Update on Lake Leota

Lake Leota, Evansville

WI State Journal 8-17-08

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Janesville Gazette, 3-1-09

Opportunity knocks

Lake Leota can become a living classroom for next generation

When Evansville voters approved reclamation of 23-acre Lake Leota, they probably didn’t realize this project represents a oncein-a-lifetime opportunity.
The Wisconsin DNR has a history of pushing to return things to the way they were when only Native Americans walked the land. Allen Creek, which snakes through Dane and Rock counties, was, and still is, a sweet little trout stream.
Some in the DNR bureaucracy saw Leota as a blemish on what could return to a pristine trout fishery.
Others felt that this onetime millpond, which helped put Evansville on the map and build the great state of Wisconsin back in the 1840s, should be great-grandfathered in and restored. Restoration would certainly result in the greater good.
Voters spoke clearly.
Our forefathers may have unintentionally screwed things up when they tried to tame the wilderness. We now have the opportunity to atone for mistakes—and so much more—by educating this generation in a living classroom of our planet called Lake Leota.
Evansville is becoming a de facto suburb of Madison while trying desperately to hang on to its rural, smalltown appeal. What used to be a pleasant country drive on Highway 14 is now a whiteknuckle ride past booming Brooklyn and urban Oregon to the aptly named Mad City.
Nature is not gentle on your mind when trying to merge at 60 mph. This is no time to contemplate your navel or philosophize about Walden Pond.
But we certainly need a Walden Pond in this crazy world.
Understanding nature provides a great key for opening the mystery-wrapped enigma that is life. Every single thing we do has consequences that impact both our future and the other living things around us, now and in the future.

In a couple of months Lake Leota will be stocked with thousands of little fathead, shiner and sucker minnows. Next fall, 20,000 crappies, bluegills and perch will be introduced, followed by 10,000 more panfish in the spring of 2010. Bass, walleyes and catfish will go in after that.
The fish stocking is a straightforward lesson about the food chain not much different than the one you slept through in sophomore biology class. You weren’t mature enough to get the point of it all back then. Here it comes again in a living example called Lake Leota.

There is more to this thing than a basic food chain. Herein can be found the meaning of life itself.
Fish can’t thrive and prosper for long in a dredged out millpond. Prey species need a place to hide from predator species. Native plants provide both escape cover and food for the prey species by attracting insects and other invertebrates, which feed on little critters called zooplankton, which feed on even smaller critters called phytoplankton.
Amphibians may arrive on the feet of blue herons, which come to look for a minnow meal amongst the weeds. Muskrats will surely find their way here from the wetlands along Allen Creek.
Waterfowl will certainly stop here next month as they migrate north, just as they have done since Lake Leota was a silted in millpond. We can make the visit better for them by introducing a beneficial matrix of plant life.
Think the Mad City is mad? Wait until we have the opportunity to sit quietly on the reclaimed shoreline of Lake Leota and witness the frenetic hum of nature! We, the people, are just a small part of a truly grand scheme.
We, the people, have been blessed with both the means and the ability to influence the well-being and future of all other creatures on Spaceship Earth. Lake Leota can become a living classroom for every child within an hour’s drive away.
These kids will soon inherit the legacy we leave them, for better or for worse.
You can make a difference here. The folks behind rebirth of Lake Leota, a group called S.O.L.E. (Save Our Lake Environment) is desperately seeking donations for fish and foliage to re-seed the birth of this living classroom.
It will be five or six years before some youngster will catch his or her first fish here. Many of us will be on our way to catching our last fish by that time. My check is in the mail. There is room for you on this ride, too.