{"id":3515,"date":"2016-07-07T10:42:09","date_gmt":"2016-07-07T15:42:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.wisconsin.edu\/for-wisconsin\/?post_type=campus_story&p=3515"},"modified":"2016-07-07T10:43:24","modified_gmt":"2016-07-07T15:43:24","slug":"uw-stout-red-cedar-river-reinvestment","status":"publish","type":"campus_story","link":"https:\/\/www.wisconsin.edu\/all-in-wisconsin\/story\/uw-stout-red-cedar-river-reinvestment\/","title":{"rendered":"UW-Stout leads Red Cedar River reinvestment"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"UW-Stout_RedCedarRiverReinvestment_LAKES4_algae\"<\/a>
Blue-green algae flows into Lake Menomin in Menomonie. A new watershed partnership project, with $500,000 in funding, will focus on the social impact of water quality in the Red Cedar River watershed.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Menomonie, Wis. \u2014\u00a0Local and regional partners in a new collaborative effort, led by University of Wisconsin-Stout, the Department of Natural Resources and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, are ready to harness their resources to improve water quality in the Red Cedar River watershed.<\/p>\n

The DNR recently awarded a $200,000 lake protection grant to the project, and the Army Corps has committed $300,000 in water quality assessment funding from 2016 through 2018 to identify solutions and implement them to help reduce toxic blue-green algae blooms in the nearly 1,900-square mile watershed across 10 west-central Wisconsin counties.<\/p>\n

The project, called the Red Cedar River Water Quality Partnership, includes other government agencies and organizations that have been working on the problem for more than 25 years.<\/p>\n

The impact of the toxic algae blooms that turn the water green stretches from lakes Tainter and Menomin in Menomonie to the Chetek chain of lakes in Barron County and to the headwaters of the Red Cedar River on Big Chetac Lake near Birchwood.<\/p>\n

The significance of the new effort is threefold: The sizable amount of funding, the sheer number of groups on board and the decision to include social impact as part of the research process to identify solutions.<\/p>\n

\"Nels<\/a>
Nels Paulson<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Nels Paulson, an associate professor of sociology at UW-Stout, has co-led three summers of undergraduate research through the separately funded LAKES REU \u2014 research experience for undergraduates, www.uwstout.edu\/lakes<\/a>. He said the most significant aspect of RCRWQP is likely the expanded social science research.<\/p>\n

LAKES students have documented how poor water quality affects recreation, tourism, real estate and, therefore, the economy and quality of life in the affected areas. LAKES already has shown that improved water quality would boost the Menomonie area economy by $36.6 million a year, conservatively. The new funding will help complete a full social science analysis of the problem.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe DNR and Army Corps have been wanting to integrate more social science into water quality research projects. With this knowledge, we can help empower the community to clean up the watershed,\u201d Paulson said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen organizations get together, that\u2019s how you get more research done. We\u2019re expanding on the research efforts we\u2019re doing and want to be a pilot for how to do this across the state in the future. I\u2019ve been told that nothing like this has ever been done before,\u201d Paulson added.<\/p>\n

Patrick \u201cBuzz\u201d Sorge, lake grants coordinator for the DNR\u2019s west-central region, agrees. \u201cI\u2019m extremely excited about this and the potential outcome,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\"LAKES<\/a>
LAKES REU students at UW-Stout visit an area farm in 2014 as they conduct research on the social impact of poor water quality in the Red Cedar River watershed.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Seeking answers in social science<\/strong><\/p>\n

Sorge credits LAKES for revealing the scope of the problem beyond its root cause, which is excessive phosphorous in the watershed\u2019s streams, rivers and lakes.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe biophysical chemistry is the \u2018what\u2019 so to speak. We\u2019ve got a lot of \u2018what\u2019 out there. The social science will be the \u2018how do we get this done,\u2019 and the \u2018how\u2019 is really important,\u201d Sorge said. \u201cIt was really the LAKES REU students who gave us these insights.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve got to change the paradigm to solve these water quality problems. By allowing all this to happen in one major project is outstanding, and to have one of our state university institutions practice the Wisconsin Idea also is very rewarding,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

