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Groups look to promote Delavan Lake watershed

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Photo by Kyle Bursaw

Signs have been put up indicating the Delavan Lake Watershed, like this one on Theatre road in Williams Bay.

Photo

Photo by Kyle Bursaw

Ben Kubicek, 5, from Nebraska, takes a break from fishing on Delavan Lake to talk with his dad while Drew Fulcher, from Peoria, Ill., watches his line. The pair of children were in town for a family reunion and used the time to have fun on the lake.

DELAVAN TOWNSHIP — Standing on the shores of Delavan Lake, a person might say, “What can I do to help clean up this lake?”

The first thing they might want to do is turn around.

A key to a healthy lake is its watershed, the area of land that drains into a body of water, said Mary Knipper a Delavan Lake resident and a member of several lake advocacy groups.

The trend is growing among lake advocates to make the term “watershed” part of the public’s vocabulary, Knipper said.

“People are really focusing outside the shoreline,” she said.

To protect Delavan Lake, lake advocates have enlisted the help of land conservationists. The groups say the best way to improve the long-term health of the lake is to protect the land that surrounds it.

The Delavan Lake Improvement Association, the Kettle Moraine Land Trust and the Delavan Lake Sanitary District have had preliminary talks about how the groups can work together to improve the lake’s health.

“Historically, Delavan Lake has had problems with nutrient loadings, sediment and other pollution-related problems,” said Lori Artiomow with the land trust. “Through land conservation, we can help them reduce that problem.”

At the same time, the Delavan Lake Improvement Association recently has posted signs marking the watershed’s boundaries.

“Our goal is for people to become aware that what they do in their everyday lives within the watershed will impact Delavan Lake,” association member Marilee Holst said.

The association collected money from 93 businesses and individuals to create and print 25 signs to mark the boundaries of the watershed. Many of the signs have been placed and others soon will be in the 10 municipalities in the Delavan Lake watershed.

The watershed is especially important to Delavan Lake, said Artiomow, general manager of the Kettle Moraine Land Trust.

For one thing, the Delavan Lake watershed is really big, at least compared to the size of the lake.

The lake itself is about 2,072 acres. Its watershed is 26,000 acres, Holst said.

By comparison, Geneva Lake is more than twice as big. Its surface area is 5,238 acres. But its watershed is about half the size of Delavan Lakes—13,121 acres, Holst said.

If the Delavan Lake watershed was proportionally sized to Lake Geneva’s watershed, it would be 20 percent of its actual size, she said.

Size isn’t the only thing that matters when it comes to the importance of the Delavan Lake watershed, Artiomow said.

Delavan Lake is not spring fed, unlike many other lakes in the area.

Most of the water in the lake is surface runoff, Artiomow said. That makes the lake especially susceptible to whatever’s going on it its watershed, she said.

“It (runoff) has a bigger impact on Delavan Lake than on other lakes,” Artiomow said.

Because healthy land is crucial to a healthy Delavan Lake, it seemed like a natural to join forces with the land conservation group, Knipper said.

Work is in the very beginning stages, Artiomow said. The first thing will be to prioritize the critical areas in the watershed, such as creeks that run into the lake, she said.

Land trust staff could work with landowners on a volunteer basis to donate conservation easements to the trust.

In some cases, if funds were available, the trust could buy properties and put them into permanent easements, Artiomow said.

The groups will work to continue to educate the public about the importance of a healthy watershed.

After all, a healthy lake is a big economic driver in the Delavan area, Knipper said.

“It’s the economics of the community,” Knipper said. “Everybody has a role. Everybody benefits.”