Coastal Resilience Newsletter

Greetings from the Coastal Resilience Team!

This month's newsletter contains:

Lake Michigan Water Level Update
Blog: Introducing Wisconsin Emergency Management
Blog: Kenosha County Shore Protections Case Study
Resource of the Month: Working with Engineers and Contractors
Community Story: Lower Fox River Cleanup

Water Level Update

The water levels on all the Great Lakes have finally dipped below their monthly records as of November 6, 2020. Lake Michigan is now 7 inches below the highest recorded monthly average in November previously set in 1986. Additionally, the basin is 3 inches below mean water levels from a year ago. From this point and through the winter, water levels are expected to continue their seasonal decline. It is predicted that Lake Michigan-Huron will fall about 3 inches by next month.

Here are five things to know about water levels on Lake Michigan for October 2020.

Go to full update

Introducing: Wisconsin Emergency Management

Wisconsin Emergency Management (WEM) builds capabilities and coordinates resources to support a safe and resilient Wisconsin. The bulk of WEM is organized into two Bureaus: 1) Response and Recovery; 2) Planning and Preparedness. These two sectors are responsible for carrying out and supporting the process of emergency management.

WEM supports coastal resilience through the emergency management process. The process involves four phases: mitigation, preparedness, response, and recovery. WEM supports all phases to help communities become more resilient and able to bounce back from all manner of adverse events, including coastal hazards. WEM also has opportunities for communities to bounce back from hazards by offering funding for hazard mitigation assistance programs and recovery programs. Learn more by clicking on the link below.

Go to the blog

Kenosha County Shore Protection Case Study

Kenosha County Division of Parks and Recreation received a grant as part of the Southeastern Wisconsin Coastal Resilience program to complete the third phase of a shoreline protection project at the Kemper Center, a cultural and recreational facility on Lake Michigan. The shoreline is currently a degraded revetment that has been routinely damaged and overtopped in recent years through a combination of coastal storms and high Lake Michigan water levels.

Kenosha County has been working in phases since 2017 on designs and specifications to rehabilitate the shore protection at the site. The current third phase advanced three main initiatives: (1) design improved stormwater management and site grading (2) site investigations to catalog existing armor stone on site that can be salvaged for reuse and (3) regulatory coordination with permitting agencies.

This phased approach has helped move the project forward by keeping it manageable and allowed various funding opportunities to be leveraged along the way. The result of this work is a set of shovel-ready design documents for shore protection and stormwater management that works together to reduce erosion, flooding and damage to infrastructure.

To learn more about this project, follow the link below to read the full case study.

Go to the blog

Resource of the Month

Working with Engineers and Contractors

Working with Engineers and Contractors on Shore Protection Projects is a four page document that describes the standard procedures of a coastal protection project. In addition, the document highlights the benefits of using an engineering professional or contractor and provides recommendations for finding and choosing a qualified engineering professional or contractor that will fit the needs of the project. It is written for property owners or municipalities to utilize when they are considering a shore protection project. Readers can quickly read and understand the basics of employing an engineering professional or contractor to assist in a shore protection project.

Coastal Resilience Stories from Around the Great Lakes

Lower Fox River Cleanup

17 years and $1billion later, the Fox River cleanup is finally complete. This project involved the cleanup of sediment along 39 miles of the Lower Fox River and Green Bay, where paper mills lined the river. From the mid-1950s to 1971, paper companies used polychlorinated biphenyls, or manmade chemicals known as PCBs, to make carbonless copy paper, releasing nearly 700,000 pounds into the river. Starting in 2004 and over the life of the cleanup, 6.5 million cubic yards of contaminated sediment was removed, 10 billion gallons of water was treated and returned to the river, and 800,000 tons of sand was cleaned for reuse in the river. Current tests show that contaminants in the river have been reduced by about 90% since 2006 levels.

"We're not only closing the door on more than two decades of work on a Superfund site, but we're also making marked improvement to the Fox River Area of Concern through the Great Lakes Restoration Initiative," said Kurt Thiede, regional administrator for EPA's Region 5.

The Lower Fox River cleanup included dredging and removing 6.5 million cubic yards of contaminated sediments. Photo Credit: J.F. Brennan Company via Wisconsin DNR

If you have any questions about Lake Michigan coastal hazards or how to approach, plan, and prepare for them, please contact

Adam Bechle

bechle@aqua.wisc.edu

608-263-5133

For more information, visit the Southeast Wisconsin Coastal Resilience Project website

University of Wisconsin Sea Grant Institute | (608) 262-0905 | 1975 Willow Drive, 2nd Floor, Madison, WI 53706