2004 Grant Recipients
In 2004 the Lakeshore Natural Resource Partnership awarded $50,000 in grants to groups working on natural resource protection in the Lakeshore Basin.
A total of 17 projects from Door, Kewaunee and Manitowoc counties in the following Teams:
Click on a team below to view the projects funded for 2004
To see the projects funded for 2005 click here.
- Water Resources Team
- Communication and Education Team
- Land Use and Protection Team
- Agriculture and Urban Pollution Prevention Team
Water Resources
Projects must monitor, or improve streams, rivers, lakes, or wetlands. Also, considered are projects to improve public access for passive water-related recreation to public waterways.
Monitoring Water Quality in the Ahnapee Watershed
The project will gather baseline water quality data and enter it into a statewide citizen-monitoring database. Trained volunteers will record information on dissolved oxygen, water temperature and turbidity, stream flow, habitat and macroinvertebrate life. The overall objective is to enhance, protect and maintain the ecological integrity and water quality of this watershed
Grant Recipient:
Ahnapee River Watershed Alliance
Award Amount: $1,700
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Feasibility Study for Alum Treatment at East Alaska Lake
During the multi-phased study, lake association volunteers and trained professionals will monitor stream flow at the lake’s two primary inlets, sample phosphorus loads at the tributaries, and collect local precipitation data and water quality samples. Results of the tributary and lake modeling will be discussed as they pertain to the feasibility of proposed alum treatment. If either or both tributaries are still contributing excessive phosphorus, potential management alternatives will be explored.
Grant Recipient:
Tri-Lakes Association
Award Amount: $3,200
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Purple Loosestrife Control through “Beetle Mania”
With this grant, LNRP will help the Manitowoc County Lakes Association expand a program to educate, train and involve the public in the bio-control method, which has proven to be most efficient and least costly for larger infestations of loosestrife. Beetle Mania has three main project objectives:
- Increase public awareness through educational programs to schools, clubs, lake associations and other groups;
- Educate and train individuals and groups in eradication methods through workshops and hands-on clinics; and
- Establish local insectories to raise and release cella beetles for on-going control in loosestrife-infested areas. Partnering with groups that include the Wisconsin Wetlands Association and the Viking Bow and Gun Club, the lakes association intends to mobilize ten new groups to rear and release beetles and establish two new insectories in the Lakeshore Basin
Grant Recipient:
Manitowoc Lakes Association
Award Amount: $4,600
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Sy Lake Shoreland Restoration and Education
The Sy Lake Advancement Association plans to show its membership the advantages of natural landscaping by doing. This LNRP-funded project will involve lake association members in planning and implementing a shoreland naturalization project, working with a professional consultant.
Plans include an outreach and education component, followed by visits to other successful restoration sites. Project organizers expect that the gradual replacement of urban turf-grass with natural landscaping will enhance water quality and wildlife habitat, and reduce maintenance and conflicts over lake water levels.
Grant Recipient:
Sy Lake Advancement Association
Award Amount: $2,400
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Communication and Education
Projects must establish or improve communication and education about basin issues to the general public, youth, and stewardship programs.
Distinguished Lecture Series on Lakeshore Issues and Rocks and Water: Geology of the Wisconsin Lakeshore
Crossroads at Big Creek, a Sturgeon Bay environmental learning center, proposed to offer a one-credit, fifteen-hour class for elementary teachers on geology and issues pertaining to the lakeshore environment. The LNRP grant will enable Crossroads to offer stipends for up to ten classroom teachers. Participants will create, present and evaluate lesson plans relating to the lakeshore environment, and explore ways to integrate geology and environmental concepts into non-science disciplines.The Program Committee of Crossroads at Big Creek had wished to host a distinguished lecture series since building its lecture hall at the environmental learning preserve in Sturgeon Bay. This LNRP grant will enable the center to establish a fund to underwrite high-quality professional speakers and to promote the programs throughout the Lakeshore Basin.
