The next speaker in the Science on Tap series in Minocqua will talk about healthy lakes and shorelines.
Patrick Goggin of UW-Stevens Point's College of Natural Resources and UW-Extension Lakes, says he will discuss shoreline plantings..
"I'm going to take folks through the history of our shorelands and some of the changes and challenges that have come with our living and loving lakes up here in the Northwoods and throughout the state of Wisconsin...."
Goggin says he will describe the diversity of life found along lakeshores and what some of the ecosystem services lakeshores provide to the lake system. He will also give examples of what lakeshore property owners and other lake lovers within the watershed can do to help make lake water cleaner and ideas on how to restore habitat. He says there are challenges...
"...One of the challenges that's come with housing density on lakes over the years is the number of houses has created more hard surfaces and more challenges with nutrients and dirt getting to our lakes. So clean water and habitat are really important. Another challenge on lakes is people have manipulated that interface of vegetation at the shoreline edge..."
He says when properties are developed, sometimes that vegetation is removed and he says part of the story told will be lessons learned from that. He says they've learned how to keep that vegetation in place and in some places restore it. He says something like a 350 square foot planting at the land-water interface is effective.
Goggin's presentation is Wednesday(4-3-2019) at 6:30 p.m. at Minocqua Brewing Company in Minocqua. Programs are live-streamed at the Minocqua Public Library each month.
