Investing in Forestry Initiatives

The Board approved a resolution authorizing the acceptance of a $1,500,000 grant for two forestry initiatives. The first initiative will create two Arborist project positions for 4.5 years, and the second will widen the opportunities of the Operation Fresh Start crews working on Dane County Parkland to include hands-on experience in urban forestry management.

Supervisor Chawla (District 6) said of the grant, "Dane County has a strong mutually beneficial partnership with Operation Fresh Start where youth learn forestry skills as well as receive education, mentorship and training while maintaining and improving Dane County park land and trails. We look forward to investing in this partnership to prioritize our goals of conservation and to fight for climate resiliency."

The overarching goal of these initiatives is “to increase tree planting and urban forestry maintenance on Dane County Park properties located in disadvantaged communities across Dane County” per the resolution.

More details are here:
https://dane.legistar.com/View.ashx?M=F&ID=12918746&GUID=9C87305C-4C93-410C-9F4E-D9C5629AE1E4

Lake Levels and Recent Rainfall

We have been watching lakes levels on the Yahara Chain of Lakes closely as we have had locally heavy rain causing the lake levels to be about a foot more than the summer maximums this June. On Thursday we will have our semi-annual Lake Management Update to the joint meeting of the Environment, Agriculture & Natural Resources Committee, the Land Conservation Committee, and the Lakes and Watershed Commission.

https://dane.legistar.com/View.ashx?M=A&ID=1145496&GUID=A4BA26B9-AC4E-4D4D-BDDF-206E6957DB0D

During this meeting we will cover current lake levels, review precipitation thus far this year, discuss progress on the multi-phase sediment removal plan and discuss aquatic plant harvesting. 

Assistant Director of Land and Water John Reimer will deliver the presentation. 

With brief bouts of heavy rain, you will see localized flooding in areas with poor drainage and it currently takes about 7 days for one inch of rain to leave the watershed. The goal is to move one inch of rain through the watershed in four days. I do want to emphasize that we are still below the very high lake levels of 2018 and there is no concerns around the strength and reliability of our dam infrastructure.

To see past presentations and to get more info on the work of the flooding task force of 2018, please visit this link:

https://lwrd.danecounty.gov/yahara-lake-level-recommendations

To see recommendations of the task force, please visit this link:

https://lwrd.danecounty.gov/documents/pdfs/YaharaLakeLevel/YaharaFloodingTaskForceRecommendations-March-18-Final.pdf

For more information on Aquatic Plant harvesting which helps improve flow, please visit this link:

https://lwrd.danecounty.gov/what-we-do/lake-management/aquatic-plant-management

And finally for more interactive information on current lake levels as well as a history of dam management changes, you can visit this link:

https://lwrd.danecounty.gov/Lake-Levels

I encourage you to reach out to me prior to the meeting if you would like to talk in more detail and for any questions you may want answered during the meeting. 

It is our focus to help our County be resilient to a rapidly changing climate and our goal to protect our precious natural resources and keep the community safe.

Budget 2023 Round up

I want to give a big thanks to all my colleagues on the County Board and Personnel and Finance Committee. I had the honor of presenting the Land and Water budget and UW Extension budgets to the P and F committee. I am grateful for the countless hours that all the board put in on an amended budget and I believe these amendments will make the budget stronger.

Here are some highlights from a recent press release:

• Two amendments included in the recommendation from Personnel and Finance provide an increase in wages for Point of Service agencies, including an additional 2.5% Point of Service COLA increase, bringing the total to 7.0%, as well as an increase of $1.065 million to Journey Mental Health to allow wage increases among staff involved in the crisis response system.

Several amendments focused on addressing affordable housing in Dane County. Some of those amendments include:

• $1.35 million designated for St. Johns affordable housing project;

• Two new Case Manager positions to assist shelter guests with achieving housing and economic stability

• One new Housing Program Specialist

• A $10 million increase to the Affordable Housing Development fund;

• A new capital housing fund of $8 million targeted for farmworker housing;

• A $217,500 increase for the Fair Chance Housing Fund that was created in 2023 to fund support services for persons with criminal record barriers in accessing housing;

• An increase of $68,000 in Public Health Madison Dane County to support amendments to contracts in 2024 of current Violence Prevention Unit 2023 grantees to support tenant capacity building. With these funds, community based organizations already serving vulnerable residential tenants experiencing a number of issues impacting their safety and stability (including unsafe housing conditions, housing discrimination, and other tenant and consumer protection violations) would have necessary resources to support tenant education and empowerment.

I also amended the Capital Budget to require that the Zoo fully raise $4 million dollar in their Capital Campaign prior to construction of the Heart of the Zoo” project, which would include a new, indoor-outdoor enclosure for the giraffes. I gave detailed accounting of why of WORT-FM. I encourage you all to give it a listen:

https://www.wortfm.org/dane-county-supervisor-to-propose-amendment-to-zoo-funding/

We will be taking a final vote on the budget on Monday November 6th. I am looking forward to completing this budget which makes important investments in all aspects of our community for a better Dane County for all of our neighbors.

D6 County Board Update and Community Discussion

Dear Neighbors,
Please join me on Wednesday April 19th for a virtual County Board update and community discussion. I will be covering the status of the Jail Project, ending housing of Federal Inmates at the Dane County Jail, PFAS pollution at the airport, Land purchases in the Yahara watershed and the Zoo director settlement.

Feel free to message me with any topics you want to discuss as well and I will do my best to cover them. Prior to the meeting, I will provide a zoom link.

https://www.facebook.com/events/1146616420072448

The plan is to do a brief presentation followed by a community discussion. If you don't live in District 6, feel free to attend as most of these updates will be applicable to all of Dane County.

Impacts of the recent prolonged rain event

Based on the flooding of 2018, there is always a lot of community concern when we have a prolonged rainfall event. Although all of the lakes will continue to gradually rise above summer maximums as the water works its way through the watershed, it will not rise to flood levels or anywhere near where we were in 2018.

The rainfall for the rest of the week will be minimal. Dams in the lower watershed will be open while water will be restricted out of the Tenney Dam and held back in Lake Mendota to not overwhelm the lower lakes.

We have our quarterly Lake Levels update on Thursday and we will get a detailed report from staff and I will post about it.

Here is a link to our Lake Levels page:
https://lwrd.countyofdane.com/lake-levels

Here is a link to operational dam changes that I had the department add to the web site in the last term:
https://lwrd.countyofdane.com/Dam/TabularData

Here is a detailed summary that was put out to the public from the Land and Water Department:

"From the recent rainfall, all lakes are above summer maximum. The past weekend rainfall totaled lower amounts of approximately 3" in the northern watershed (Mendota) compared to 5" in the southern (Kegonsa). Currently all the downstream dams (Babcock and Lafollette) are wide open. We are seeing aquatic plant growth in the river starting to die off for the season which reduces friction and increases flow. Near the end of the week, the lower lakes are expected to experience peak water levels from this weekend's rain.

We will continue to keep Babcock and Lafollette dams wide open with lower flows out of Tenney to reduce lake levels from Monona to Kegonsa (due to experiencing higher rainfall amounts). It is anticipated near the end of the week (after peak levels on the lower lakes) Tenney dam will be opened to reduce Lake Mendota levels. From today to near the end of the week, all lakes are expected to rise but not to flood levels.

The National Weather Service is predicting less than a quarter of an inch for the remainder of the week. We will continue to monitor rainfall predictions and runoff into the lakes and make adjustments as weather forecasts or flows change."