A secondary objective of the year-long series is to expose local youth to the visiting lecturers, either through classroom presentations or media programs. Specific events may be organized in collaboration with other groups or schools.
Grant Recipient:
Crossroads at Big Creek Environmental Learning Preserve
Award Amount: $3,760
Award Amount: $2,140
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View a PDF profile - Geology
Common Ground Environmental Exhibition
Common Ground is an exciting fine art exhibit that brings together over 50 artists, scientists and writers to interpret the natural beauty of Door County, as well as the environmental threats to the region. The exhibit, sponsored by the Francis Hardy Center for the Arts, will address human impacts on the peninsula’s air, water, and soil, and the loss of natural habitats. Issues relating to land use, surface and groundwater contamination, and urban and agricultural pollution will be examined through posters, original artwork and publication of a Common Ground book. LNRP funds will also support a series of twelve lectures/workshops with local and regional experts discussing Door County’s environment. This exhibition melding art and science will also travel to Green Bay, Manitowoc and the State Capitol in Madison.
Grant Recipient:
Francis Hardy Center for the Arts
Award Amount: $4.500
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Educational Kiosk for Maribel Caves
The Wisconsin Speleological Society, (a statewide group with an annual budget of $3,000), wants to construct an informational kiosk in the park as the beginning of an educational program. The sign will be placed near the main trailhead and will be modeled after an informational kiosk at Cave Point County Park in Door County. The focus will be on educating visitors about the numerous caves in the park and the special geology of the karst area and Niagara Escarpment. Organizers hope it will also deter vandalism.
Grant Recipient:
Wisconsin Speleological Society
Award Amount: $3,000
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Willow Trail at Woodland Dunes
About ten years ago, the Woodland Dunes Nature Center acquired a parcel of land on its north end, abutting the West Twin River. The area had been used for dumping and disposal of various kinds of household rubbish. There are also old buildings that have deteriorated, presenting a hazard and eyesore for visitors.
The nature center proposes to remove the rubbish and old buildings and then create a foot trail that will lead to the shoreline and views of marshes along the river. A bench and informational signage will also be installed.
Grant Recipient:
Woodland Dunes Nature Center
Award Amount: $1,500
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Land-use and Protection
Projects must focus on improving land development decisions that restore or protect natural areas.
Building a Framework for Biological Inventories
Management of natural areas and conservancy lands in Door County is inadequate, proposed the Door County Land Use Forum. The recently-published Guide to Significant Wildlife Habitat and Natural Areas of Door County identified areas where contiguous parcels of relatively intact ecosystems can be found, but there is lack of specific data needed to initiate effective conservation activities.
The LNRP grant will help create a simple biological inventory strategy that can be used to select target species or natural communities for conservation and protection. The Hibbards Creek-Thorpe Pond Watershed in Northern Door and Stony Creek Watershed in Southern Door will be the pilot sites, but only the first steps in creating an extensive framework for biological monitoring, water quality assessment and measurement of ecosystem health in watersheds throughout the Door Peninsula.
Grant Recipient:
Door County Land Use Forum
Award Amount: $4,250
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Wetland Delineation Training for Local Governments
The Nature Conservancy and Land Use Forum proposed to develop simple curriculum and training for government officials in Door County. Participating town boards and planning committees will receive an introductory lecture on wetland plants, hydrology and soils, an outdoor field exercise to apply the information, and a review of the maps, data sheets and other reports that should be submitted as part of a wetland delineation. A simple library of field guides, maps and basic wetland delineation tools will be made available to local officials as part of the project.
Grant Recipient:
The Nature Conservancy and
Door County Land Use Forum
Award Amount: $3,000
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Building Capacity to Protect Rural Land Legacy
Kewaunee County is the only Wisconsin lakeshore county without a land trust. The Rural Land Legacy Committee is a group recently formed to assist local landowners and governments that want to voluntarily preserve and maintain natural habitat, open space and agricultural land in Kewaunee County.
