Residents, council members, seek guidance, offer concerns during lakes meeting with DNR biologist Heidi Bunk 

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Residents, council members, seek guidance, offer concerns during lakes meeting with DNR biologist Heidi Bunk 

By Kim McDarison

Some 80 residents on Saturday filled the Whitewater Common Council Chambers, with more residents spilling into the Whitewater Municipal Building’s first-floor hallway and entryway to the chambers, each of whom was eager to learn about continued restoration plans for Trippe and Cravath lakes, and share their concerns with Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources biologist Heidi Bunk.

At least 15 residents approached the podium to share their concerns, many of whom voiced disappointment with the lakes restoration project’s outcome so far. The $1.5 million project was begun by the city in 2020.

In addition, the city has committed to a $111,000 project that includes some dredging near shorelines in front of city-owned property, with work anticipated to complete this fall.

After listening to a 30-minute presentation made by Bunk and Michelle Dujardin, the city’s Recreation and Community Events Programmer who was identified Saturday as the interim Parks and Recreation director, stepping in after former Parks and Recreation Director Eric Boettcher’s departure from the role earlier this month, Council President Jim Allen, who led the meeting, opened the floor for public comments.

Also in attendance were city council members Lisa Dawsey Smith, Jill Gerber and David Stone.

During their presentation, and aided by slides, Bunk and Dujardin touched upon several lakes-related topics, including the condition of the lakes, water level management, cattail management, fish stocking redux, chemical treatments, fall of 2023 dredging plans, helpful resources for landowners, city-approved geese and duck hunting permits for use in lake-related zones, and requirements associated with forming a lake association or district.

After the meeting, City Manager John Weidl said he had created a check list of topics on which he would follow up to aid the city council in its plans to address the lakes moving forward.

Items on his list included learning more about chemical treatment plans, finding a hydrologist or other lakes-related expert who could offer further guidance, learning more about maintenance plans used on a lake in the neighboring community of Palmyra, following up on webinars suggested by Bunk about creating lake districts and associations, and learning more about a Healthy Lakes grants project.

Bunk’s impressions of the lakes in June

Dujardin opened the presentation by introducing herself and Bunk, and directing meeting attendees to a selection of handouts made available on a table. Among items made available was a guidebook, titled: “People of the Lakes: A Guide for Wisconsin Lake Organizations.” The booklet is in its 12th edition and made available through the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point College of Natural Resources lakes extension office. A link to the university’s “extension lakes” page, which provides links to the full publication, is here: https://www3.uwsp.edu/cnr-ap/UWEXLakes/Pages/organizations/guide.aspx.

Following her introduction, Bunk said she had last visited Cravath and Trippe lakes by boat in June.

During her visit, she said, she noted that the water in Whitewater Creek was “quite clear.” She listed a variety of aquatic plants growing along the creek, which, she said, were keeping the creek “very balanced and healthy.”

Within Trippe Lake, she said, she found “a lot of open water,” further noting that she was able to “boat it quite well.”

In Spring Brook, which she described as the inlet to Cravath Lake, she, again, noted water that was “quite clear,” again noting aquatic plants along the shore.

“Navigation was quite good,” she said, further describing navigability as “a big change from before the drawdown project where we had a hard time navigating certainly in the lakes … and the tributaries as well.”

Turning her attention of Cravath Lake, she said, “Cravath Lake was a little bit different of a story.

“There’s a lot of filaments of algae, there are water lilies, there are some of the aquatic plants that I mentioned, but the response of this lake is certainly different than the response of Trippe Lake.” 

Anticipated questions

Bunk said she next would work to address several anticipated questions as suggested by Dujardin. Aided by slides, anticipated questions, and an answer to each, were as follows:

Bunk asked: “What if we just raised the water level of the lakes?”

In response, Bunk said that state statutes stipulate a “minimum required discharge requirement to the downstream,” which, in the case of Whitewater’s lakes, would be Whitewater Creek.

The law is in place to help the streams “keep functioning,” she said, noting that the requirement ensures that the waterbody is provided with “enough oxygen, water volume, enough cooler water, so the animals in the stream can continue with their life-stage requirements of feeding, rearing, reproducing.”

