By Patricia Bogumil
Editor
Professional opinions mixed with strongly held conventional wisdom and sometimes clashed with personal observations when about 100 people met Monday at the Waterford Village Hall to ask questions about a Fox River winter drawdown and other issues with the Norway-Dover Drainage District.
At meeting’s end, residents went home with updates from state, county and drainage district officials. They also left with assurances that changes being proposed by area drainage districts cannot be made without public notification so everyone can have a chance to participate in the decision-making.
The March 23 meeting was hosted by the Village of Waterford in response to residents’ concerns about dredging and drawdown permit applications filed with the state by the Racine County Board of Drainage Commissioners – and which are currently under review.
The Norway-Dover district is one of five local drainage districts run by the Racine County Board of Drainage Commissioners. It includes the Village of Rochester and portions of the towns of Norway, Dover and Waterford.
Some residents have complained that actions by the drainage district board have not been conducted in a public, transparent way.
That notion puzzled Alan Jasperson, the drainage board’s secretary/treasurer. He read to the audience a letter emailed in 2010 to the Village advising of the statutory need to take action to keep drainage ditches clean.
“We have been open, we have been transparent,” Jasperson said. “Now, after 6 years of working, something has stirred the nest up here.”
“That’s because the public has become educated,” one audience member replied, as others nodded their heads and voiced agreement.
The format of Monday’s meeting was limited to brief presentations by state and area officials, followed by a reading of questions submitted in writing by more than a dozen residents, followed by a brief answer to each question.
The format did not allow for a dialogue or give-and-take conversation between the audience and officials.
The drainage district board asked the state Department of Natural Resources last fall for permission for a temporary drawdown of the Rochester dam to prepare for a dredging project.
The permit was not given in time for dredging to start last year, but Jasperson told the crowd one canal badly in need of cleaning hasn’t been cleaned in 55 years. Without such maintenance, infrastructure like Highway K will end up under water, Jasperson warned.
He said high winter water levels cause erosion in the spring meltdown, bringing topsoil and grass into the ditches.
When asked if the canals could be deepened rather than lowering river water levels, Jasperson said that is not an option.
“There’s no way to deepen the drainage ditches because we have no fall, they’re flat, they’re flat as a pancake,” he said.
In answer to a question about the impact on Waterford properties caused by a Rochester Dam drawdown, Nathan Zoch, a DNR water management engineer, said the Rochester Dam should not affect water levels above the Waterford Dam. “It would have to be due to the operation of the Waterford Dam,” he said.
His comments drew some headshaking from several audience members. Julie Anderson, director of Racine County Public Works, responded that per the DNR, all water levels have to be maintained at certain levels.
Even though Racine County owns the Rochester Dam, “our role in this permitting process is almost non-existent,” Anderson told the crowd. “We don’t have a final say.”
The Racine County Drainage District operates the dam with Racine County in accordance with the DNR, explained engineer Mark Madsen.
The applications submitted to the DNR for dredging and for a permanent winter drawdown are currently incomplete, said Elaine Johnson, a DNR Water Regulations and Zoning Specialist.
The public will be notified and given a 30-day comment period and a public hearing will be held before the DNR makes a decision to deny/approve/modify the permit requests, she said.
How to stay in the information loop
- The Village of Waterford is posting information about the DNR permit requests, and their status, online at www.waterfordwi.org/384/FoxRiver. People can also sign up under “Notify Me” on the web page to receive notifications of updated Fox River information, including the permit request for the permanent annual drawdown, other DNR permit requests, proposed and planned projects, and other news.
- Waterway and wetland permit applications submitted to the DNR can also be tracked and viewed online by visiting http://dnr.wi.gov/permits/water/, hitting the “track” button, and entering the DNR permit docket number in the search criteria.
- The Racine County Board of Drainage Commissioners applied for two DNR Chapter 30 waterway permits on Dec. 7, 2012 for the Norway-Dover Farm Drainage District, which includes portions of the Town of Norway, towns of Dover and Waterford, Village of Rochester and the Norway Sanitary District.
One permit application is to dredge the Wind Lake and Goose Lake Branch Canals (DNR permit docket number IP-SE-2012-52-05674).
The second is a requested change to the operational order of the Rochester Dam (DNR permit docket number IP-SE-2012-52-05673) to allow for an annual run-of-river winter drawdown (Oct. 1-March 1) and lower minimum water levels during certain high flow events.
The application materials can be viewed online at the website.
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