Advertise on podcast: Wisconsin Water News

People searching online for control options related to unwanted plants that grow in lakes and rivers use many different terms. Some call them “lake weeds,” other call them “freshwater seaweed,” still others “cabbage.” Rarely do people search with the same terms that natural resource managers and scientists use, such as the plants’ Latin names or the more formal, “submerged aquatic vegetation.” These are findings of a study on internet keyword search terms conducted by University of Wisconsin-Madison researchers that was recently published in the “Journal of Aquatic Plant Management.” Wisconsin Sea Grant Aquatic Invasive Species Outreach Specialist Tim Cambell explains that how people search for information about aquatic plants is critical for guiding professionals on best practices for educational programming and outreach. Such education could also steer people away from the ineffective and potentially harmful use of herbicides in lakes and toward more ecologically sound solutions.

We all know that oil spills pollute water. But what might be news is that they can also trigger the release of natural pollutants when the spills reach groundwater. This pollution domino effect is the topic of a current Water Resources Institute-funded study by Matt Ginder-Vogel at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. He’s working with investigators Beth Parker from the University of Guelph and Jessica Meyer from the University of Iowa. The team found the perfect real-world location for their two-year experiment in Cottage Grove, Wisconsin, which is about 12 miles east of Madison. This is the site of multiple past organic hydrocarbon (or oil) spills from an organic solvent recycling plant.

Wisconsin ski hills face multiple challenges due to changing snow conditions from climate disruption, plus changes in skier behavior. However, Wisconsin researchers Austin Holland and Natalie Chin found that the state’s ski operators are adapting to meet these challenges. Their study was published in the journal, “Environmental Research Communications.”

On a sunny morning in mid-June 2024, the Phoenix, University of Wisconsin-Green Bay’s research vessel, headed out onto the bay. Aboard were Sea Grant researchers Emily Tyner and Bill Sallak and a small mound of recording equipment. It was piloted by Chris Houghton, assistant professor and fish ecologist, who was assisted by first mate, undergraduate student Jacob Hoffman. The bay tour was only supposed to last for three hours but like in the theme song for the “Gilligan’s Island” television show, a mishap was involved. Tyner and Sallak’s project is associated with the development of a national estuarine research reserve on the bay. It will be the third reserve on the Great Lakes after Old Woman Creek in Ohio on Lake Erie and the Lake Superior Reserve in Superior, Wisconsin. They planned to record natural noises from the bay, particularly bird sounds. Their target: the Cat Island Chain, restored barrier islands in the bay that have created new habitat for migrating and nesting shorebirds. Tyner and Sallak plan to make the sounds of the bay available in a presentation and online. They hope it will connect the community to the bay, which has been shunned in the past due to environmental issues.

In a new study, natural foams and water surface microlayers of 43 Wisconsin rivers and lakes were found to contain 36 compounds in a group of chemicals known as PFAS. While PFAS were detected in both the foam and the water surface, it’s the foams that the researcher said were orders of magnitude higher in PFAS concentration compared to water, and they urge people and their pets to avoid them. The study also revealed that foams, generally off-white and found along shorelines on windy days, are not an indicator of elevated contamination levels in the entire water body. Leading the project is Christy Remucal with the University of Wisconsin-Madison Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering and interim director of the University of Wisconsin Aquatic Sciences Center.

Researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison have detected a suite of new viruses in five species of Wisconsin sport fish. Although none pose a threat to human health, one is a type of coronavirus that’s usually associated with birds. It was found in healthy walleyes from Wisconsin lakes. The finding is part of a Wisconsin Sea Grant-funded study by Tony Goldberg, a professor in the Department of Pathobiological Sciences, of the natural diversity of viruses of fish in Wisconsin and is the first project of its kind in North America.

Leaders in several northern Wisconsin counties and cities were chosen to participate in a Lake Superior Climate Champions Program organized by Wisconsin Sea Grant and the Lake Superior National Estuarine Research Reserve in 2023. The program provided funding and guidance to two teams to work on goals of their choosing that addressed climate change. Hear what they worked on and other outcomes of this unique program.

What is marine debris, what are its impacts and what can we do about it? These are the central messages of a play written on behalf of Wisconsin Sea Grant by David Daniel with American Players Theatre of Wisconsin. “Me and Debry,” is a half-hour, whimsical, audience-participation play about litter (or marine debris) in the Great Lakes. It had its “world premiere” in Wisconsin’s Door County in October 2022 and it was performed three times at the Gilmore Fine Arts School in Racine, Wisconsin, for fifth- and sixth-grade students in May 2023. The play’s script has been fine-tuned through these performances and is now available for others to use for free, complete with props. Ginny Carlton, Wisconsin Sea Grant’s education outreach specialist, discussed the play with the Wisconsin Water News host and also why schools or other educational institutions might be interested in performing it.

A new report published by the University of Wisconsin-Madison found that Wisconsin’s rural residents perceived significant risks to water quality from pesticides, PFAS (which are per- and poly-fluoroalkyl substances) and excess nutrients. They also ranked water as very or extremely important for supporting wildlife and for hunting and fishing, in addition to home uses such as drinking and cleaning. These findings regarding groundwater and surface water are based on a study by UW-Madison professors, including Michael Cardiff via a research project funded by the University of Wisconsin Water Resources Institute. The report, entitled, “Rural Resident Perceptions of Wisconsin’s Waters” is available for free download from the Water Resources Institute website.

Wisconsin Sea Grant’s Anne Moser has learned enough about wastewater treatment to create “Plastic Panic,” a grab-and-go kit that formal and nonformal educators can use to teach about plastic pollution in the Great Lakes, specifically, microplastics. The colorful artwork in the “grab-and-go” kit both educates and enthralls it audiences.

Michael Notaro with the University of Wisconsin-Madison is teaching Wisconsin school children the similarities in snowflakes to share the wonder of nature and information about the Great Lakes climate, but also to expand an international environmental database.

How do you make a park in the middle of Lake Superior accessible to people with disabilities? Natalie Chin and Marie Zhuikov from Wisconsin Sea Grant had the chance to travel to Stockton Island in the Apostle Islands National Lakeshore to see first-hand what the park is doing to make it more accessible.

A report published recently by Wisconsin Sea Grant cites a lack of housing as a major barrier to development of nature-based jobs in Wisconsin’s northern tier. This includes Douglas, Ashland, Bayfield and Iron counties. This episode features interviews with the report authors and panel members from a webinar about the report, “Workforce Needs for Nature-Based Solutions in Wisconsin’s Northern Tier.”

Sea Grant-funded researchers Sandra McLellan and Gyaneshwar Prasad, both with the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, are building on previous research to find ways to decomplicate beach managers’ lives by determining what factors could limit long-term survival of E. coli on beaches. They are also in the process of developing a scorecard for the potential of long-term E. coli reservoirs for each of the six Lake Michigan beaches they are studying.

High water levels in Lake Michigan since 2013 have caused erosion rates that are faster than usual, especially in 2020, when lake levels set records. This has created an urgent need to know more about erosion processes along and in the lake. Lucas Zoet with the University of Wisconsin-Madison Department of Geoscience and his research team are looking at bluff erosion and sediment movement at two Wisconsin sites along Lake Michigan. They’re doing the project in a holistic way to better understand erosion rates and where the eroding sediment goes. This information will help guide shore protection and bluff stabilization processes and preserve beaches for recreation.