News & Reports
The 2025 Six-County Lakes and Rivers Meeting will be held on Friday, July 11. The meeting will be held at Nicolet College in Rhinelander from 8:30 AM to 12:30 PM. This year’s theme is “Quakes to our Lakes: What’s Shakin’?” where we will learn about threats to our waters and how we can respond. The meeting is again being sponsored by the Oneida County Lakes & Rivers Association and the Vilas County Lakes & Rivers Association.
New this year ~ online registration through Eventbrite! A link to the meeting agenda and registration will be forthcoming.
Eurasian watermilfoil (EWM; Myriophyllum spicatum) was detected in the Turtle Flambeau Flowage in the summer of 2023. During 2024, staff from the Mary Griggs Burke Center for Freshwater Innovation (Burke Center) at Northland College and the North Lakeland Discovery Center conducted point intercept aquatic plant surveys to document the extent of EWM presence within portions of the flowage and to provide updated data on the flowage’s overall aquatic plant community. Additionally, the Burke Center monitored flowage water levels at four locations to assess how water level fluctuations vary across the flowage in relation to fluctuations measured at the Turtle Dam.
The Wisconsin Conservation Congress offers citizens the ability weigh in on natural resource matters each year through its Spring Hearings. Citizen offered questions are put up to a vote by participants in the hearings, and those that pass eventually are provided to the Natural Resources Board, Dept. of Natural Resources, and the Legislature as suggested paths forward on an issue. WCC resolutions are advisory only.
While the in-person meetings took place this past Monday, citizens can register their vote online from noon, April 10, 2024 through noon, April 13 .
Three questions regarding wakesports and wakeboats are available in this years set of questions, along with questions regarding fish management and other natural resource topics:
- Questions 32 and 42 ask if the use of wakeboat ballast tanks systems, which don’t drain fully as designed and can cause the transfer of aquatic invasive species from one lake to the next, should be banned in Wisconsin
- Question 43 asks if the legislature should pass a law prohibiting the “generation of intentionally magnified wakes for wake surfing through the use of ballast, design features, operational procedures or any other means on lakes smaller than 1500 acres and less than 20 feet deep and maintain a distance from shore and other lake users of 700 feet
Wisconsin Lakes supports a vote of YES on these advisory questions.
“Protecting Our Waters: We’re All Connected” is the theme for the annual Northwoods Six-County Lakes Meeting, set for Friday, July 12, at Nicolet College.
Lake association leaders and members along with the general public will convene to learn about and discuss our interconnected water resources and our human connections to each other and to our lakes, streams, wetlands and groundwater.
A committee with representatives from Oneida, Vilas, Forest, Langlade, Lincoln, and Iron counties is at work developing plans for the meeting. The program will include a five-member panel discussion on the connections among water resources and the people who use them, along with presentations on the impacts of climate change and drought on our water resources and fisheries, and the problem of PFAS in the environment.
There will also be exhibits from educational and nonprofit organizations and excellent opportunities for networking. The meeting will run from 8:30 a.m. to noon. All are welcome; there is no charge and no need to register. More details and a full agenda will be announced as the meeting date approaches.
The event is jointly sponsored by the Oneida County Lakes and Rivers Association (www.oclra.org) and the Vilas County Lakes and Rivers Association (www.vclra.org). For more information contact Ted Rulseh at 920-242-8671 (trulseh@tjrcommunications.com) or Tom Ewing at 630-985-8472 (president@vclra.org).