Algae blooms have been an issue in the Lake Winnebago system over the last several decades, but now some ideas are being proposed to help fight against this problem.

“So our Lake Winnebago lakes, Poygan, Winneconnie, Butte des Mores, and Winnebago are in a degrated state. They’re absolutely loved and enjoyed by everyone in the region, but we deal with severe algae blooms.” – Korin Doering Winnebago Waterways Program Coordinator” 

And it is the algae blooms that are posing a health risk to native aquatic species and human health.

“We need to reduce the amount of nutrient runoff coming from our landscape in both agricultural and urban areas. And we need to deal with the nutrients that are already in the lakes.”

The Blue-green algae blooms can become so thick that they block sunlight from shining through the water. This lack in sunlight then limits the amount of plant growth needed to control the phosphorous in the water.

“We’ve lost a lot of aquatic plants over the last several decades and because of that our lake is out of balance. The nutrients are there and something is going to use it. And because we don’t have plants using the phosphorous it’s available for the algae.”

One solution to allow more sunlight to reach the bottom of the lakes is to lower the water levels.

“So what we came up with was shifting the summer target down 1.2″, holding the water level toward the lower end of the target, extending the summer target into the fall by a month to allow for recreation into the fall.”

A committee of stakeholders would then be formed to discuss water level and quality issues throughout the year.

“We want people to get invilved. We need people to tell us what they want to see in the system and what are they willing to do to improve the system.”

To view an extended interview with Korin Doering click on the video below.