Airport Commission - Noise Abatement Subcommittee - Regular Meeting

I'll call the meeting to order. And Kyle, will you call the roll? Can you do me a favor when you call the roll? Let everybody answer and say who they are so I can put it with a face.

Oh, sure. Absolutely. So I have Supervisor Andre? Andre.

Yep. So new appointee to the commission. I'm on the county board. It's my fourth term now on the county board, mostly cheering our justice system committee. So that's mostly... where I have a lot of interest and some knowledge at this point. But I do have lakefront property. I have Shorewood is in my district. So I'm the near west side of Mabson and very delighted to be on the commission and dive into a new policy area. Look forward to working with all of you. Thanks.

Great.

Allen Levin.

Okay. I've been on forever.

Kyle can't go back that far in the records.

And I represent YLA on the board. YLA, as I mentioned, was sort of special addition when the commission was developed. And as far as I'm concerned, I sort of represent all the riparians on the lake, on the lakes and rivers.

Ellen, what does YLA stand for?

We are a lakes association.

That's great. Thank you.

Sherry Gruder.

Hi, I am Sherry Gruder and I am a I was with UW Extension for 35 years as state specialist in sustainable design and energy. And I am the county execs appointee to the commission. And I've done a lot of more land applied studies and research. but I am an ecologist, an assistance ecologist. So this kind of goes back to my training roots and I'm glad to be here.

Thank you. Supervisor Blazewicz.

Yeah, I'm Dan Blazewicz. It's my second term on the commission, also my second term on the county board. I've been in public works committees, but in this term I'm on ENER as well as land conservation committee. I'm a, in my daytime, I'm a supply chain manager and commodity manager for electronic components and also come out of UW with a background in environmental economics.

Phil, are you available?

I am, I was just trying to get my camera on here before I start talking. Phil Gabler, I'm a water resource engineer at the City of Madison and do things flood reduction and water quality modeling.

Thanks, Phil. Supervisor Downing.

Pat Downing here. I'm starting my 21st year on the Dane County Board. And representing the southwest corner of the county, five towns, two villages, Mount Horeb and Belleville, Perry, Primrose, Springdale, Montrose, and Blue Mounds. I've not served on this one before. Looking forward to it. And nice to meet you all.

Thanks, Supervisor Downing. Steve Greb. He's excused, sorry, missing him. So he is a citizen representing the towns. And then I also have Dia Larson Converse. She's also excused tonight. She's a citizen representing Madison. And then Supervisor Engelberger.

Mike Engelberger, I'm fifth year on the county board. I'm the chair of the Public Works and Transportation Committee. The last two years and this year again. And I've been on the Land Conservation Committee for a term and I was on the Lakes and Watershed last term. So it's my second term on the Lakes and Watershed. I'm also a commissioner on the Dunkirk Dam Lake District, which is south of Stoneman, at the dam that's two miles south of Stoneman.

And then I have Brett Schumacher.

I'm Brett Schumacher. I come to you guys first time on this committee at all. Come to you through DCCVA, the Dane County Cities and Villages Association. I'm also the current president of Stoughton City Council and One of the team leads on Renew the Blue with the Clean Lakes Alliance. My background is microbiology. I work for the big biotech for MEGA. So molecular biology, biochemistry, all that stuff.

He's back. We do have quorum. Okay. And we'll proceed with elections for officers, I guess.

Yeah, I'd like to nominate Supervisor Blasewicz as chair.

I'll second the nomination. Are there any further nominations? Anybody online? Okay, nomination is closed, I guess, by acclamation then. Do I have to call a vote? I don't think I do. I think it's unanimous. Yep.

Congratulations.

Thank you. Great. I know we have a fairly full agenda, so I won't waste any time. The next item on the agenda is election of vice chair. I'd like to open the floor to nominations.

I'll nominate Alan as the vice chair.

Any other nominations?

I need a second, I guess.

I'll second it.

Yeah, I don't think you need that. You'll second? I'll take it.

All right. Do we have any other nominations online? I'll consider nominations closed and with no other nominees declared by acclamation that Alan Levin is elected vice chair.

I have a point of affirmation. I noticed, having read all the statutes again,

we're supposed to nominate a secretary. That is in the statutes. Historically, there has never been a secretary nominated.

I don't ever remember it.

Yeah, I think partially because there's staff at our level to do the minutes and post everything.

We haven't thrown us in jail yet. The night is young.

All right. Uh, well, uh, that's great. Uh, good. Congratulations, Alan. Um, all right. So moving on to see consideration of minutes, what's before us are the minutes from the March 4th, 2026 lakes and watershed commission. Um, do I have a motion motion to approve? Second.

Downing would like to abstain.

I'll abstain as well.

I was impaired by Engelberger second by 11. Um, any. Discussion, corrections, concerns? All right.

Did you hear my abstention?

Yes, Downing abstains.

Thank you.

All right. All in favor of approval, say aye. Aye. All opposed?

I'll sign an abstention on that one, too. Sure. Participate in it.

All right, so approved. Moving on to D, referrals, resolutions and ordinance amendments. What's before us is 2026.08.005, amending chapter 71 of the Dane County Code of Ordinances regarding the icebound lakes of Dane County. Do I have a motion? Approved.

Motion to recommend approval.

Move by Engelberger. Kyle, are we going to have a... Sure.

I can give a little overview to fill folks in? Certainly. So before us here is the actual ordinance amendment, I'm actually going to direct folks to our website that we created regarding the ordinance and give a little overview and background for those commission members that are new and probably haven't been tracking this, if that's all right with everyone.

I'm just going to switch my screen here real quick.

No, I didn't read it.

And Kyle, maybe before you go too far into the website, would you also just share a little bit of context for your role?

Oh, yes. I should introduce myself. Thank you. Sorry. Sure. No problem. So my name is Kyle Minx, and I'm the Watershed Manager with the Dane County Land and Water Resources Department. One of my principal roles here within the department is to staff the Lakes and Watershed Commission. So most of the communications you'll see will probably be from myself. In addition to staff here from the department, we also have David Rowe, who's our lakes manager. So oftentimes if you don't get communications from me, you might be getting communications from him. He helps do coverages as well for this commission, if there's any scheduling conflicts from staff. James Broadzeller will be presenting tonight too. I can introduce him once we get his presentation up and kind of what his role is with the department. So from time to time, you'll see some different staff. A lot of what I work on within the watershed team that we have in the department is stream restoration, wetland restoration work, but I also work in supporting the Harrow Winds Initiative for folks that are familiar with that with MMSD and adaptive management, work a lot with CLA on Renew the Blue, a lot of watershed-based initiatives that we have in support throughout the county. And happy to provide more details too for any more questions about that. All right, so shifting over a little bit regarding the ordinance just to give some folks a little bit of an update. So this has been something that the Lakes and Watershed Commission has been working on for probably a little over a year now. I believe we probably started back in February of 2025 in which we started to gather some input and concerns that we were receiving from the public. Usually every year our office along with the Dane County Sheriff's Office oftentimes get questions about why Dane County has these unique restrictions on how ATVs can be used or other modes of transportation on our icebound lakes. So as part of that, working with the sheriff's office, we held kind of some public information meetings where we brought the public in to answer questions. We also had some proposed amendments from the sheriff's department, as well as our department and members of the public on trying to make improvements to those. We brought forth the proposed changes to the commission in the last term and letting folks know kind of what a proposed ordinance amendment might look like. I received some public comment and feedback We also have this website that provides kind of a little bit more of the same thing that I'm sharing with you, the overview of how we collected feedback, what some of the common questions are that we got. And then we worked on drafting an ordinance amendment with Corporation Council, and that was just recently introduced in June at the County Board to go through the formal ordinance amendment process. So is there any questions on what's in the outspoken ordinance? There's a little bit of a summary here, and I can go through what the proposed changes are, at least, if that's helpful for the group.

Yeah, I think going through the proposed changes would be why, yeah, for the new people.

