake can be stretched by dredging or building a sand trap, Zerr said.
Sand traps sometimes have to be cleaned out twice a year, and then there must be a place to put the sediment that has been cleaned out of the sand trap, he said.
There is “legacy phosphorus” in the lake sediment. When the lake “turns over,” a natural process that occurs in the fall, phosphorus is released from the bottom sediment, Zerr said.
Water on the surface of the lake becomes warmer during the summer, then as the water cools off during the fall, it becomes more dense and sinks, forcing the colder water below to rise so that the water in the lake, along with oxygen and nutrients, becomes mixed.
Alum treatments will lock the phosphorus in the sediment, Zerr said.
The Village of Colfax, for example, uses alum in the wastewater treatment lagoons to bind with the phosphorus to reduce the phosphorus discharge into the Red Cedar River.
If more sediment is coming into Tainter Lake after alum treatments are used, the alum will not help very much, Zerr said.
Vast amounts of money have been spent on alum treatments for Half Moon Lake in Eau Claire, he said.
The alum has worked, but one year when alum was used in Half Moon Lake, the next year there was a storm that churned up the water, which defeated purpose of applying alum the year before, Zerr said.
The alum treatment had to be applied again, he said.
The Tainter Lake Rehabilitation District Board of Commissioners meets again on November 21 at 5 p.m. in Room 54 of the Dunn County Government Center.
