DLSD administrator envisions massive park system in buffer zone
By Vicky Wedig
Editor
Entities with an interest in Delavan Lake are embarking on a project to create a buffer zone around the lake that one local official believes could be as significant as the $40 million lake drawdown of 1989.
Delavan Lake Sanitary District Administrator James DeLuca and Delavan Town Board Chairman Ryan Simons are working toward a plan to acquire additional land around the lake to create a larger buffer for run-off into the lake.
The plan would involve acquiring hundreds of acres around the lake – primarily near Brown’s Channel and east from the Delavan Lake Inlet around Jackson Creek – that would take farmland out of production and improve water quality in the lake.
DeLuca envisions the additional lands to be used as a large parks area with hunting, fishing, trapping, hiking, biking and canoeing.
“That would just be a phenomenal park system like no other,” he said.
Simons said the buffer zone would include about 200 acres by the Mound Road ponds that the town already owns, and an additional 300 acres near the Inlet – some of it privately owned and some owned by the state Department of Natural Resources and the Walworth County Metropolitan Sewerage District.
Lake water quality
DeLuca said the township’s Lake Committee received information that the lake is again become eutrophic, which is the condition that necessitated the 1989 drawdown.
“If we don’t do anything, it’s not going to be pleasant in the decades to come,” DeLuca said.
Simons said the information the Lake Committee reviewed was the annual data the U.S. Geological Survey provides about the lake. He said the USGS measures the phosphorus, chlorophyll and “secchi disk” levels in the lake that determine whether the lake is categorized as eutrophic – a mature lake with more plant and fish life and lower water clarity.
Phosphorus is a nutrient that can increase aquatic plant and algae growth; chlorophyll indicates plant life; and a “secchi disk” is a circular disk that is lowered into the lake on a rope until it’s no longer visible, Simons said. The secchi disk measures the clarity of the water in the lake, and it was found to be lower this year than in the past few years, he said.
Simons said over the past 30 years, the secchi-disk depth has ranged from less than a meter up to 5 meters.
“Right now, it’s at 1.6 meters,” he said. “The goal that was set as part of the lake project is 1.5 meters.”
Simons said while the number is still above the goal, it could be trending downward. However, he said, one year doesn’t indicate a trend, and the year included early large rain events. He said rains that come early – before crops are in the ground – bring sediment and fertilizer from farm fields into the lake with little to trap them.
“We have to do something proactive to start working on controlling run-off to help sustain and maintain this lake,” DeLuca said. “To lose a lake of this size would be catastrophic.”
Extend life of efforts
The Town of Delavan has completed lake management projects to keep sediment and phosphorus out of the lake, and creating a larger buffer zone would extend the life of those projects, Simons said.
The town dredged the Inlet in 2011, removing 45,000 cubic yards of phosphorus-laden sediment, he said. It plans to dredge the Mound Road ponds, which were built as part of the $40 million lake rehabilitation project, again next year and has also dredged Brown’s Channel.
“We want to protect that investment,” Simons said.
He said the scientists involved in maintaining the quality of Delavan Lake, Peter Berrini of HDR Engineering Inc. and Dale Robertson of the USGS, agree that creating a buffer zone will prolong those lake management projects.
The buffer zone
DeLuca and Simons have begun approaching government entities to determine how to proceed with creating a buffer zone.
The DLSD on Dec. 16 went before the Walworth County Park Committee, which agreed to include land around Jackson Creek and Brown’s Channel in the county’s park and open space plan.
Having the intended buffer-zone area designated as open space in the county’s master plan will allow the town and the DLSD to show other governing agencies, as they’re trying to secure grants, that the area is intended as open land or park space.
DeLuca and Simons have met with state Sen. Neal Kedzie about the project, met Dec. 17 with state Department of Natural Resources representatives in Waukesha and plan to meet with the governor’s office next month.
“We are in a very, very preliminary discussion phase of this to see what is feasible and what’s not feasible,” Simons said.
He said the town and DLSD are searching for any opportunities that might exist from the county, state or federal government to help fund lake or river planning or offer stewardship grants to acquire land or create parks or wildlife areas.
DeLuca said the project will require cooperation from numerous entities – the cities of Delavan and Elkhorn, the town of Delavan and Geneva, the Delavan Lake Improvement Association and the Kettle Moraine Land Trust – to finance and steer the project.
He said which entity would acquire the additional land is unknown, but he said he’d like to see one agency ultimately head the project.
“I’d like to see the county or the state take a lead role, especially in the lands to the east of the Inlet,” he said.
DeLuca said all of the buffers could be combined into a large parks area with recreation and commerce that would benefit the entire area.
DeLuca said he believes the project could be as large as the 1989 lake drawdown. Simons said that project involved numerous local, county, state and federal agencies. He said he does not believe the upcoming project will be that large, and the town and DLSD are in the process of determining which agencies will be involved in it.
