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Saving Delavan Lake: Network promotes health of watershed

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Delavan Lake watershed.

Editor's note: Delavan Lake was not always the pristine gem and economic engine that it is today. In this four part series, first published in Walworth County Sunday we examine the efforts to keep this natural treasure healthy.

DELAVAN LAKE -- The Delavan Lake Watershed Initiative Network, or WIN, was created to change the approach to many of those issues. The network is a coalition of municipalities and organizations created in 2010 with a goal of protecting the lake from industrial, agricultural and storm water pollution.

[Read the full story in the June 26, 2011 e-edition of Walworth County Sunday, HERE.]

Maggie Zoellner, project director for the Kettle Moraine Land Trust, manages the network. She said that the coalition has made significant progress in bringing stakeholders together and outlining strategies that will achieve its goal of protecting one of the county's biggest resources.

"WIN is a group of groups whose purpose is to protect and sustain healthy water quality in Delavan Lake, but the watershed goes way beyond that," Zoellner said. "To address all of these issues, it takes a lot of partners. The idea is to use all of those different skills, resources and leverage in working together to address potential needs and reach a mutual goal. It's a long, long-term commitment."

So, the partnership is putting together a two-year plan that outlines priorities and potential funding sources. By sometime in July or August, the goal is to have two working groups to start implementing that plan: an outreach and educational component and a land management group.

"We'll continue to meet (every month), but after two years we'll assess how we've done, see if the structure is working, discuss new recommendations and things we've accomplished and move on to new challenges," Zoellner said.

For now, various individuals and organizations are doing what they can to increase awareness.

One of them is the DLIA, which was founded way back in 1895 and has tackled such projects as weed control, sanitation, fire protection, road improvements, fish stocking, boating regulations, zoning matters and tree planting.

However, current president Sue Heffron said the group has become more interested in the overall watershed during the past decade.

"Whether it's farmers, homeowners, businesses or developers, it's all about using best practices and controlling runoff and erosion to make it better all the way around," Heffron said. "A lot of people don't realize how big the watershed is. In the past four years, we've put up 13 signs so people see when they're entering the watershed in hopes of creating better awareness.

"The DLIA is looking forward to all of this collaboration that forming a coalition affords us," Heffron said. "We need to take care of it, and we're excited about getting all of these people and resources into the same room."

One of them is Karen von Huene, executive director of Wisconsin Association of Lakes and a member of the Delavan Lake WIN steering committee.

"We're not only interested in what they're doing, but in how we can help them," von Huene said of the Madison-based association. "I believe they're being creative in what they're doing and could use them as a model for the rest of the state. They're taking a wide view of what everybody's been doing. WIN is getting all of the players to the table by motivating and pulling all of the pieces together, and asking what the group can do on a higher level."

Read:

• June 26, 2011: A call to action to save Delavan Lake

• June 27, 2011: Network promotes health of Delavan Lake

• June 28, 2011: Delavan Lake dredging project key to success

• June 29, 2011: A history of Delavan Lake restoration

[Read the full story in the June 26, 2011 e-edition of Walworth County Sunday, HERE.]