A Glorious Mess: the Stout Street Public Dock

The path that heads to the lake at the corner of Stout & First Streets

“A rain garden is a garden that is built to absorb rainfall and storm water runoff.  It is designed to look like an attractive garden and support the local habitat.  Plants with deep fibrous roots tend to work best because they can better clean and filter the water.  The gardens are located between a spot of high runoff and a protected area.  As the rainwater enters the garden it is cleaned, filtered and slowed to prevent erosion as well as any contaminants from proceeding through.  These gardens become even more important as development continues and eliminates lands natural ability to absorb water.  They are easy to create on your own land or area that you maintain near the Chetek Chain of Lakes.” from the Chetek Lakes Protection Association's website

A few weeks ago at the July city council meeting the Stout Street public dock was on the agenda due to some concern raised by a few neighbors of its overgrown appearance. You've heard of the saying, “It's a jungle out there”? Well, according to Dave and Kathy Ziarnik (who live right next door to the public dock) “the jungle”, as they refer to it, is right across the yard. To add insult to injury on occasion when boaters hook up to the dock, they pee in the bushes in plain sight (and, according to them, we're not just talking about the guys). They wondered if the city might do something about this matter and clean up this “mess”.

Looking from the dock

If you have lived in Chetek for awhile you can recall when the only thing above the dock was a section of grass kept regularly mowed by the city. But then in 2013 the students and staff of what was then the Red Cedar Environmental Institute (now defunct) adopted that site and in cooperation with the city and the DNR created a rain garden. A rain garden is (to quote Google): “a garden of native shrubs, perennials, and flowers planted in a small depression, which is generally formed on a natural slope. It is designed to temporarily hold and soak in rain water runoff that flows from roofs, driveways, patios or lawns.” In the fall of 2013 they laid down permeable pavers and planted 1,500 native plants to help slow down rainwater that heads right to the lake as well as prevent foot traffic from eroding the ground. Five years later, the flowers have taken root, the dogwoods are blooming and yes, some weeds and other volunteers have sprung up but for all intents and purposes our rain garden is flourishing.

A week after the City Council meeting, members of the Parks Committee as well as Public Works Director Dan Knapp and City Inspector Joe Atwood sat down with Dave Blumer from LEAPS (Lake Education And Planning Services) for his assessment of the “mess” at the corner of Stout and First Street. Dave put together a very informative slide presentation about the general health of the Chain, how storm water runoff affects its health and the things we can do to prevent or slow the effects that runoff has on our waters.

What goes in...

...eventually pours out

The major take-away for me from Dave's talk is perhaps the biggest “duh”-statement that you've read recently: when it rains, it pours. What I mean by that is when it rains whatever makes it to the storm drains – cigarette butts, plastic bottles, doggy doo-doo, you name it – pours into the lake. Add that to the mix of leaves and grass clippings that naturally find their way to storm drains and you've essentially got yourself a recipe for algae growth – the very thing we're trying to slow in our perennial green lake system.

Beautiful lake shore home but no lake buffer

My father-in-law, now deceased, lived in the southern part of the state on a similar man-made body of water like Lake Chetek with a river running through it. He was one of those guys who would cut his grass right to the water's edge. Later he added riprap (basically loose stone to armor shorelines against erosion) but to his dying day he could not countenance anything beyond grass at the shore and that had to be no longer than 2.5 inches high. But as the folks at the Chetek Lakes Protection Association (CLPA) have been advocating for years, that may look neat and orderly but it only contributes to the problem of how green our lakes are. Thus the push for lakeowners and

municipalities with lake access to create rain gardens and lake buffers. In fact, the CLPA website (http://www.cheteklakespa.org) has a very informative section on Healthy Lakes Projects that provides links to DNR publications to educate you further on how simple things like this can slow and filter the water that heads to the lakes.

According to Dave, it is his professional assessment that our rain garden is doing what it was designed to do: slow and filter runoff. The following morning, some of us from that same committee met at the boat dock with Amanda Kostner, a representative from the DNR, who after going through “the jungle” concurred with Dave's opinion: it's a wonderful rain garden that is helping filter the runoff that comes from the storm drain at the top of the hill. She pointed out to us some box elders and maples that had sprung up that could be removed but otherwise her counsel to us was to leave it alone.

Porta potty now available for your...inconvenience

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, I suppose. What some would call a mess or a jungle, others call a little patch of nature that is quite lovely to look at especially with the flowers in bloom. The council did approve putting a porta potty at the end of the dock and hopefully that will deter boaters and fishermen from alleviating themselves in plain sight. I think some signage as to what the purpose of this small section of growth is would be helpful too.

Maintaining and improving the health of the Chain should be a shared concern for all of us who live around here – not just for those who live on the lake or benefit from people who come to play here. I'm told that politicians and governmental bureaucrats in Madison want to point to that pipe that enters the Chetek River from the Waste Water Treatment Plant and tax and regulate that in order to “fix” what's wrong with Tainter Lake and Lake Menomin. But in my opinion there is no magic bullet that will enhance and improve the overall health of the Chain of Lakes. Rather, it will be the cumulative affect of little things like rain gardens, lake buffers, the work of the ecoharvester (aka, “the skimmer”) and other ventures that overtime will contribute to a healthier lake system. And our little “jungle” at the corner of First and Stout is part of the solution not part of the problem.

Cool machine but only one piece of a larger puzzle