Township, DNR team up to restore wetlands, prevent floods

Town of Mount Pleasant -- Someday soon the deep channel known as the Upper Pike River may become a meandering stream, home to a bounty of fish and fauna and flanked by a well-used bike path.

Such a scene may be 10 years in the future, but if not for an innovative approach taken by representatives of the Racine County township and the Department of Natural Resources, it likely would not happen at all.

In 1997, as town officials considered litigation against the DNR, both sides entered into a six-month facilitation process that culminated in a flood prevention and wetlands restoration proposal each could agree on. Now, as a Racine engineering firm prepares the plans, observers are calling both the process and the proposal models for the rest of the state.

"This project is happening in large part because people in the DNR were willing to sit down with the people of Mount Pleasant," said Tim Ehlinger, an associate professor of biological sciences at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee who provided information for the township during the process. "The process took months to complete, by which time both sides learned from one another and came up with a good approach."

"This is certainly a true partnership between the drainage district and the town," said Michael Luba, a natural resources basin supervisor for the DNR who oversees the Pike River watershed.

To understand the significance of this project, one must go back to the earliest days of settlement in central Racine County. During the 1870s, farmers channeled the shallow river to reduce flooding and increase the acreage available for agriculture. For the next 100 years, the Upper Pike River was little more than a drainage ditch, carrying runoff and sediment downstream toward Lake Michigan.

Throughout the period, the surrounding acres remained largely farmland. After 1970, however, growing demand for low-density housing began to persuade some farmers to sell their land to developers. Others sold their dairy herds and shifted to row crops.

In the early 1990s, the Southeastern Wisconsin Regional Planning Commission began an effort to prevent flood damage to homes and crops in the watershed and to restore the wetlands habitat. The Mount Pleasant Drainage District No. 1 later adopted a plan to control flooding by deepening the channel. The DNR, however, refused to permit the construction, declaring that the dredging would damage the remaining wetlands and kill the plants and insects that provided food for the river's fish.

The drainage district retained a lawyer before both sides agreed to meet twice a month. "The final results are astounding," said Ron Meyer, director of planning and development for the Town of Mount Pleasant.

The drainage district would pay upwards of $10 million to build a floodwater storage basin and restore as many as 45 acres of wetlands, wet prairies and grasslands along 5.5 miles of the Pike River. Construction is expected to take between five and 10 years.

Crispell-Snyder Inc., of Racine, recently submitted a 50-percent design plan detailing half of the project. The proposal shows where the stream would be located, how much earth would have to be removed, where the excavation material would be stored and the preliminary boundaries for a buffer zone, Luba said.

The firm is working on a 90-percent review plan that is scheduled for completion by the end of January. If the project moves on schedule, construction and/or land acquisition could begin sometime this summer, said Bill Sasse, a project manager with Crispell-Snyder.

Although similar projects have been undertaken in other states, the Pike River project would be the largest of its kind in Wisconsin, Ehlinger said. Moreover, the project is unique in that it combines efforts to create new floodplains, mitigate the risk of flooding, and stabilize and slope riverbanks to control erosion, he said.

The drainage district's primary objective, however, is flood control. As such, the engineers are drafting plans to remove as many as 100 structures and eight bridges from the floodplain by expanding the stream and allowing it to meander. In effect, the floodplain would become smaller by providing the narrow channel more room to overflow its banks. Only a few buildings might have to be moved, Sasse said.

The project would provide townspeople a five-mile-long environmental corridor supporting migrating birds, wildlife and a greater diversity of fish than the stream has at present.

"It's a natural storm sewer, but it also would be open space and a buffer for the ecosystem," said Meyer, the town planner. "We would also have bike paths, which is nice, and other forms of passive recreation."

The engineers are designing an Upper Pike River as it has never existed before.

Historically the watershed was a large wetland, less a river than a swamp in places. The project "will restore a more natural stream situation," said the DNR's Luba, at a time when development pressure threatens to intensify land uses in areas most susceptible to flooding.

The DNR rejected the drainage district's original plan, Luba said, because it did not include any river restoration work or wetland protection. The revised project "maintains a lot of wetlands in wetland condition, provides a lot of floodplain storage and also provides an environmental corridor, which, from a biological standpoint, the department looks upon very favorably," he said.

Although the drainage district has been studying the watershed for years, recent flooding along the Menomonee River and Lincoln Creek in Milwaukee has raised public awareness about the likelihood of 100-year floods.

Indeed, as the Milwaukee Metropolitan Sewerage District prepares to build an 11-acre wetland and storm water retention pond at Havenwoods State Forest, restoring the concrete-lined Lincoln Creek to something like the present Pike River, the Pike is being remade as well.

"The only way we can help waterways is by getting the message out to people that they are important," said Ehlinger, of UWM. "They aren't just `wet land.'"

Many agree the time is right to restore the watershed, before urban growth adds more runoff to the channel. Ehlinger's research found that as more and more people build homes and factories in the watershed, runoff would increase water flows during heavy rains and erode the banks still further. Over time, more silt and sediment would be carried downstream, he said.

Widening the stream and lining the banks with prairie grasses would help reduce erosion. Such efforts would improve the ecosystem as well, Ehlinger said.

"There's really a lot of good biology going on in there," the professor said. "Further downstream, we see migratory fish from Lake Michigan: steelhead salmon, minnow species and creek chubs."

Ehlinger also uncovered evidence that underwater springs are helping to maintain water quality in the stream, increasing the likelihood that the watershed will support more birds and wildlife.

"It will be a more sustainable ecosystem, certainly more diverse in structure and in habitat than it is today," Ehlinger said. "A lot that happens will depend on the watershed and upon surface water ordinances" the DNR and others are encouraging neighboring municipalities to adopt.

The Town of Mount Pleasant prides itself on being in the forefront of storm water quality management, Meyer said. The approach is especially important as farmland has been converted into residential uses.

The township has more than $1.1 billion in property value, the 12^th largest municipality in terms of value in southeastern Wisconsin. 1998 was the township's biggest year ever, Meyer said, adding $80 million in new development.

Meyer views the Upper Pike River project as an "environmental enhancement." Although it likely will require land acquisition, reducing the amount of acreage available for development, the development that occurs adjacent to the restored floodplain will be at less risk of flooding and will have the benefit of proximity to open space, he said.

"From a land standpoint, I don't think it will make much difference," he said. "And I think it will make development more cohesive and environmentally sensitive near the open space."

In the end, Meyer and others are pleased with the facilitation process and the final product.