Great Lakes Aquatic Habitat News
The Newsletter of the Great Lakes
Aquatic Habitat Network and Fund
Volume 9, Number 5 • September-October 2001
Great Lakes Aquatic Habitat NewsThe Newsletter of the Great Lakes
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by Charlie Luthin, Wisconsin Wetlands Association
Over fifty school teachers in Wisconsin raise and release Galerucella beetles as a part of their science programs, playing a valuable role in the biological control of Purple Loosestrife (Lythrum salicaria), an Eurasian import whose invasion of wetlands can be observed along any major highway in Wisconsin. These and other teachers have indicated they need a package of specific teaching aids and activities to help them frame the year-long beetle growth and release effort.
In August, Wisconsin Wetlands Association (WWA) teamed up with Brock Woods, the DNR’s Purple Loosestrife Biocontrol Coordinator, and ten educators for a three-day workshop to take the best of existing activities from Michigan, Illinois, and other programs on the biological control of Purple Loosestrife, modify them, add a few new ones, and standardize them to state environmental education and science standards. The goal was to produce a set of teaching activities that can be used by teachers across the state. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency supported the workshop.
During the workshop the teachers produced 15 activities, complete with background information, Internet references, and the state learning standards for environmental education and for science. Once they pass a final review by our teachers, we will seek funding to print the materials as a collection of curricular activities for statewide distribution. Within a year we hope to have a polished handbook of Purple Loosestrife and wetland activities for teachers of grades 6-12.
In the past several years, the city of Superior on the shore of Lake Superior has become a “hotbed” of controversial wetland fill projects. Last winter the city proposed—and was granted permission to fill—a 24-acre coastal wetland for construction of a new middle school. This was one of the largest single wetland fills permitted in the state in recent years, with the exception of fills for highway projects.
This spring, a permit application to fill approximately 2.5 acres of wetland for construction of a paved recreational trail through a swampy woodland in the Superior Municipal Forest became public. This municipal forest was described in a DNR publication on coastal wetlands of Lake Superior as containing “a wealth of natural features unusual in the context of an urban-industrial center,” and the wetlands are characterized by shrub and hardwood swamp, emergent marsh, and wet meadow. The report further indicates that “the stands within this site have at least regional conservation significance.” The DNR has not completed its review of the proposed trail, but has recently indicated that the plans have been considerably modified to avoid and minimize wetland impacts. Critical wetland areas, for example, will have a boardwalk instead of pavement.
During this summer, the City of Superior gave preliminary approval for an extensive housing development that would entail filling a very large tract of wetlands—approximately 100 acres. The project is still in its formative stage, and no permits have been applied for through the Army Corps of Engineers or the Department of Natural Resources. Environmental groups are concerned that this and other projects that would destroy extensive and vital coastal wetlands will continue to surface in the City.
Superior is both blessed and cursed with extensive wetlands within the city limits. For several years the City has been working under a “SAMP,” the Special Area Management Plan developed in 1995. This Plan identified wetland areas targeted for development that could fall under a general city-wide permit, thereby alleviating the need for special permitting in these areas. The SAMP has come under criticism from both conservationists and city officials, and is undergoing an extensive review and “facelift” over the next few years.
The SAMP will essentially be expanded into a comprehensive plan for the entire city of Superior, and all wetlands will be identified and mapped as part of this plan. A technical advisory committee has been established consisting of key agencies and city officials, and includes the DNR, Army Corps of Engineers, and the Environmental Protection Agency. The public will be invited to provide input into the planning process once a procedure has been established by the advisory committee. It is hoped that a comprehensive plan will help alleviate the project-by-project review of wetland impacts in this coastal community.
This year the biennial budget process, as usual, contained innumerable controversial anti-conservation issues. Diverse conservation allies joined together in promoting good conservation measures and opposing those that would have compromised our state’s natural resources. Here is an abbreviated list of some key wins for the environment that were passed into law with our new state budget for 2001-2003.