And then if you have questions, I can go into more detail as to why those proposed changes were submitted to. Happy to do that. So starting out, the ICE ordinance covers all of Dane County icebound lakes. The proposed changes that were there is to remove the weight restrictions for motor vehicles. So as it was, or as it is written currently, it puts an 850 pound weight limit for the vehicles that are allowed to be on the icebound lakes. The reasons for a lot of those changes are there are very few manufacturers that still produce a recreational vehicle that's at that weight limit. And so there's also been a large shift in the technology and that we're seeing a lot more what they call UTV type vehicles that are being used by the public instead of ATVs. And if I'm using jargon or you want definitions of what ATV stands for, UTV, I have them up here, but I'm happy to break them down too because We use a lot of alphabet soup in our agencies for sure. In addition to the weight restriction, we also are proposing removing the flotation requirement for those vehicles. The principal reason for that is that there are no commercial manufacturers of flotation devices out there currently. When the ordinance was created, or at least at that time when amendments were made to add that requirement, there was one or two commercial manufacturers, I believe, but to my knowledge, there aren't any out there currently. So most of the flotation you see out there is homemade and once they're trying to create a device that allows that vehicle to float. Other proposed changes in the ordinance is to limit the type of vehicles to what's defined as off-highway recreational vehicles. That's defined in the ordinance as utility terrain vehicles or UTVs, ATVs, which are all terrain vehicles, off-highway motorcycles, snowmobiles that are all registered by the state of Wisconsin or other states. So that's a lot of people are saying, well, are you opening the ordinance to allow all vehicles, including cars and trucks? That's not what the intent is here. It's to just limit it to this defined type of recreational vehicles. In addition to that, the flotation requirements, instead of requiring it to be on the ATV, the proposal here is to require the wearing of a personal flotation device while operating or onboard the off-highway vehicle. The theory behind that or the reasoning is to allow for the individual to flow instead of the unit. So that way, if they are to fall through, the intent of the ordinance is to promote public safety. we have a higher likelihood of them floating instead of them trying to swim back or get access to the floating vehicle to stay afloat. A couple other changes are just defining what the wearable personal flotation devices are, and then additionally creating uniformity across all of our Dane County lakes. When the ordinance was first created, it was really focused on Mendota, Monona, and Wingra, and so there's still Lake Caganza, there's Crystal and Mud Lake, there's a lot of other lakes that we have, and so it wasn't always clear on what type of weight restrictions and flotations were needed on which lakes you were on. So this is to just make it a little bit easier for our Dane County Sheriff's Department to implement the ordinance. Those are the major proposals and those are all reflected pretty much in this ordinance that you have for you. Happy to answer other questions if people need further clarification on that. Amber?

Yes, thanks for the overview. I have been tracking this since commission started working on it because my engagement with the other side of the committee work. So I appreciate that there's been such a robust public engagement process along the way with revisions. Could you just comment in case I get questions from constituents, was there any required public notice to Lakeshore residential owners as part of this, or was it all just through the voluntary sessions, et cetera?

Yeah, so there was no requirement. It was just through the voluntary sessions. We had two opportunities to other participate in person or voluntary. We used our our watershed newsletter that the Department puts out to try to get the word out. I think Wiley even maybe posted.

You know, as I said, I started considering consider consider those my constituents and we do get to them both through a newsletter and the. to those who belong. Obviously, those who don't belong don't get a newsletter. So tell them to belong and don't get a newsletter.

Very good. So lots of general outreach, some targeted outreach through particular organizations, but someone may not have actually received the notice at their home that there's a change here.

Correct. Yes. Yep.

And then just so I understand in practice, what is the current state and are there any changes to the future state under this ordinance change relative to what the responsibility is for if a vehicle does become submerged, what happens and who pays for it.

Yeah, that's a common one that we get. So certainly there are state rules that require that the owner of that vehicle needs to remove that. And working with our deputies at the sheriff's office, they work in close collaboration with... the Department of Natural Resources law enforcement to make sure that those are removed. But there is no local control or requirement in our ordinance that would stipulate that, that's still handled at the state level.

I think Dave has assured us that those vehicles that go in will turn travel float. Dave?

I'm not sure if I'm assured you that. Most ATVs, so the four wheelers are neutrally buoyant and rolls Well, the UTVs definitely do not have that characteristic. And it's a DNR regulation that after so many days it has to be removed or the owner of the vehicle can be fined daily if it's not removed within a certain time period from the state.

That's a state regulation.

So is the way that works, you know, let's say my UTV goes down, We're calling the sheriff and working with your excellent teams. And then does that homeowner get a bill for the time? Or does that new TV owner get a bill for the time and tools and resources that were used to remove the vehicle?

He's on the hook for finding someone to come out and remove it from the lake. So he has to find a contractor that specializes in removal of submerged equipment from Icebound. Someone that's home.

And then... You know, I understand from a vehicle getting pulled out of Minota Bay recently, the sheriff's office and others are still all involved, but that's just what's going on through their regular time. And it's the private contractor who is doing the actual removal that the person is responsible for. Is that correct?

That was a very unique situation because it was a forcibly taken vehicle.

Oh, okay. Thank you. Okay. Very good.

Sure. Questions though.

I should mention too, we also did work with a lot of the EMS departments in the different municipalities, city of Madison, reached out to someone just for rescue teams on if they had any comment or feedback to include with the ordinance. So, yeah.

You know, the one thing it never, oh, I'm sorry.

Yeah, I was just going to say, we've looked at this several meetings now and I'm all in favor of it. I'm going to vote yes on this. The one question I would have is just looking at the actual ordinance, 7199 penalties. The last thing on the ordinance, it says no less than $10, no more than $200 for each offense. Just wondering how old that is, if that should be updated possibly. I mean, if this was done, you know, 35 years ago or whatever, we might want to look at increasing those amounts. And, you know, we can do that by amendment at the board or whatever when it comes to that.

Yeah, I mean, I'm happy to reach out to the sheriff's office since they're the ones that will be issuing the citations. Yeah, and get their feedback. Yeah, right. That's all I have to say.

I actually think that's a pretty good point. And maybe we can find out what similar penalties are in other municipalities that might have similar type rules, Kyle.

Sure. Two points. At one point, we were talking about the fact that the recreational vehicle should be licensed by the DNR. And I just said, And the other thing was, how does this apply to ice boats?

Having a ice boater. That would not be a license or registered. No, it's not.

I know it's not. Okay, because they do go in a cage. It's not motorized?

No, I don't think they are. Oh, the sail. Sorry, the sailing ice boat. Sorry, I was thinking.

Phil has a question on mine. Go ahead, Phil.

Yeah, so my question is, I noticed in the current iteration of the ordinance that it just has wearable flotation from the NR 5.0 code and When I looked at that, it says type three is acceptable. And that includes kind of the floatable winter jackets. There was some discussion in the past about whether that was adequate. I just wanted to make sure everyone was aware that by my read that is now included and it wasn't in the past or was maybe not in the past when we were saying type two. I guess it was more of a heads up.

Thank you, Phil. Do you have any, I know there was some back and forth on that particular topic. Do you have, can you add some context to that?

Yeah, that definitely was one that was raised. We've defaulted to use the state statutes of what's defined as a personal flotation devices. Some of the float suits that Phil alluded to do meet the definitions either of a type three or type TITU, I guess, or any of the types that are listed there, but certainly not all of the float suits that are out there. So it's up to the individual that's purchasing the float suit to make sure that it meets the definition of the types that are available. Because there are a lot of products that would not meet that definition.

Thank you. Any other discussion from the Commission? All right, seeing none, I guess what's before us is approval of OA005. All in favor, say aye. Aye. All opposed, say no. The OA passes. All right, moving on. E, items requiring committee action. Nothing. F, presentations. Overview and environmental impacts of, say it again? Neonicotinoid. Neonicotinoid insecticides.

Great.

I'll do a little introduction while I'm pulling up the presentation here. So James Broadzeller from Dean Conan Landewater is joining us here tonight. He's our lakes and watershed program coordinator. I'll let him do a little bit of introduction on what he specializes in with the department, but He's definitely been tracking a lot of the neonicotinoids, working a lot with the Department of Natural Resources on just gathering information, and then also collaborating with the other divisions we have in land and water on some of the policies and just best practices that you'll see presented here in the presentation. So, James, I'll turn it over to you to give more background about yourself. Good evening, everybody.

