Thoughts of a Concerned Outdoorsman

Josh Drew

A few weeks ago a fellow fishing enthusiast and I were musky fishing on Lake DuBay just north of the Stevens Point area. It was a cool night, hooded sweatshirt worthy, but the conditions were just right to possibly trigger a big strike. We trolled around the lake for a while, casting relentlessly but to no avail. In time we came upon what my friend told me was the mouth of the Little Eau Pleine River.

 In my most recent years at UWSP I have come across issues with the Eau Pleine watersheds in classes and have become exposed to terms such as “point and non-point source pollution” and “riparian buffers,” amongst many others. On this chilly night of musky fishing I got to witness first hand some of the negative factors associated with what the watersheds have been exposed to. That night we were using topwater lures big enough to make a large wake as we reeled them in. To my dismay the closer we got to the river mouth the more apparent the algae was behind our lures. It was as dense and thick as it was vile to the nostrils and seemed to contaminate the water as deep as my flashlight could reveal. Prior knowledge of the water conditions hardly justifies actually baring witness to them.

Waters such as the Little Eau Pleine have been important to local communities for many years, dating back to the legendary pioneering era of early Wisconsin logging. Wisconsinites, Native American and immigrant alike, have utilized the vast amount their homeland’s waters for as long as history dates and beyond. The state’s local economies are founded on the ability of transportation methods the waters provide and until recent developments such as railroad assisted commerce and industry they were the primary mode of transportation and a foundation of the state’s overall growth.

With time industry has boomed and agriculture’s impact on the landscape spread hastily and effectively. Streams became dammed and agriculture fields now creep right to the edge of many. Unfortunately conservation, preservation, and sustainable regulation measures did not accommodate the waters as quickly so they have suffered the consequences. Waste such as manure from domestic animal farms and fertilizer and/or pesticide sprayed fields has leached through the groundwater or entered the watersheds as runoff causing problematic conditions like the eutrophic ones I saw that night. I remember reading about local fisherman angry with the conditions their fishery has become victim of. What once provided those nostalgic experiences they were used to having has become a seemingly desolate wasteland. In the same articles the locals protest what has happened and suggest “the people in Madison” come north and smell the rotten haze of dead fish and plant decay current policies and laws have allowed. Unfortunately many valuable resources of Wisconsin such as its rivers and streams are shackled by industry and are degraded. http://serc.carleton.edu/microbelife/topics/deadzone/index.html

This is a link to show the effect of hypoxic conditions stream degradation influences.

Fortunately there is yet hope, that being the responsibility of educated natural resource managers to identify issues like stream degradation and assist those responsible for the damage.  Countermeasures can be taken by means of BMP (best management practices) implementation such as providing riparian buffer to stream banks along agriculture fields, installation of confined manure holding areas, or preserving wetlands. These offer the ability to slow or halt the degradation and promote a healthy future for the streams and the life they support, from local to global environments to the local and global human populations that live in them. The interconnectedness of this issue and the myriad of other natural resource issues are often underestimated by most. If not for the sake of the natural resources we utilize and casually enjoy at times it should be the health of humanity that be considered a critical focal point for action.