The purpose of the social science assessment is to identify the major attitudinal, normative, economic and cultural factors that shape land use decisions and community incentives and policies, according to Paulson and Sorge. \u201cBy distinguishing such variables the local townships, cities and counties can move forward with ways to grow their community capacity for changing land use norms and practices and improve water resources and quality of life in the Red Cedar basin,\u201d Paulson said.<\/p>\n

\"Eniola<\/a>
Eniola Afolayan, a UW-Stout LAKES researcher from University of Mary Washington in Virginia, talks about her project during a 2015 community presentation at the Raw Deal in Menomonie.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Paulson, Sorge and the Army Corps don\u2019t expect the decades-old water quality problems to magically be solved in the next three years, but RCRWQP can build the foundation for change in the near future.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is foundational work that hopefully will allow the rest of the work to move forward at a quicker and more appropriate scale. This doesn\u2019t work if we get 30 to 50 percent of pollution sources under control. We need to be 70 to 90 percent. Then you\u2019ll see lakes Tainter and Menomin look much different in August,\u201d Sorge said.<\/p>\n

RCRWQP will get underway this summer through more LAKES research and with the hiring of a research coordinator.<\/p>\n

The Army Corps\u2019 $300,000 commitment will provide modeling and water quality monitoring tools and some staff support for the project, said Nate Campbell, a biologist and project manager for the Army Corps\u2019 St. Paul district. The Army Corps will work directly with UW-Stout biology instructor Bill James, a former Army Corps employee, and other professors.<\/p>\n

The hard science of water testing needs to tie in with social science research \u201cto really get things done in a watershed,\u201d Campbell said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re really excited to be involved. It\u2019s rare to see so many groups working together. With UW-Stout\u2019s work in outreach, we saw this as a cool opportunity to get involved with something that\u2019s been on the forefront of where water assessment is going,\u201d Campbell said.<\/p>\n

A collaborative effort<\/strong><\/p>\n

Along with Paulson and James, support from UW-Stout includes; Chris Ferguson, economics; Tina Lee, anthropology; the Discovery Center; Research Services; and others.<\/p>\n

Along with UW-Stout, the DNR and the Army Corps, other entities and groups involved in RCRWQP include: UW-Extension, Dunn County, Barron County, City of Menomonie, West Central Wisconsin Regional Planning Commission, Natural Resource Conservation Service, Tainter\/Menomin Lake Improvement Association, Red Cedar Lakes Association, Chetek Lakes Protection Association, Big Chetac and Birch Lakes Association, Desair Lake Restoration, 3M Corp., West Wisconsin Land Trust and Farmers Union.<\/p>\n

The watershed includes about 40,000 acres of open water and 4,900 miles of waterways, according to the RCRWQP plan, A River Runs Through Us: A Water Quality Strategy for the Land and Waters of the Red Cedar River Basin. The plan can be seen at http:\/\/naturalresources.uwex.edu\/redcedar\/publications.html<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Red Cedar basin is an outstanding place to live. Improving water quality and quality of life \u2014 that\u2019s the end game,\u201d Sorge said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Menomonie, Wis. \u2014\u00a0Local and regional partners in a new collaborative effort, led by University of Wisconsin-Stout, the Department of Natural Resources and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, are ready to harness their resources to improve water quality in the Red Cedar River watershed. The DNR recently awarded a $200,000 lake protection grant to the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":15,"featured_media":3518,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","institution":[90],"story_category":[],"class_list":["post-3515","campus_story","type-campus_story","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","institution-uw-stout"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wisconsin.edu\/all-in-wisconsin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/campus_story\/3515","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wisconsin.edu\/all-in-wisconsin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/campus_story"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wisconsin.edu\/all-in-wisconsin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/campus_story"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wisconsin.edu\/all-in-wisconsin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/15"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wisconsin.edu\/all-in-wisconsin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3515"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wisconsin.edu\/all-in-wisconsin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3518"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wisconsin.edu\/all-in-wisconsin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3515"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"institution","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wisconsin.edu\/all-in-wisconsin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/institution?post=3515"},{"taxonomy":"story_category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wisconsin.edu\/all-in-wisconsin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/story_category?post=3515"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}