Like Kyle mentioned, so I work on Kyle's team, not with the lakes management crew, with Dave over there. Yeah. We cross pollinate a lot, actually. Very integrated. But I work in the ecosystem services program area. So a lot of my work lately has actually been more on the stream and wetland restoration side, predominantly on Dane County properties, not working as much with private landowners, and honestly, a little bit light on the lakeside. So the invite tonight was to provide a brief overview on neonicotinoid, call it neonics for short, so your tongue doesn't fumble. and just some of the implications on Dane County waters and water-based ecosystems. So before I dive into this, I'm just going to preface. I am not a chemist. I am not a toxicologist. I'm not a agronomist. I'm not a certified crop advisor. None of the what you call topical experts that really go along with this. So a lot of this is really just a compilation of stuff pulled out of the scientific literature and information that I've got from current and past colleagues from folks at DNR and USGS and some of the real topical experts. So this presentation will be made available in the minutes come out and I did try to put a lot of references for these materials in here if you wanted to go and get additional information.

And I should just preface to this. This was a requested presentation. Unfortunately, Steve isn't available here this evening. But usually, kind of at the beginning of the calendar year, we oftentimes try to gather. And then throughout the year, too, on just topics the commission is interested in to try to line speakers up to provide you guys more information on those interested areas.

We'll dive in. First and foremost, just what are these things and how do they work? Essentially, they are synthetic nicotine. You can see on the bottom here, imidacloprid is one of, call it kind of the big three of these insecticides in the neonicotinoid category. And you can just see the chemical structure is pretty similar to actual nicotine. So remember back in the day, controlling aphids on your house plants, right? Drop a cigarette and a cup of water. put that on the plant and your aphids go away. So it really is kind of the same approach and how it works. You know, it really ends up disabling your central nervous system, affects your muscles, paralysis, and eventually will result in death or can result in death. How they're used, really three primary applications, largely in the agricultural sector. So going from left to right, the majority of these things are put out there on seed dressings for corn and soybean crops. They also are applied to the plant tissues directly. And then there are a number of household lawn and garden products that have these types of chemicals. And in Wisconsin, and actually we use a lot of this stuff. I think USGS has actually stopped tracking this as of 2023, but this is so annual pesticide use, not just this insecticide category alone, 20 million pounds in the state of Wisconsin alone. And nearly a hundred percent of the seed corn sold in the US is dressed with one of these, some of these unique compounds and 60% of the soybeans. And it's big business, Wisconsin alone, farmers and producers spend 20 to $60 million a year just on the seed dressings, not including some of the other types of applications that are used. And there is a lot, especially in the last 15 years, there's been a lot of international and national studies on this. And they're all really saying the same thing, that these things don't do much for the farmer's bottom line. They're really not that effective. So this is one from the University of Cornell at a pretty big sample size. You can see 678 fields across 22 states and reaching up into some of the southern Canada provinces and really reported 13 and 18% nominal yield increases for corn and soybeans respectively. UW-Madison in their ecology and life sciences program, the UW bean team has been doing a lot of this as well.

Did you say the bean team?

The bean team, yep. So this is a study, everything, this is all farmer source data from kind of call it the Midwest corn belt area. This is not specific to Wisconsin. The farmers provide the data, they throw it into the statistical model. And really what this is telling you, if you can't read the stuff up on the left hand side here, what is important for actually increasing yield in soybeans. And if you look at kind of the top three, when you plant, your sowing dates, where you are, north and south, your latitude, toxo, pH, organic matter, things like that. Going down, fifth from the bottom is using one of these neonic seed treatments. And if you look at what the statistical model, the results that came out of it, Looking at the seed dressing alone, expect about a half a bushel per acre per year yield increase on soybeans. If you focus just on sowing deep and you're in the, call it the kind of a Southern, the optimal hardiness zone. Example, if you plant your beans two weeks later, you can expect to see up to a 12 times greater yield increase of what you're going to expect to get from one bill seed treatments. So a lot of the preaching out of UW and the bean team, they are trying to encourage farmers to, if the forecast and the conditions look right, try to find eating cereal. This is definitely in the emerging contaminant category, kind of similar to PFAS. So like any emerging contaminant, these chemicals have been used for decades. But the science that is pointing to some of the human health and the environmental risk that these pose is relatively new. So primary concern out there right now is that farmers are putting these on their corn and their soybeans to try to control things like aphids and corn rootworms and things like that, but they are having adverse effects on a number of non-target species in Canada. Holster children, for lack of a better term here, are natural invertebrates and are pollinators. And similar to some of the lingering fish advisories we have for things like mercury, right, that may have been a contaminant that entered waters in early to mid 19th century. There also is the bioaccumulation or bio-magnification concern. So, you know, mayflies kind of call it a middle man on the food web, but things like birds and things that feed in those higher order taxes. Touched a little bit on human health. Again, the science is vastly growing as well. In 2024, the Department of Ag did test About 400 private wells across the state, about 40% of them had some detectable level of pesticides. Again, not specifically one of these neonicotinoid insecticides, but over half of the compounds that were detected in those wells are regulated by EPA or state agency. The CDC 2019 We are exposed to these quite frequently. Half of Americans exposed some form or fashion daily. Pregnant and expecting women, birth defects in heart and brain, symptoms indicative of autism, and a pretty wide breadth of cognitive impairments as well. So some of the numbers, just kind of how nasty are these things? The oral LD50 in toxicology is a pretty common laboratory test where if you apply the subject chemical orally, what is the lethal dose to 50% of that population? So honey bees, the LD50, For any of these neonicotinoid insecticides, it's four billionths of a gram, right? Which is kind of maybe hard to wrap your head around how small that is. So some of the common examples that are thrown out, one treated corn seed, say fresh out of the factory, you know, not after it's been planted or sitting in the seed or sitting in a field or watch with grain, can kill up to 250,000 honeybirds or one adult songbird from one kernel of corn. Or the little salt back that you get in the drive-through, you put on your French fries. I don't know what the volume is in that. One of those, purely concentrated neomic, enough to kill 250 million hybrids. So 50 metric tons. So yes. So pretty important stuff. Um, how it moves, uh, across and through the landscape that is, these are, at least the Neonics are what they call hydrophilic compounds. So like water loving. So once they get, uh, you know, in surface runoff or they seep in the ground, they get in the groundwater. They can move very readily into streams, rivers, creeks, lakes, or penetrate further down to the groundwater table. Um, and then focusing on the macroinvertebrate freeze. This is a pretty common schematic that I really like. that shows just how tolerant these macroinvertebrates in our rivers, lakes, and streams are to both organic and synthetic pollution. So you can see kind of the left side, you can see the mayfly is on the top, second in from the left. If there's any trout anglers in the room, The mayfly, the caddisfly, the stonefly, that's what's occupying a lot of their boxes and what they're using to mimic to try to catch the big ones. So we do hear a lot about this throughout the cold water community, but even affects to some of the more tolerant species on the right side of that diagram.

And there's the pull through on toxicity from whatever predation eating on things filled with all that.

So yeah, that's that bioaccumulation, bio magnification. Yes. But they all do behave differently. This is I was just actually talking to some of this information actually comes from Sean Giblin's water quality specialist at DNR. He's on there. Mississippi River team actually, but one of their newer findings, and some of this stuff isn't hydrophilic and it actually partitions out and they're starting to find in sediment in tributaries in the Mississippi River itself. So one of the more concerning specific compounds is bifenthrin, which actually is classified by EPA as a category C, possibly even carcinogen. and has been found in levels above what EPA has. So surface water impacts, just encourage everybody to think about this, right? These ecosystems are very interconnected. The food web concept is a good way to think about it. You take away the bugs, right? The fish don't have anything to eat. The birds don't have anything to eat, the amphibians. it goes up and it also goes back the other way too, right? That's why I'm kind of focusing in on the mayfly as an example, because they're that, call it middleman species in the food web. And they also, you know, they feed on something below that. They eat algae and decaying plants and things like that. So you take away the mayfly, they may be feeding on some kind of invasive or undesirable weed that's in the air. So, And again, we hear a lot of them from trout anglers, just on the mayfly, stonefly-type species, but you could be out on Wabisa fishing for bluegills, and bluegills are eating a lot of the same things. So cold water, warm water, all included. And this is a very appropriate time to be talking about this. I don't know, maybe Dave knows exactly when this hit this year, but anybody that's from the La Crosse area or anywhere that lives around the Mississippi River, The mayfly hatch, which usually starts happening about mid to late June, is a pretty historic event. So I don't know what year this is from. This is not 2026. But it just shows that satellite imagery that these mayfly hatches are so humongous that it gets picked up on radar. And if you can see, it spreads pretty much. My wife's family is from the La Crosse area. So Winona to Sparta, I think, is about an hour drive on the interstate. So I mean, these things can spread 50, 60 miles across. And a lot of the local residents, I was just watching a couple of local news clips, a lot of people absolutely hate it, right? Because they don't literally cover your house, your car, and the gas station pump. DOTs turn off the lights to try to control it. So it's kind of a love-hate relationship. But a lot of people do recognize that when you see numbers like this, it is a sign of a really healthy river system. So I think it's a really cool kind of annual event.

