Rock-Koshkonong wants to make slow/no-wake level consistent across county

From the Janesville Gazette

...The 7 1/2-foot recommendation for Lake Koshkonong came from the town of Fulton. The township overlaps the lake district and has authority to make slow/no-wake recommendations on parts of the Rock River between the Newville Bridge and Stone Farm Road.

Christianson said the lake district believes the town's recommendation is too low, especially given studies that show the river tends to recede more slowly than it rises.
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I was reluctant to even post this article due to the reporter's lack of understanding - even after attending the Annual Meeting and listening to our hydrologist explain our objective, and then listening to our legal counsel outline why the existing county ordinance is not compliant with state statutes.

RKLD has worked collaboratively with the county since last fall (October 2010) in helping them draft an enforceable ordinance.

Did you know the current county ordinance does not even identify where the SNW areas in Newville, the RR trestle, or at the dam begin and end?

Clearly, the reporter's only purpose was to find controversy - not to educate the community about the legal reasons SNW orders are imposed.

The reporter found his "hook" once the town chair in Fulton gave his quote that at 779 level, people need to begin filling sandbags.

Not only is that an incorrect statement by an elected local official who should know better, but it conjures images of 2008, when this area endured what is called the "500 year" flood -- when hundreds of homeowners were indeed rushing to find sandbags, and the rest of us were filling those sandbags on behalf of our waterfront community.

It is always hard to educate reporters to tell an accurate story when the issues are complex, the regulations are cumbersome, and their column inches are finite. And so much easier just to seek out someone's opinion, regardless of accuracy, that gives equal weight to facts and science -- not one chart was published to accompany this piece.

In this case, the facts were presented and ignored.

Linking SNW orders to DNR operating orders yet again demostrates how little time reporters and tovn governments spend understanding complex issues.

Perhaps because none of them live on our shorelines.