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Wetland Restoration Helps Wisconsin “Slow the Flow” to the Great Lakes

The good health of the Great Lakes and their freshwater estuaries depends also upon the health of the watersheds and rivers that drain into them. In Wisconsin, conservation partners have a long history of taking a proactive approach to implementing upstream conservation practices to help improve downstream water quality and the health of Lake Michigan, Lake Superior and their freshwater estuaries.

“Slow the flow” is a common mantra among Wisconsin’s conservation partners. This means implementing a variety of conservation practices across the landscape to help reduce and filter runoff caused by heavy rains and storms. These practices slow down the flow of water across the landscape, capturing sediment and pollutants carried by runoff that can harm water quality and habitat.

Ashland County Partners for Wetland Restoration on Lake Superior

One way to slow the flow is by restoring wetlands. “Wetlands perform a number of important functions: water purification by removing sediment and phosphorus; carbon capture; and water storage and slow release to soften the impacts of flood events,” explains MaryJo Gingras, a conservationist with the Ashland County Land & Water Conservation Department. “They are incredibly biologically diverse ecosystems that provide essential habitats for a wide range of plants and wildlife.”

In northern Wisconsin, Gingras’ department, the Ashland County Land & Water Conservation Department has restored 101 acres of wetlands near Lake Superior since 2001. In Wisconsin, conservation districts are known as Land & Water Conservation Departments. They are part of their county government and governed by publicly elected Land Conservation Committees.

The northern part of Ashland County sits on Lake Superior, on the Chequamegon Bay. Despite comprising less than 2% of the size of Wisconsin, the county accounts for 3% of the total wetland acres found in Wisconsin. It’s no surprise that the Ashland County Land & Water Conservation Department has one of the strongest wetland restoration programs in the state. Many of these restored wetlands are upstream in agricultural areas of the county where historic wetlands have been lost.

One of the Ashland County Land & Water Conservation Department’s key partners for wetland restoration is the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service (USFWS). Through their Partners for Fish and Wildlife Program, USFWS provides funding—between 50-75% of the project cost—and technical assistance to help the Ashland County Land & Water Conservation Department identify ideal sites for wetland restoration projects with a keen eye towards the creation of wildlife habitat. In Ashland County, these projects are typically implemented on land owned by farmers, non-agricultural private landowners, and even schools. One of Ashland County’s larger projects was the restoration of fifteen acres of wetlands in 2018 on land owned by the Ashland School District. This particular project is also now a wetland classroom for the county’s students.

The Ashland County Land & Water Conservation Department also partners with the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) to restore wetlands. Working with landowners in the county, one project restored wetlands on private land that now provide nesting sites, protection, and food for shore birds and migratory fowl. The project is located on open land no longer in farm production, away from busy roads, and close to Lake Superior. These qualities made the project easy to implement, providing optimal breeding and migration grounds for birds while reducing highway wildlife fatalities, and creating a resting site along the coastal Lake Superior migration route.

Altogether, these restored wetlands help to filter and store nutrients from runoff, reducing the amount that enters waterways, while providing habitat for animals and plants and reducing flooding.

Wetland Restoration to Reduce Flooding

Ashland County suffered devastating floods in 2012, 2016, and 2018. Experiencing these floods and incorporating climate adaptation strategies into Ashland County’s Land & Water Resource Management Plan made Gingras realize that “natural resource managers need to adapt our conservation practices for increasing precipitation. Our precipitation events are larger and more frequent, and we need to utilize adaptation strategies that account for future variable conditions.” The floods have spurred Gingras to look to conservation practices to restore natural hydrology and increase water storage during heavy rain events. “The importance of incorporating adaptation strategies into natural resource management, and wetland restoration in particular, cannot be overemphasized,” Gingras urges. “Now is the time to plan for and implement conservation approaches which account for future predictions.”

Many of Ashland County’s historic wetlands were drained for farming or development during the early 1900’s. These wetlands can be restored to assist in capturing and slowly releasing water during future floods. To prove this, the Ashland County Conservation and Emergency Management Departments have partnered with the Wisconsin Wetlands Association to identify Fluvial Erosion Hazards (FEH) and implement a natural flood management demonstration project in Ashland County. In 2020, Ashland County received an Advance Assistance grant from the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s Hazard Mitigation Grant Program (HMGP). “It was the first time the grant had ever been awarded in Wisconsin, and one of the first in the country” says Gingras. The grant allowed local stakeholders to assess FEH features, specifically where the loss of upper watershed flood storage and degraded hydrologic conditions have contributed to severe or repetitive damage to public infrastructure like roads, culverts, and bridges. Partners evaluated and prioritized FEH mitigation strategies including floodplain, stream, and wetland restoration practices to increase storage, reduce peak flows, and protect vulnerable infrastructure from future storm events.

In addition to identifying and prioritizing hazard areas, Ashland County launched a locally-led natural flood management demonstration project focused on repairing wetlands and reconnecting streams to their wetland floodplains in a tributary to the Marengo River. The Marengo River is a sub-watershed of the Bad River, one of Lake Superior’s largest sediment and nutrient sources. This demonstration project is supported by funding from 2019 Wisconsin Act 157: an unprecedented allocation authorized by the Wisconsin State Legislature to demonstrate nature-based solutions to flood hazards in the Lake Superior Basin. “The project will utilize on-farm, in-stream, and wetland restoration conservation practices to reduce peak flows and treat runoff at multiple locations along an unstable catchment of the Marengo River,” says Gingras. “Once completed, the project will stabilize and protect 9 miles of riparian stream corridor, restore 55 acres of wetland, and treat almost 45,000,000 gallons of upland stormwater and sediment runoff.”

“Ashland County’s efforts to restore wetlands to slow the flow and reduce flooding, highlight the importance of a proactive approach to initiating Great Lakes’ water health in and around upstream environments” says Monte Osterman, NACD board member for Wisconsin. Indeed, Wisconsin’s slow the flow approach, and ability to forge strong partnerships to implement upstream conservation practices, like wetland restoration, to improve downstream water quality, provides a model for improving the health of our nation’s coasts and estuaries, while enjoying important co-benefits like habitat for wildlife and flood reduction.

Text by Candice Abinanti, NACD Southeast Region Representative and MaryJo Gingras, Ashland County Conservation Department Conservationist

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