Growing up in Green Bay, we would have to shovel them out and

Yeah, but La Crosse County, when it gets bad, they literally bring out the snowballs.

There's some specific studies looking at vernal hemiphytes, which are your hexagenia, and those that they change their behavior so they leave their burrow and become more exposed to predation. So when James was talking about the neurotoxicity and the neural component, it shows in those benthic invertebrates that they're changing their behavior. specifically burrow and lake-wise.

So we'll transition a little bit into the monitoring piece, kind of the initial statewide or baseline dataset DNR gathered in 2022. A lot of this information comes from Mike Miller, stream ecologist with DNR. So they sampled 100 stream and river sites, kind of broke it up into four categories. That cluster in the southeast corner down by Milwaukee is kind of more of a, you know, a predominant urban or residential landscape and land use. The cluster in the center, Central Sands, so a lot of potato and vegetable cropping up there. Call it the southern two-thirds of the state, just scattered around where it's kind of predominant corn and corn and soybean agriculture. And then statewide, call it reference sites of these lower disturbance watersheds, which are more... natural type of disease. What that data shows, so you'll quickly see kind of that orange is yellow one does stand out. So that's the predominant vegetable land use category. But I think the important thing to note here is that in all the row crop, urban and vegetable categories, the literature, the chronic toxicity. So there's about, I think it's 37 parts per billion acute toxicity level is up at 200 parts of a million. And if you're not familiar with reading these box and whisker plots, wherever you see this X on here, that's your average and the lines of the minerals, the median or the middle value. Really the average and the median for three of those categories is either at or above that product toxicity level. And there was a really wide range, especially in those central sands areas, which we'll talk about a little bit on the next slide. I mean, those numbers are actually off scale and off that chart right there. But this was total pesticides that they tested. This was not just for neonicotinoids. So I want to clarify that. And there was a really wide range, over 2,400 parts per trillion, that median at 98%. So if you do zoom out, so you can see, you know, what that absolute maximum was in the Stevens Point lower area really was an extreme outlier, pretty off the charts. So what the heck is going on there, right? And there's a number of different factors that I think are contributing to that. So, you know, green beans, potatoes, just the amount of pesticides that are being used are significantly higher for those types of crops. lower soil organic matter and sandy, highly permeable soils. So there's not a lot of stuff that these neonics can bind to as they're traveling subsurface to the groundwater before it gets started to a river or creek. and they can either quickly move into a water table that's you know relatively shallow compared to the rest of the state or just kind of the recirculation and the concentration effect as you know they have a lot of high capacity wells and they're using irrigation a lot of those crops so it's just this continuous cycling concept. This just shows everything that they detected so in total 135 different pesticides were detected how this thing is organized here. The most prevalent is at the top. So that first column, then it moves over from right to left. So you see like, I can't read that, Acetochlor Alachor, right? Very common, like pre-emergent controls for grasses and broadleaf weeds. And then just where you see the three black text, those are your three big units. So they are in the, you know, kind of the upper tier. So pretty persistent. The groundwater piece has also been looked at as well, so this is something that the Department of Agriculture, Trade, and Consumer Protection did. Also looking at a little bit on the surface water side, and I apologize that some of this is a little small, but their findings were relatively aligned with DNR, where they're actually seeing higher incidents of these types of compounds in groundwater and surface water. And just the concentrations that they found were both, especially for imidacloprid, which is that top chart, in exceedance of some of the proposed preventative action limits and the health advisory levels that were proposed by the Department of Health Services. And then it's kind of same findings on the bottom. Those are those aquatic life benchmarks that I mentioned from EPA. Especially for imidacloprid, there's exceedances in the chronic category, and that one, some actually approaching the acute levels as well.

May I ask you a question? Yeah. At whose level is this going to be regulated? Is it the farmers who have to say they're not going to use it? Is it the manufacturers? where's the work being done to change this scenario?

So I'm going to attempt to answer that. Maybe I'll look to others in the room, but a lot of that stems from, you know, like our water quality standards operate very similarly, I think, as pesticides where, you know, federal regulation typically comes first and is mandated out of states where they either adopt or propose some kind of deviation from that. So a lot of the pesticide regulation in Wisconsin, we've done at the state level through the Department of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection. But unfortunately for these neonics and like that one slide mentioned, a lot of these pesticides in general, there just aren't any regulatory standards currently. So there is a lot of movement and lobbying and action trying to change the area.

I know at one point I was part of a group that actually lobbied Home Depot was putting in on plants that they were selling to people for their gardens. And a lot of them were pollinator plants and even native plants. So I was part of a group that worked, you know, to get them to stop doing it. And they did. But, you know, that's a small amount compared to all of this.

So if you take that initial baseline sampling that DNR done and just you know, extrapolate that to try to estimate, all right, how many miles of the state stream and rivers have these things in them. I always think it's pretty amazing, right? So there's like 25,000 miles. We have enough streams alone in Wisconsin to go around that nearly twice. And, you know, the 17% for acute and chronic concentrations, respectively, certainly isn't widespread, but to me, those are pretty concerning numbers, so. Zooming in a little bit more locally on Dane County, DNR also did a sample of ample ponds in and around the city limits. And the numbers and the results were similar to kind of the statewide sampling. You can see the legend on the bottom left here. Any of those yellow dots, they did not detect. And this one, they only analyzed for two of the big three in the neonate category. Anything that's orange up there was detected. The red is brontic. And the black, you can't see under the little logo there, is the acute concentration. So of all those ponds sampled, 85% had some detectable level of muonictides in them, 25% above the chronic threshold, and 12.5% were above that acute threshold. So not just flowing in perennial waters, ponds as well, which comment on questioning and referred to the grapevine from one of the DNR fish technicians, and I think there is funding allocated to do a second round of sampling, I think, statewide for these types of insecticides, and I think the plan would be to include some degree of weight sampling.

Question real quick on that particular slide. It seems pretty randomly dispersed. I mean, just like throwing darts at a board there, there's no clear pattern. It's Is there a pattern that I just don't see that you can?

I'm guessing, I'm guessing, I'm guessing access had something to do with this. And then again, this is kind of, this is the leftover pennies in the piggy bank that they had from that statewide monitoring effort. So I don't know what all went into the site selection for that. I can certainly reach out to Mike Miller was the DNR staffer that did this. I can see how he selected these sites.

Your question was the response, does that correspond to land use or does that?

That could have been an answer that I would have.

Sampling, even though it was kind of strapped together random, I think if you were to look at the watershed influences, there's probably some relationship with agriculture that the source of.

Could be low level, maybe it's fed by. Yeah, I thought you were asking about like study design.

