Potential Quorum

Notice of Meeting
of the Board of Commissioners

AGENDA

DATE: Friday, September 30, 2010
TIME: 11:30am
PLACE: Anchor Inn Newville, STH 59
WHO: US Army Corp of Engineers
WI DNR

This is being posted because it is possible that a quorum of the board may be present.

1) To conduct the process for lake management planning,

2) No other district business will be acted upon.

Rock Koshkonong Lake District

Brian Christianson
Chair

September Water Levels

Sept 1 = 777.51
Sept 30 = 776.47

ONLY a 12.48 inch drop in 30 days.

And winter draw down begins in 2 weeks.

So, with all gates 100% open (for about 2 years), furhter evidence that high water is Mother Nature, NOT gate operations.

Surface Water Quality Report

From WI DNR Website

Meeting Saturday

http://thebuckhorn.net/

_____________________________________

Where is Buckhorn and is it a restaurant bar? Or a town? I'm hoping to attend this one.. Besides needing to know where Bucktown is I would like to say that my shore line 3 lots worth are slowly becoming concave due to the constant washing in and out! Also my 3 lake lots are wet lands unto themselves. They have not been dry since flood of 08.

There is constant 1/2 " standing water down to deep muck....the herons and other birds like it.. as I am on social security disability i have the time now but no money to put a pond in that area.. much as I'd like to.. I see it as a win/win I don't have to worry about mowing the area and the birds, fish, and other wildlife get another area to themselves..

Hopefully i might get to talk to some one at the meeting. I have a cottage at Joyce Rd.. I am resident every weekend April to Oct and have noticed a lot more then we did in years past.
 
Rosemary Lewandowski

Tallgrass STH 59 & CTH N (July 2010)

Newville - 1954

Wisconsin breaks record for summer rainfall By Sharif Durhams of the Journal Sentinel Sept. 9, 2010 Wisconsin had more rainfall this summer than any summer on record, according to the state climatologist. Despite a long pause in the amount of rain falling during part of August, 18.65 inches of rain fell in the state on average, according to the State Climatology Office. A record 25.62 inches of rain fell at the National Weather Service office in Sullivan, the weather service office that covers the Milwaukee area. Most counties received at least 50% more than their normal rainfall. The humidity was so abnormally high during the summer that it raised the temperature a bit above its average. The humidity and heat created the energy that caused heavy rains, strong storms, and 40 tornadoes, according to the climatology office. While summer technically lasts until Sept. 22, meteorologists consider the months of June, July and August as the summer months for record-keeping purposes.

Micale sets challenge for Robinson

From the Watertown Daily Times

“I have given 30 years of volunteer service to the Lake Koshkonong and Rock River area as both a board member and officer in the Rock River-Koshkonong Association. In 1999 I was elected to the Rock Koshkonong Lake District Board of Commissioners and am currently in my third term. I also have entrepreneurial work experience. My family owned and operated Sunset Lodge, now known as Sunset Bar and Grill, for many decades before we sold the business in 1993. I currently own and operate the Sunset Shores rental properties around Lake Koshkonong

Saturday, September 18th, 1:00pm

Third Workshop on Lake Koshkonong Project



Saturday, September 18th from 1-3pm at
the Buckhorn Supper Club

The RKLD project team, the Corps of Engineers, and Wisconsin DNR have been continuing to develop and refine alternatives for improvement of Lake Koshkonong, on the input we received in the workshop session that was held at the Anchor Inn this July. We now have developed an extensive set of projects of various scales and costs that will be included in the environmental assessment.

Topics to be covered in this third workshop session will include layout and cost projections for:

• Large-scale and smaller projects to improve Lake navigability

• Near-shore and mid-lake wave protection projects

• Natural area restoration projects for fishery and wildlife

• Experimental projects that may be implemented in late 2010 or early 2011

• Process for completion of the comprehensive environmental assessment documents for the project

Your attendance and input to the project team will be appreciated and helpful!

