Throughout the history of the Red Cedar River Basin there has been much interest directed towards water resource management issues. Collaborative efforts of agencies on the local, state, and federal levels along with local governments, industry, municipalities, academics, organizations and area citizens have made significant progress towards addressing these issues, but there still remains much to be done.

Monitoring and Research

The Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources (DNR) and others have conducted a significant amount of monitoring and research in the Red Cedar River Basin since the early 1990's. These studies generally focused on the water quality and fisheries of lakes, rivers and streams in the basin. A major water quality study was conducted by DNR in 1989-1990 that measured the nutrient and sediment load to Tainter Lake. Other studies looked at aquatic plant growth and dissolved oxygen levels in the Red Cedar River and its tributaries. Lake monitoring studies have been completed on numerous lakes in the upper Red Cedar River basin, such as Rice Lake, Lake Chetec, Red Cedar Lake. Recently, extensive fish surveys were conducted on the Red Cedar River and its tributaries and Tainter Lake and Lake Menomin.

As a result of a 1989-1990 water quality study, it was found that Tainter Lake received about 700,000 pounds of phosphorus from its watershed. Of the total phosphorus load, about 10% was from point sources, including municipal and industrial discharges, and the remaining 90% was from non point sources, which include crop land and barnyard runoff, construction site and stream bank erosion, and failing septic systems

State and Federal Programs

A variety of state and federal sponsored programs have targeted the reduction of sediment and phosphorus loads from non point sources in the basin. Portions of the Red Cedar River Basin have been the focus of three Non point Source Priority Watersheds since 1979, including the Hay River (completed in 1989), and the ongoing Yellow River and the South Fork Hay River watersheds. These Priority Watershed projects are managed by county land and water conservation departments and provide cost sharing to landowners to implement Best Management Practices (BMPs) such as reduced tillage, contour strips, stormwater management, conservation buffers and nutrient management. In addition to these Priority Watershed projects the County Land and Water Conservation Departments have been working at the local level to further understand and address land and water resource issues and concerns. These departments along with such agencies as the Natural Resource Conservation Service provide educational, technical and conservation planning assistance.

Recently, the state grant program Targeted Runoff Management (TRM) has been targeted in the basin to provide financial assistance to rural and urban governmental units to install BMPs. These TRM grants are being used to fund a stormwater BMP installation in the Wilson Creek watershed near Menomonie, development of a stormwater management plan for the City of Menomonie and install rural BMPs in the Lake Desair watershed.

In addition to a focus on non-point source pollutants there have been significant improvements made with point sources in recent years. There are currently 15 municipal and industrial point sources that discharge to surface waters in the Red Cedar River basin. Since implementation of new state laws in 1990, point sources in the basin have reduced their phosphorus loads by 58 percent. However, as these communities grow, further limitations in phosphorus discharges will likely be needed.

Other point sources include industries like the Jennie-O Turkey Store in Barron. In addition to making improvements at their waste water treatment plant they recently received a revised animal waste permit that regulates the amount of phosphorus and other nutrients added to fields as turkey manure. The anticipated effect of the revised permit will be to greatly reduce phosphorus losses from thousands of acres of crop land in the Red Cedar basin.

Addition improvements in the basin are likely to come as a result of the statewide Non-Point Source rules that became effective October 1, 2002. The most significant set of environmental rules in the history of this state are now completed. These rules address the largest source of water pollution&emdash;polluted runoff. Once published, some provisions in the rules may be implemented this fall.

Local efforts

In 1995, as a pilot project was initiated by the DNR and UW-Extension. to involve local partners in water quality planning and programming on a watershed scale. This project has since evolved into the formation of a Partnership that involves stakeholders including participation and leadership from local industry, farmers, academics, conservation groups, environmentalists, wastewater treatment plants, and local governments. This project initially involved financial support from an Environmental Protection Agency grant. Over the last several years those funds were used to help support demonstration, education and monitoring projects throughout the basin.

More recently, a workgroup began meeting in November 2001 to develop a Total Maximum Daily Load (TMDL) project in the Red Cedar River Basin. This effort is another step towards addressing water quality issues in the basin. A TMDL is the maximum amount of pollutants a river or lake can receive and still meet water quality standards... During development of a TMDL for the Red Cedar River Basin, water quality goals will be established to help improve problems due to excessive nutrients and algae in the lakes. The TMDL will also include an implementation strategy that identifies what needs to be done, and by whom, in order to achieve the goals. The work group is made up of representatives from lake associations, government agencies, industry and private individuals.