Why do you sample it with beer? That's. So what is being done so like any pretty common for an emerging contaminants really the first step is educate and grow awareness general public. Especially with the producer community so I don't know when extension developed this little fact sheet here, but this is only a clip from one of multiple pages. that has all of the many different types of, you know, proprietary names for what you're buying for recorded seed out there and tells that farmer exactly what's on it. You know, I had ventured a guess and our land conservation staff had verified this, you know, all right, you're using high stick NT. What's all on that? I have no idea. A lot of these are being sold, you know, from these, Production companies is kind of really a false sense of insurance for these folks. And it's really, again, doing not much for their bottom line. So a lot of the education and awareness is kind of producer focused. And if this is a topic of interest, instead of getting it, you know, from somebody who's gleaned this from topical experts, I think this was last year, Clean Wisconsin, UW, Trout Unlimited, a number of different partners put on a really good day-wide forum on this topic where they have a number of different speakers that are touching on all these different aspects that I tried to jumble into 15 or 20 minutes for you tonight. So if you are interested, I would encourage you to go out there. It's a two-part series. You can find it on YouTube. A lot of really good information there. And then again, just kind of honing in on Dane County on the action piece. 2026, so this is the first year that all agricultural leases on Dane County properties now prohibit use of neonicotinoid seed or any kind of neonicotinoid insecticide at all. So this is the first year that that was being implemented. I think DNR has been doing that for a number of years on their properties as well. And then again, the seed sourcing has been one of the biggest barriers for farmers. Not only that it costs more, it's it's harder to find in general. And when folks find out about this and they say, I want to get this stuff free for next crop year, you have to be ordering this stuff a lot earlier. So our land conservation staff are trying to share. This is actually an outdated table. DNR and Extension, I believe, or DNR does have a more updated table where you can find some of this stuff locally. And it's not just for corn and soybean crops. It is coming Increasingly more available for some of the other common crops like sorghum, raffa, things like that. So that's kind of where we're at on the action piece, really focused on education and producer assistance at this point. And that's all I had from you. So I would welcome any more questions that are lingering, and I can attempt to answer them.

Yeah, go ahead.

So understanding this is the first year with that requirement, was it not implemented previously if DNR had because farmers were pushing back because they couldn't find substitutes or it just wasn't a priority or the evidence wasn't there until now? I'm just curious if there was, you know, not that parallel timeline going on.

Yeah, I think some of it was just the recognition that it's hard to find in the equity piece there. So, you know, the county has a series of different, sometimes they do an annual permit, you know, just for a year. We do have leases that go on to four or five years. So why we selected 26, a lot of our longer term leases were, you know, coming due, they're going to go back out for bid or reissuance. So like now seems like a fair time that everybody's coming into this and about the same point so that's how we landed on 2026. So we started talking about this 24 probably right when we started here about three years ago so yeah.

Great. The recognition that there was a problem with this goes back a long time because it's already banned in some countries and before that they banned nicotine use for the same reason. Where it affects vertebrates man and most animals of the vertebral column is in the motor neuron junction. And basically that's always been referred to in my old day as a nicotinic junction. And these neonics are really just acetylcholine agonists and they flood the system and block the normal production of sensory, of motor neuron inputs into the muscle. But in the insects that you're talking about, it's strictly central nervous because they have, you know, have the same junctions. So they get confused and do something different, but it's also toxic to people. And that's why to some extent, you know, you really have to, control it, it's not as toxic as the organophosphates that were used before this, but most likely it isn't anything different than nicotine.

The pollinators were in trouble.

The people, and especially smaller kids, if you're using a small pond that's heavily polluted, Or you're using, you know, it wasn't a while till we found PFAS. And then, oh, all these wonderful things that happen with PFAS. I'm not sure it does anything about autism or anything. I'm sure Robert Kennedy would love to hear that. But anyways, besides that, it does give symptoms sometimes similar to myasthenic syndromes that we see in cancer. but there's no overload.

I have one question, or maybe it's an observation, maybe it's both. With the data sort of indicating that it's not really that effective at what it's purporting to do for farmers, do you know if there's been any exploration of their, I mean, it's such a goofy term, but like it's sort of false advertising, right? I mean, if the data is not there, the data is not there. And it might even be the fact that the data shows just the opposite, right? And does, do you know if anyone has taken that angle on a attempt to regulate this before?

Good question. I'm not aware, but I don't know if you are, James.

I mean, so if you look at the dollar amount in Wisconsin alone, I mean, you look at this nationally and this is, these are, the big company, like multi hundreds of billions of dollars. So I know they like, and that's why I use, they continue to sell it as kind of this, you know, this low work false assurance, right? It's on your seed. You don't got to go make passes and apply it to your crop. So why not put it on there? Yeah. And if you look at the, you know, the Midwest study that it's not published yet, I think it's going to be coming out the next year. The efficacy numbers are like 25% of this. Like, and that was a study population that was about four times the size. They're seeing maybe four to 5% increases. So the data is consistently the same, but to be totally transparent, I haven't heard of any big movements, you know, bills that have been drafted at the federal level to try to propose regulations for this.

It's vertical integration between the seed producers and the pesticide manufacturers. And so. they want to sell more pesticides. They put it on their seed and they can charge a premium for it. But it's opposite of the integrated pest management practices, which any farmer would do and say, you only treat when you actually have a problem. Using a prophylactic application, you're not treating anything in most cases, right? You're just putting it on in case.

So I think that's, and that's really, you know, the UW team's focus. They recognize that what, where that resistance is, and that's why they're trying to get farmer-derived data and have these farmer-to-farmer conversations and look for, hey, if it's not good for your bottom line, you know, willingly opt out. That seems to be the more feasible path forward.

And the farmers will be the ones more successful to move that market, right? The more that they're requesting the untreated seeds from their suppliers, the more the supply will be generated.

Supervisor Downey, do you have a question? I saw you came off on mute.

I do. All right, you showed us a slide in which we've not allowed neonics to be used on land leased from the county. Would it be possible for us to extend that prohibition to other lands within the county?

Great question.

Well, that's what I was getting at before. At what level can you say this isn't happening?

I guess local ordinance, I don't know where that authority would come from to speak very bluntly, but I cannot be the best person to speak to that.

We definitely have to look at that to see if there's any, I know within the pesticide market, a lot of that is delegated to EPA. So I don't know if there's the ability locally to take on that responsibility.

Did you have the same type of authority as you did with manure spreading?

That's what I don't know. I don't think so, but I could be wrong. I can ask.

I think the commission would be pretty interested in the answer to that question.

I will ask.

So basically the way it works is Dane County has voluntarily decided we don't want it. But the question is whether we can extend that to others.

The other aspect of the question is how would something like that be implemented? Because I'm not sure how you could implement at a local level the assurance that the seed that's going into the ground is not treated.

You have to do it through state law or federal law. I don't think we have that. latitude to do it with the county.

And the resources to somehow ensure that that's being implemented.

No, we did something when I was on Healthy Farms, Healthy Lakes, by some of the grant provisions. It was thrown in there to prevent the manure spreading. That's why I asked a lot of people. And we threw that in. And I suppose you could do the same type of thing.

If you want to be eligible for these grants, you find these rules. Right. But that doesn't stop anybody.

The commission does.

It doesn't want to comply.

Any other questions from commission members? I appreciate that question, Supervisor Downing. That one was exactly what I was thinking as well.

All right.

James, thank you. That was informative.

Thanks for having me.

Thank you.

And the presentation will also be in the minutes, too, as well. Because I know, James, there's a lot of stuff in there that you might want to look at more closely. So that will be sent out, too.

Thank you.

All right. Next on the agenda is G reports to committee. HAB-Jacques Juilland, The one item 2027 lakes and watershed Commission budget recommendations.

HAB-Jacques Juilland, yeah so I, this is back on the agenda, because I know this was something that the former Commission had asked to bring up early on in the process right so. I kept this on here. The draft you see before was the one that the commission brought up back at their February meeting, I believe. The recommendation at that point in time was to keep the current draft that was there because the countywide budget directives or initiatives weren't released yet from the county board's office or the county executive. And so the document you see here was the recommendation of changing the date. That's where we started. It's before you hear, we're happy to review it. We do have a member of the public that's hoping to speak on this action item. And then certainly we can take this up at the next meeting if folks want to digest it, ask questions to me or propose changes, I can try to incorporate those and bring them forth to the committee at the August meeting as well. Happy to give some more background on the budget status. I know we talked a little bit about that. For folks that aren't supervisors, The county is still facing a $15 million operating deficit. Each department has different reductions. Our department as well has an operating budget reduction that we're striving to achieve. So certainly the fiscal climate hasn't changed since the last time we went through this recommendation process.

Yeah. Maybe a member of the public, Mr. Brooks, would you like to address the commission? Oh, sure. All right.

Come on over. Yeah, grab a seat. There's one here to roll up, whichever is easiest. I can hear you.

