By SARAH PARKER | County Line Editor
Making a $4,000 donation, the Village of Wilton recently was the first contributor toward an effort to buy flood-monitoring equipment for the Kickapoo Watershed, noted Monroe County Conservationist Bob Micheel at the county’s Climate Change Task Force presentation in Wilton last week.
The Kickapoo Valley Association and the task force have partnered on the project, which calls for two weather stations, 16 sensor level stations, data service and maintenance. The fundraising goal is $100,000.
The monitoring devices will be coordinated with emergency management departments and the National Weather Service.
Monroe County also has budgeted $5,000 for the project.
Tax-deductible donations can be mailed to the Kickapoo Valley Association, Attn: Scott Lind – Treasurer, P.O. Box 103, Ontario, WI 54631.
For more information, go to www.co.monroe.wi.us/committees/climate-change-task-force/.
Climate change cause for heavy floods
Speaking at the Wilton meeting, Micheel said that climate change, whether one accepts that it’s created by humans or by other causes, is the reason for heavy rains and more severe flooding.
“What nature’s doing is reclaiming the valley floor,” Micheel said. “Is that a problem? It’s a problem when humans get comfortable with the valley floor. It’s really level, easy to work in. We forget why and how they get created.”
The result is dams and structures get blown out, cropland and lawns become saturated/flooded, basements are flooded, and roads and other infrastructure fail.
Moreover, conservation practices fail, Micheel added. “We come up with prescriptions or practices that we design based on a 10- or 20-year storm event. The problem then is these storm events are eating up our solutions.”
For example, floodwaters in the county have washed out streambank stabilizations and grass waterways. “These just turn into speed bumps in these kind of storm events.”
Formation of CCTV
The destruction of a concrete stream crossing on a Brush Creek farm on July 3, 2019, served as the impetus for the creation of the Climate Change Task Force.
After five inches of rain in 90 minutes, the newly constructed crossing had been mostly washed away.
“I knew we had to change what we were doing,” Micheel said.
County Administrator Tina Osterberg, also a task force member, added, “We can’t continue to do what we’ve been doing. At this point, all we’ve been doing is reacting to the floods as they happen.”
The Climate Change Task Force was created in September 2019.
Monitor-station planning
In the Kickapoo River Watershed, the following locations and equipment are proposed:
• Village of Norwalk – Railroad Street crossing: water-level sensor
• Village of Wilton – Highway 71: water-level sensor (establish rain gauge in Village of Wilton)
• County Highway Z: water-level sensor, rain gauge sensor
• County Highway T crossing: water-level sensor
• Village of Ontario, USGS Gauge Station (currently installed) – data sharing
• St. Mary’s Ridge: rain-gauge sensor
• County Highway U – Helgren farm: Weather Underground registered personal weather station (currently)
• Nevada Road – Firefly Ranch: Weather Underground registered personal weather station (currently installed)