The answer to protecting private property is armoring your shoreline

PREVIOUS POST from same person....

We took some pictures, some of them are attached and made a rough count of the trees down. We counted the trees that are currently down which are at least 3 inches in diameter. We walked the 1000 feet portion of the lakefront in our subdivision (wetland area only). In the 1000 feet there are now at least 75 trees down and more to come down soon with the next storm. You can see this in the pictures. In many place the lake is flowing under the roots of the tree.

The destruction is quite extensive and this is a very unusual year.
We all have had trees come down, and certainly some in the flood. But even then, more trees have come down this spring and summer. Something is changing and in this area of the lake we are losing property and trees. I hope that you will again look at this area of the lake and give us some advice on what can be done to prevent further destruction.

Please pass on the pictures to Rob.

Thank you,

Linda

This is a relatively common occurrence in floodplain forests as these trees have very shallow root systems (pancake roots) that do not go deep and in the sandy substrate at this location, would not be very strong even if they did. When these sandy substrates are saturated or inundated they are not stable and tree drops result.

Labeling Koshkonong Blog Ongoing

Dating back to 2005, when we launched this blog, we have accumulated over 3,000 posts on many different topics.  Now we are able to attach labels, which assist you in reading all posts on that topic dating back to the launch date.  It is still a work in progress and quite time consuming to label early posts, but we are getting there. 

My favorite is to click on the weather label, where you see posts such as this -

August 2007 - record rainfall
Winter 2007-08 - record snowfall
Spring 2008 - record snowmelt
Spring/Summer 2008 - record rain - record flood
June 2009 - record cold monthly average temp
July 2009 - record cold monthly average temp

Hard to believe that 2005 we experienced drought conditions and until August 2007, lake levels were fairly "normal."

3 years of this flood/high water conditions is enough.  We are due for a good long boating season in 2011.

Dredging Update: Comments on Lake Tour with WDNR yesterday

On Site Observations Continue.....

Well we dodged the rain for the most part and gave Pam Biersach and Wendy Frohlich a good tour of the lake and had an interesting two hours with Jeff Hanson of Midwest Floating Islands.

I think Wendy and Pam both felt better about actually seeing the lake shores, especially the ones on the east side where the waves were hitting yesterday and all of the tree tips around the lake.

They also got a sense of how shallow the water is in many places near the developed shores. We had good discussions throughout the day about the big picture list of large projects and the shorter list of pilot projects and where these would be best considered.


We decided to have another roundtable discussion with all parties and staff in the next two weeks.

Lake Decatuar IL Dredging

To all:

We have made the initial call with Keith Alexander who is our contact person at Lake Decatur....here are some of the highlights from the call

1. They are about to embark on their 4th dredging of the lake (this will be starting in September)

2. They will be removing 2.1M cubic yards of sediment with the dredging effort

3. Sediment is being hydraulically pumped to a 525 acre sediment storage site approx 1 mile from the lake (this was a purchased site)

4. Dredging will be conducted 24 hours per day/5 days per week and is being performed by a contractor. They have also used a union staff and are going back to a contractor for this dredging.

5. Keith will be very happy to host us for a site visit...we agreed this should be done after they start the dredging so we can see a live site....etc. We will set this meeting after Labor Day when they have a more specific date for the dredging to commence.

6. Keith will also arrange to have other individuals available for our meeting. We will target a week day for the meeting.

All in all, Keith was extremely receptive and helpful....he will be forwarding some preliminary documents for our review regarding their dredging....will forward when received.

He also gave me the name of the engineering firm based in Springfield, IL that works with them and will try to have this person available when we visit.

More info will be forthcoming and I will forward.

Steve Proud

Dive team recovers evidence, victims

From the Janesville Gazette

...The team recently participated in a training exercise on Lake Koshkonong simulating a pontoon boat versus a fishing boat crash. Divers were practicing a water rescue with several other fire departments and law enforcement agencies. Divers were searching for two bodies in the form of dummies.

Dive team training - VIDEO

Dive team training