Hi. Yes, I'm Steve Books. I live in the city of Madison, by Bay Creek, kind of by pick and see about Park Street. So I don't live on the lake or anything like that. But I am concerned about the lakes. So I sent an email regarding lake weeds. and the collection of the lake weeds. So I guess addressing the plan, the flooding and the lake management, and really it's aquatic, the aquatic plant management plan, kind of addressing that a little bit. So, I mean, the plan talks about harvesting just with the harvesters. And so how I got involved was this spring, down on Monona Bay, Bernice Beach was really low level water. And it was like 100 feet out normally. Usually the water was really low. So I asked the city of Madison, well, let's maybe take advantage of that at Bernice Beach because there was a layer of sediment right at the beach for about, I'd say going east west about 200 feet or so. So they came and picked that up. So I hope they got approval. You know, somehow you could tell it was like weeds and with the waves splashing and receding, it was seeding too in that settlement. So they picked it up. And so I think it's kind of a trial basis this year with local help collecting the weeds also throughout the summer, trying to reduce like E. coli, bacteria, and or anything aquatic that can happen that's bad to blue green algae. So, so far so good this summer down there. And so what I would ask the county is, okay, I was working with a volunteer coordinator with the city, John Weichelt, and he helps people who want to help. So I don't know if the county would ever have a coordinator for volunteers, because he's talking to John regarding what happened, you know, to show up this summer. There was an article in the state journal about the weeds on the end of Lake Mauna. So how do you help those people collect those weeds? So at Bernice Beach, the city of Madison has provided the dumpster there the last couple of years. And also there's one at Albrecht Park, a dumpster. So also I have a question with, you know, it's probably more city of Madison too with the storm sewers too, if there would be, two-stage storm stewards, and there are some. And as far as going into Lake Monona now, there's that one at the end of Buckeye Road that is next to the San Damiago property there. Well, I don't know. I think it's being him. I was at the office today at the parks at the city of Manoa, but they didn't, they couldn't tell me about that, but they took my information. But what I'm asking is how does Dane County help like local volunteers, and I'm a volunteer, I'm retired, so that helps too. So, you know, how does Dane County like maybe assist a little bit instead of, you know, saying, well, that's their problem. You know, so, I mean, at the end of Lake Manoa, according to this one plan that is on the management plan, on the map, I've been following, well, anyway, the harvesters can't get there because it's too shallow. So it's a red zone. Is that area really hands-off to the county? Is that, well, you guys are on your own. Whoever owns that land, well, I mean, it's really what was up to Oak Grove Park all the way to Starkweather Creek where they can't use the harvester. So, you know, who's responsible for that? And, you know, just to say, well, the owners are responsible. I'll tell you what, the smell from the rotting weeds was... farther than the land where the weeds are. So, you know, if there would be some action by the county, it would be for like a better answer. And John was really helpful. John Reamer, I came over here to talk to John Reamer. He still gets to talk to Arthur Wilkinson from the Vietnam who told me to talk with Sarah

Sarah over at the other day in our office.

So I've been around making the rounds. So it's very interesting and whatever, we all like the water, we all like to see a clean lake, but it takes effort. So just wondering what Dane County can do to possibly share costs for hauling some of that out. And, you know, there's some pictures, this is at the end of, over off of, at the end of Buckeye Road. I mean, it's pretty thick. And so, you know, whatever, if people want to help, I mean, how that could be done maybe a little bit better by the county. And have efforts from the county, because City of Madison is doing it. Manoa, I'm not sure, but the dumps, you know, if you're telling people, well, they got to get it out themselves, maybe they even have to hire somebody to do it. But, I mean, they're, according to the article in the paper, they're doing something with that, the weeds. I don't know, maybe they're taking it down into the dumpster by Oak Ridge Park, by the beach there. And that's almost full, by the way. So someone is doing it. And then the lifeguards might be taking it out too. I think there's a lifeguard staff at the beach. So they might be doing the same work there. All right, thanks.

Not to take too much time. Thank you. Does anyone have any questions for Steve?

Yeah, Downing has one.

Go ahead, Downing.

Well, I'd like to talk about number three, flooding and lake management. And there it suggests that, well, let's continue by dredging plant harvesting and implementing lake management programs. And here I'm gonna echo the concerns that we've heard from John Becker, who has suggested that we manage the lake levels closer to the lower of the allowable winter and summer levels. And I'm wondering if anyone, if we might be interested in including a directive that they approach approach lake management that way and avoid going over the maximums, which we have done at times.

Point of order, Pat, did you have a question for the speaker or was that just some conversation?

Well, I guess it was a question for all of us about this plan that we're looking at because it's my understanding that we're being asked to approve it.

Uh, supervisor Downing, uh, specifically, I was asking if you had any questions for the speaker, uh, Mr. Books.

Okay. Well, uh, just remember this when we get to discussion and I won't have to repeat it all. Thank you.

Um, I, I guess I have a question for you, Kyle. Um, that might answer a question is do, do we have a combined coordination effort? for any of that? Is it consolidated in any such way? Is it something that you could share?

Yes. I want to pull our lakes management manager over because he's the one that oversees a lot of the aquatic plant harvesting and probably can answer those questions a little bit better than I could.

So I think there's a lot of things that got jumbled together in this news story and the perception the aquatic plant harvesting program that the county conducts is to cut abundant growing vegetation in the lake that prevents the beneficial uses. So swimming, fishing, boating, access to the lakes. It does, using quotes, clean up the lake, but what it's really trying to do is it's reducing the amount of growing vegetation that's in the lake And by doing that, it's also taking some of that plant material off. On that shoreline, the county hadn't been harvesting plants nearby. So the plant fragments that were there were from other boats, crops cutting and floating in. And a lot of that is filamentous algae. We had a very strong clear water phase this spring. So on the bottom of the lake, this filamentous algae was growing. And what happens is the filamentous algae grows. It gets to a point where it's long and kind of shaggy and hair-like, right? And then it breaks off the bottom of the lake and it floats in. And especially if it gets a lot of sunlight and it photosynthesizes and it's creating all this oxygen, it floats in in big mats. And then it starts to decompose and it smells awful. The residents along Monona Drive were calling it a blue-green algae bloom, but that's not really what was happening. What was happening, it was collecting filamentous algae from the lake that was being driven by the wind onto the eastern shore, and it was really awful for a couple days. Next to that, there was some blue-green algae that was accumulating. There's actually a really great website from the EPA called Cyan... which stands for Cyanobacteria Assessment Network. And you can actually go on there and use satellite images to tell, is there a blue-green algae bloom happening based on the pigments, the blue and green pigments that are in those algaes. And so you get these really great satellite images. And so I was watching that Cyan website and using the app during that time saying, okay, there's very mild blue-green algae bloom, but what the residents are really complaining about is filament. So I think, What your point is, is there's these accumulations and it happens in the spring when the ice comes out and then it happens kind of late summer or late spring when all this filamentous algae starts to wash in on shore and who's responsible for cleaning up that lake generated material that then floats in on people's shorelines. Right now, the county doesn't have a program to do that. Our aquatic plant harvesting program is restricted to harvesting plants in more than three feet of water. So we have to stay greater than three feet of depth. Our machines can't disturb the bed of the lake because if our paddle wheels are churning up the bottom of the lake, we're making that problem even worse by resuspending material and relifting lake bed sediments into the water column. So we're not, we can't come in with our machinery and clean up the shoreline like people would like to do. In the past, actually, our staff did that. And the DNR said, you're jeopardizing your permit by not following the plant harvesting, but doing the shoreline cleanup and trying to use your equipment to flush the beach out and use the paddle wheels to help people out. And so we got, I was at the DNR at the time before I came to the county. And so the DNR said, hey, you guys are jeopardizing your permit. If you can even do that, your permit is for cutting plants. As the new supervisor of the lake management program, been here about two years, we've really stuck to cutting plants in more than three feet of water. And the other thing is, is we've had several accidents between piers. And so when the big machinery comes in and there's a very expensive boat or a very expensive pier, we don't go in there. We stay out and we create access lanes. We remove the abundant vegetation. And that's what our aquatic plant management plans call for. And so when you are looking at the priority harvesting zones on our plans. Those plans are available and explains this. We don't do shoreline cleanup. And so what you're asking for, if the County would come in and do that as an additional service and, you know, is it something that the County could do? The lake is under the authority of the state of Wisconsin. We get our permits. from the state of Wisconsin to do the aquatic plant management program. If a dredging activity, so removing sediments, and where does organic debris that's collected end and sediment start? That's a very gray area, right? So if it's, you know, you can rake up decomposing vegetation on your beach and that's not dredging, but you go in with a shovel and you start digging out the lake bed, now you're dredging. And if you go more than two cubic yards, That requires a permit from the DNR, right? And so maybe the city of Madison, by operating machinery on the bed of the lake where the water was low and they were below the ordinary high water mark, probably were in violation of the law by using motorized equipment on the lake bed without getting a permit. I don't know. But I agree that cleaning up decomposing material is good for the lake and probably good for the shoreline. if it's done in a way that's responsible. And so I do feel, and in most places, private owners who have riparian rights to that lakeshore are taking care of their own waterfront. In this case, like in Monona, where you have a condo association that they want somebody else to come in and clean up their waterfront for them because material has blown in from the wind, I'm not sure what our role is at the county is. I do know that Kyle's group and the county as a whole has worked very hard in the watershed to limit nutrients coming into the system so we don't have excess filamentous algae, we don't have blue-green algae blooms, we don't have excessive plant growth, but that solution is years and years and years out because of all the historic loading of nutrients that have happened in the system. We have a very productive prolific system that grows phytoplankton, whether it's aquatic plants, and we have to deal with how productive that is. I mean, I guess the one other thing I'd say, and you mentioned is the stormwater, but I do think that one is a lot of the municipalities and the county has urban stormwater grants to help people who are interested in preventing sediment and preventing leaf debris and things that are coming into the lakes from getting into the lakes and So, you know, whether it's the accumulation in Virginia Bay that there's some that's coming out of the storm. But if you can intercept that material before it gets in the lake, it won't bring phosphorus. It won't bring the sediment in. That the county is working on through our water engineering division.

