The Wisconsin River has humble beginnings in Vilas county and winds through much of the state and grows until it reaches the Mississippi River near Prairie du Chien.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) recently approved a long range DNR plan aiming to reduce phosphorus in a vast area of Wisconsin spanning the central corridor and covering more than 9,100 square miles.
The plan is known as Wisconsin River Basin Total Maximum Daily Load (TMDL) plan, which sets guidelines on phosphorus. Excessive phosphorus runoff causes poor water quality.
DNR water resource engineer Pat Oldenburg says the plan took several years of monitoring and modeling. He says people with water problems stepped forward...
"...Citizens in the basin are facing these poor water quality issues in the central part of the basin on the large reservoirs, Petenwell and Castlerock, worked with the legislature to appropriate funds to do the science, starting in 2009, to get this done..."
Oldenburg says the plan is focused on what is called non-point control. One example of non-point pollution are farms rather than wastewater facilities at one source...
"..I'm looking forward to working with a lot of our counties which take a big lead in doing those projects and moving that ball forward to improve water quality throughout the basin. It is a basin-wide effort. Phosphorus moves downstream and so what happens in Rhinelander affects what happens in Adams county..."
The Wisconsin River basin study area encompasses or touches portions of 22 counties. The basin has 109 stream and river segments and 38 lakes or reservoirs that are currently listed as impaired due to elevated levels of phosphorus.