This capacity-building grant from LNRP will help this fledgling organization promote its goals and activities, recruit members, develop partnerships with other local groups, and collaborate with other land trusts. Another goal is to begin the process of acquiring a beautiful 33-acre parcel of land adjacent to Lake Michigan. The site is a mix of grassland, woodland and rocky shoreline.
Grant Recipient:
Rural Land Legacy Committee
Award Amount: $1,750
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Restoring Habitat and Building Partnerships
Invasive plants are threatening the ecological integrity of critical natural areas in Door County, displacing native vegetation and destroying wildlife habitat in forests, fields and wetlands. The Door County Land Trust has proposed a project to eradicate alien invaders at two sites by training volunteers and local landowners in restoration practices.
Trained Land Trust stewardship staff will first assess, document and map the presence of buckthorn, Common reed grass and honeysuckle at the two sites — the Bay Shore Blufflands Preserve and Kellner Fen Wetland Preserve. Then volunteers will be recruited, trained and coordinated, through a series of six work parties, to help carry out restoration work.
The volunteers will be recruited from two landowner groups — the Bay Shore Property Owners Association and Lake Forest Park Road Association — as well as the Door Stewardship Alliance, a recent partnership of the Land Trust and The Nature Conservancy. This LNRP-funded project to control invasive species will be replicated in other State Natural Areas in Door County.
Grant Recipient:
The Door County Land Trust
Award Amount: $1,750
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Agricultural and Urban Pollution Prevention
Projects must focus on reducing and preventing water, air, or soil pollution from rural or urban sources.
Farming and Conservation Together
The Lakeshore Habitat Restoration Committee recognized a need to provide permanent protection to significant wetland/grassland habitat complexes developed in Northeast Manitowoc County through landowner participation in agricultural set-aside programs. It also wanted to expand habitat development into surrounding townships and encourage sustainable agriculture.
LNRP awarded a grant to explore the opportunity to develop an organization in Northern Manitowoc and Southern Kewaunee counties modeled after Farming and Conservation Together (FACT), a Sauk County group. The grant will support an educational/outreach event to bring FACT representatives to the area to meet with local government officials, landowners, representatives of the nuclear power plants, and natural resource users.
Grant Recipient:
Lakeshore Habitat Restoration Committee
Award Amount: $600
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Gibson/Kossuth Well Testing Project
This project will test drinking water wells in two townships in order to identify and map areas of groundwater contamination.
Teams will work closely with the Manitowoc County Soil and Water Conservation Department and the Town of Kossuth’s Water Committee to identify participating landowners, take water samples, analyze and plot the test results on a Geographical Information System (GIS), and follow up with participants to explain the findings.
Information gathered on groundwater contamination will augment the comprehensive land use planning process. The goal is for citizens to work with government agencies to develop recommendations for environmentally-friendly land use practices.
Grant Recipient:
Gibson Kossuth Groundwater Group
Award Amount: $4,400
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Manitowoc County Discovery Farms
The Manitowoc County Discovery Farms Project is a unique collaboration of agricultural, conservation and government groups. The aim is to identify and reduce the sources and methods of phosphorus and E. coli contamination in the surface waters of Manitowoc County through science-based research on two working farms.
The University of Wisconsin and U.S. Geological Survey will monitor fields and watershed and gather data on nutrients, sediments, pesticides and other elements, and determine where they are leaving the landscape. They will work with farmers to find economical and effective ways to comply with environmental regulations while monitoring profitability.
This LNRP grant will support the production of outreach materials and hosting of a Media Day and four Field Days during 2004 and 2005. The goal is to educate and improve communication among farmers, researchers, citizens and policy-makers about effective environmental management practices that are compatible with profitable agriculture.
Grant Recipient:
Manitowoc County Discovery Farms
Award Amount: $4,750
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