There's also an adaptive storm drain program that a number of the cities have.

And there's some leaf programs for volunteers to clean up leaf debris before it gets in. So there are some of those things. But what you're asking about is especially removing this decomposing organic matter from what is the lake bed, which is public, but in front of a private residence or a private property that has riparian rights to that front, there's lots of issues that go on there with do we clean up people's waterfront for them?

Right. So Steve.

And YLA would love that. But by the same token, I clean up my lawn, and they've got to learn to clean up theirs. Sherry, did you have a question for Steve?

Yeah, because what I heard you asking is, is there a way to organize people who want to volunteer to do this work? And I don't think we've addressed that at all, obviously not on private property. So we have that issue, but maybe parts of Brittingham Bay where Bernie's Beach is not private property as far as I know.

And county staff does clean up county property. Mendota County Park, our staff goes and cleans up that material. Goodland Park, Babcock, we try to do that on the county properties that are around the lakes.

With volunteers, yeah.

Well, my staff, so some of the people that we hire... to do the pure pickup service. So we have a service that is paid for by the local municipalities, plus the friends of Lake Yonza and the Lake Waubeesa Conservation Association, pay for staff time to take a barge around and plant material that people, as washes in on their shoreline, they can put on the end of their dock in a big pile. Guys were very busy the last couple of days, because of July 4th coming along, I was getting a lot of phone calls about, is the pier guys coming out to pick up the weeds? So people can do that and we help by removing those once they put them on the end of their dock. But that service is paid for by Middleton, Madison. It is not paid for by Maple Bluff or Shorewood Hills. They have not joined the program, but the rest of the municipalities, plus the friends of Lake Yonza and Lake Waukesha are part of that peer pickup program. And then my staff, take the plants and we put them with the rest of the plants that we harvest in our composting piles and remove them from the lakes.

So I know Extension used to have basin educators, which unfortunately got killed in a budget thing years ago. But is there any, you know, like we have master naturalists and master, you know, gardeners and they volunteer to do things. I'm wondering, is there anything like that left for the lakes and

There's a lot of programming run by the Clean Lakes Alliance. They have a lot of beach monitoring and volunteers. A lot of the volunteers, we oftentimes steer because they have more organized events, especially around the lakes and the beaches. So we tend to steer them towards them as a partner organization.

Any other questions for Steve? Well, thank you very much.

It's always good to see you.

And Steve, if you want to call and talk to me, you know, you've talked to a lot of people already, but I'm more than happy to talk to you too. David Rowe with Dane County, R-O-W-E. All right.

So we will move on to talk about the 2027 budget recommendations. Sorry, go ahead. Yeah.

Oh, no, I was going to talk about them.

Okay. All right. You have a question? Yeah.

Go ahead. I noticed there's a section in there about continuing to do work to reduce phosphorus and, and all the different ways we do that. And of course that's hugely important. What I didn't see in there and maybe I missed it was anything about nitrogen. You don't have algal growth without nitrogen. It's not just phosphorus. And I guess the question, you know, I know someone who I've worked with forever, Dick Lathrop, who's a limnologist, has a grant now to do some monitoring of nitrogen. And I know that the county pays in some places to monitor it. And there are different, you know, cost-sharing ways that this is happening. But I just didn't see it in there. And I don't think we want to lose that because it's important to have on the radar screen that, you know, we've got all this deep injection of in farms of their manure into the ground, the nitrogen is, you know, a culprit. So anyway.

Yeah. So it is, are you getting to the monitoring or are you asking about, sorry, I wasn't sure exactly what, what your question was there.

There was a couple of things you talked on monitoring of nitrogen and also management. I mean, right now there isn't, at least from what I looked into. Yeah. So there's not a, There's not a way to credit the amount of nitrogen that's already been put into the soil?

Yep. So we use, it's called SNAP Plus in the nutrient management plans. So it uses a combination of both the credits from legumes and other sources, the soil test nitrogen level, as well as the nutrient applications that the farmer is going to apply, whether that's fertilizer, manure, and it does a nitrogen balance for them. And so it's the UW extension actually put out, it's called the MRTN, so maximum return to nitrogen. That's kind of the formula that's backed in on the back end of the SNAP plus model. And so a lot of the phosphorus strategy we use is outreach and education and working with agriculture on a nutrient management plan development and implementation. So that's the primary tool that we use at the department to try to have an impact on that.

So they're measuring the amount of land applied, yes, in the fall and in the winter. And then you're using that in this model to help them say you've already done this much. So you're almost at your limit or whatever. So you are monitoring that.

There's no limit. So there's no nitrogen standard. The only one we have in Wisconsin is phosphorus. But it's to their economic advantage to not over-apply nitrogen because of the costs applied for both applying it as well as purchasing it. So that's what we try to educate them on.

But I think, and this is why Dick is looking at it, nitrogen is getting into groundwater more and things like drain tile mobilize nitrogen faster. And so that's why the idea that the applied side and the modeling side, but also looking at monitoring of what's actually coming out of groundwater and what's actually going into groundwater. Is that what you're getting at? Because I think that's why Dick is talking about it. It's like some of those other changes

Yeah, and there's a whole program on the groundwater side too that LCD has been implementing. So we have been testing a lot of the groundwater wells throughout the county as well. So we've got some resources on that too. And also we had a voluntary program that was set up to try to encourage landowners to test their drinking water wells to see where their nitrate levels are. There's a close campaign with public health and trying to implement that too.

So this might be something we want to put on as an educational presentation in the future. with regard specifically to a budget recommendation here. One of the concerns, I guess I'll just start up front here, is that there's five people that are brand new to the to the commission. And some of us have been here for a while, have seen all of these every year. And I think having some better input from new folks, Sherry included, I see your question there, Phil, I'll come to you in a second. And Supervisor Downing, that somehow we need to incorporate those in a probably a broader discussion and look over these more or less from scratch, I think, to some extent here. I guess how it relates to what, this comes to a question. So the question, Kyle, is to what degree are we early enough in your budgeting process that anything that goes in here whether it's approved or not, would make it into a budget.

Yeah. So historically from like just kind of the budget process, I think is what you're asking, right? Yes. Is the commission puts together a document that then they submit to the county executive's office. So any recommendations that are here do not get incorporated into LWRD's budget recommendations. These all are advocated on your guys' behalf to the county executive. They then consider that. The county executive then introduces their budget to the county board. And then it goes through the county board process of either making modifications or adjustments before then going back for the county executive for signature. So certainly with four supervisors, there's lots of different ways that the commission can try to move forward budget recommendations, either through this document or any other committees that you guys are serving on or as the county board as a whole. So that's historically how the process is kind of unfolded.

Okay. Okay.

Thank you.

I'd like to move to Phil, see what he had to say. Go ahead, Phil.

Yeah, so my question is within the line up here that we're talking about with the water quality, the phosphorus, Kyle, I know, I think you were at the presentation that USGS gave on the continuous monitoring of the inputs into the hard channel lakes.

Is that included within this recommendation?

This field is a little bit open to interpretation as to where the recommendation for the Lakes and Watersheds Commission is. I guess that's my question. Maybe in your read or the county supervisor's read, does this include that USGS joint cooperative agreement between the city, the Capillary Regional Planning Commission, and USGS? I would say yes, it does. OK. And then my follow-up question is, I just plain forgot if they monitor any forms of nitrogen within that water quality data suite of samples.

There is some within the stream monitoring gauges, if that's what you're asking specifically, Phil. I don't think it includes the lake monitoring, though, to get to Sharon's question sheet report.

Yeah, so Sharon, you were asking to add on lakes and the USGS is only monitoring some inputs to the lake and nitrogen is pretty, a little bit of a slippery nutrient as it changes phase and whatnot, but either way. I knew there was some monitoring going on and I just didn't remember all the details enough, but yeah.

Yeah, but we can certainly have a presentation on the monitoring program too, as well, if folks are interested in that.

Yeah, but it just would be nice if the language reflected more than just phosphorus.

Sure, yeah.

Yeah. Like, can we add that? Absolutely. Okay.

Yeah.

So when I'm looking at this document, I think what would be helpful for me either at this meeting or a future one, if that's appropriate is, you know, that this is, as you know, Kyle, not a reflection of the, the, you know, the department's going to go through a robust budget process. What I really want to see as a policymaker reflected in here is is what are we hearing from our partners, from YLA, from, you know, Clean Lakes Alliance, from all of these other entities about their needs of the county so that we can reflect that, you know, in the budget process here. And especially as there have been recent budget cuts and we are looking at additional budget cuts, frankly, and, you know, there's a target for land and water. in that. I need to know, have we adjusted any FTE amounts or program resources that our community partners are noticing or are clamoring to see restored or not reduced further relative to our upcoming budget deliberations? And I would need to just hear you tell me that all the things in this document are still you know, accurate that they've been revisited. You know, for example, there's the, you know, GPS location of harvester request. Indeed, that's something that hasn't happened yet. So, you know, it's still important. Community should still be reflected here or like that has just for correction. So, you know, this should reflect that. OK, that's an update of all that. And then a lot of these items in here, at least as I read them, are maintain, continue, which is all well and good. But I need to hear, is there a problem? that needs to be resolved, that we need to be extra focused on where the community is saying our needs are not being met.

Sure. So I have a question related to that. I really appreciate that is that I guess I don't really, I know that this department is really vast, but I don't know where the parameters are in terms of what's in this document. Like for instance, just because I was working on large scale renewable energy and data centers and the use of water and the impacts on our watershed. And, you know, we might have a moratorium, but it's still going to be a huge issue. So how is, I don't even see that in there, but is that because our commission doesn't work on it or is it because, I mean, or is it an omission? I mean, I know there's a working group working on it, but why isn't it in this? And, and, And is it being covered somewhere else? So those are things I don't know how to judge that.

And to me, that relates to fully understanding the scope of our authority and role as a commission and what is within that bucket of stuff to reflect. And that seems to me the way to answer that question. And to know if this is an exhaustive list of recommendations or is it just a list of things that has come up over time and not that have been reviewed exhaustively relative to the scope of the commission?

Oh, we used to have small groups that would study, you know, someone that's interested, they would pick a small group of people and they could, the state statute says you can get people from outside. They don't have to be necessarily on the commission. and especially if you've worked in this field before you can bring someone in and sort of put together what you think and then present it to the commission and that has worked in the past but we lost it somewhere and i'm not quite sure where but it has disappeared kyle would you also make a note here um

Supervisor Downing's comment. You have that? Okay. So I think what I would propose, if nobody has any specific questions or things they want to add to this right now, I would- Well, Downing has something he'd like to add. Please, Supervisor Downing, go ahead.

Well- This is a budget document. And as I'm reading through number three, I've thought of a way to address my concern within this document. And it'll be much like, as you read into number three, it also recommends continuing ongoing communications with the Ho-Chunk Nation. And what I would suggest is that we include continued ongoing conversations, communications with staff about lake level management. And would you all be interested in doing that?

Yes. Is that a motion? I don't know. Do we need a motion?

Sure. Yes. You can?

Yeah, just add it. I didn't think so. Appreciate it. Thank you.

I have some problems. I'll bring it up next time.

Yeah, I think that's fine. So, I mean, I guess what I'd like to see, and this is my proposal, is that we would, for the next Lakes and Watershed Commission meeting, we would have a presentation on the scope of the commission, why it exists, like that whole business, right? Because a lot of us could use a refresher, and then some of us have never learned any of this before. Sure. I think that would be very useful, informative to the group on how we would approach this.

But it's also just to, it's not just this commission, but it's all of the adjacent ones that feed into what makes up land and water management. And so at what point, how do they interact, overlap? You know, I mean, at some point, your department has a lot of parts to it, but there's one budget going to your department.

We don't go to his department.

This would be a great issue to have on a joint meeting. When we have our joint meetings, this would be a good topic.

Are you getting kind of how the structure works, though? Or are you looking at, like, just how it's all connected?

I'm just... reflecting on what is the budget, what's its parameters when these are all, this is taking a systems approach, right? You're, okay.

Yep, I'm following you there. And do you want me to have that for the next meeting? Yes. Or do you want me to address it now?

Well, yeah, let's have that for the next meeting because I think it'll be informative to the rest of the other.

Yeah, I think it's all, does everybody have a copy of this? And if you read it, it really does go into more detail than we actually do.

Yes, I'll have that at the next meeting. Because the statute says one thing, but how we've operated historically is different. So I just want to make that clear if you're trying to wonder why it's not matching up.

Get our legal counsel involved in that discussion, too, about how this is supposed to operate. Yeah.

Yeah, and that might include something that was also in the minutes from the last meeting would be some update about the discussions between the departments and court counsel about what our budgetary authority is as it pertains to, I believe, as it pertains to taxing authority, I think. I think the commission would probably like an update on that, and that would also be useful.

Yeah, I think the design must have been good. taxing authority, except through the county. So everybody, so not just my little constituents.

Tell us about that, how this works.

Yeah, I mean, that is important for us to understand, you know, as part of that authority. And then, Chair, are you suggesting that at our next meeting, we are discussing basically a staff we'll adjust these budget recommendations per a little bit of conversation today, making sure they still accurately reflect the current state of things. For example, if the GPS stuff is alive, that should be reflected in here. But then during that next meeting, we would actually have an action item to vote on relative to budget recommendations because having that probably going into before the executive releases her budget will be important.

Yeah, I think if That would be what my proposal is.

Yeah. Well, this is where we had those little groups that would bring things up. And also where we have a bunch of presentations and they would be reflected in the budget. Just like the one today, if we had something we put in, so much should be expended on trying to inform the farmers. And that's the way it used to work.

Is there any other discussion on this agenda item on the budget?

I would just suggest that it's a good time for that next meeting for any organizations that people are involved with to be kind of reflecting what you're hearing from those local organizations so that we can be aware of that as we weigh in on budgets.

Can I add one comment? Yes. And if you get those, please email those to me as soon as you get them. Don't feel like you need to bring those to the next meeting because then I can include them with the agenda before when it goes out to the whole group, if I may.

We probably should get them next time too, you know. We didn't actually vote on it.

Yes.

We've always done it later in the year, almost too late a lot of times.

And I know this cycle is hard just with elections and new appointments, just how it all kind of felt.

Any other discussion from anyone online? I see you shaking your head, Supervisor Downing. I will take that as a no.

Yes, no.

There's a hand up. Okay. All right. Next on the agenda is future meetings, meeting items and dates. The next commission meeting is tentatively scheduled for August 5th, 2026 at 530. Okay. Moving on to I, public comment on items not on the agenda. Don't think we had anything else, no. J, such other business is allowed by law. Hearing none, K, adjournment. I will entertain a motion. Move by Levin. All in favor of adjournment, say aye.

Aye.

We are adjourned, thanks everyone.