She noted that she had been in contact with Boettcher before he left his position with the city, and he had made her aware, she said, that “the gates on both dams are currently at their highest level that they can legally be placed. Certainly our drought, and hot and dry weather, contributes to the lower water level this year.”

With the lower water level, she said, “there is less to retain behind the gates.” 

Bunk asked: “Why not lower the water level again to manage the cattails?” 

She responded: “So certainly it’s a different permitting process, but drawdown, when you have established cattails, will actually help those cattails persist longer in the lakes.”

She understood, she said, that people within the community were concerned with the growth of cattails. 

According to Bunk, drought was another condition that would help cattails persist.

“A higher water level will help them die back faster, and then here is something I’ve cautioned in previous meetings, a sudden or sustained high-water level can cause sections of cattails to break off and float around the lake in bogs.” 

Bunk asked: “If an area is dredged, will it take out the entire seedbank of cattails?”

She responded, “no,” next asking: “Will it take out some?” to which she responded, “yes.” 

She asked: “If you dredge out cattails will they return?” She answered: “yes, they have a possibility of returning.”

Bunk said she spoke recently with a colleague in Oshkosh, whom, she noted, had “dealt with a lot of drawdown projects on millponds.

“So we talked about the characteristics of Trippe and Cravath, and these three millponds” — she pointed to a slide which listed Iola, Marion and Wautoma millponds — “he felt were the most comparable to your lakes.” 

Bunk said her colleague indicated that, in all cases, the millponds he referenced had “multiple year drawdowns, just like you did,” which, she said, typically meant “at least two summers.”

Describing her colleague’s findings, she said cattails that are growing in 5 to 7 feet of water typically died back after two full growing seasons, while cattails growing in 3 to 4 feet of water typically died back after 2 to 4 full growing seasons, and cattails growing in less than three feet of water typically persist longterm.

In Whitewater, she said, since the drawdown, a growing season and a half had elapsed, noting that water began returning to the lakes at the mid-point of last summer.

“So we could start anticipating the cattails growing in the deepest water to start dying back next year,” Bunk said.

Bunk next sought to explain the value of cattails in the lakes, noting that they “play a very big role in keeping this lake restoration project in achieving its goals.”

Among project goals, she cited the creation of a diverse aquatic plant community that would sustain a balanced fishery, which, she said, would serve the community through fishing as both a source of pleasure and “also, possibly to eat the fish.”

She added that in the past, before the drawdown, the aquatic plant community was dominated by essentially four aquatic plants, two of which were non-native. The non-native species were Eurasian milfoil and curly leaf pondweed.

“Certainly before the drawdown project, passage by boat was quite difficult. I even had trouble sometimes passaging with a canoe or a kayak,” she said, adding that the additional benefits of cattails in the lakes were that they “help block the wind, they help to allow the aquatic plants growing at present in the seedbank to germinate and grow. And we are trying to get a longterm established diverse aquatic plant community, and that diverse aquatic plant community will help sustain all the animals using the lakes including your fish. So frogs, turtles, birds, we want to have feeding, covers, spawning, resting, cruising available to those animals,” Bunk said. 

Bunk next talked about stocking of fish which occurred in the lakes last fall.

Returning to the anticipated questions, she asked: “Could we have more variety of fish? Does the DNR have the ability to stock?

In response, she noted that the DNR raises northern pike, but does not raise other species, such as bass and panfish.

Those species were available for purchase through private vendors, she said.

The DNR did stock northern pike in the lakes last fall and this spring, she said.

She recommended several species of fish, which, she said, would “do fine” in Whitewater’s two lakes, including bluegills, perch, crappie and largemouth bass.

Among fish that she said would not do well in Whitewater’s lakes, she listed smallmouth bass and walleye, citing a sensitivity to declines in dissolved oxygen, and the presence of warm water, brought about by the shallow depths of the two lakes. 

She shared through a slide a plan by the city to stock bluegills, black crappies, yellow perch and golden shiners to both lakes this fall.

Additionally, she said, the DNR was planning a fish evaluation project to be conducted within the two lakes, with anticipation of performing that work in the spring of 2024.

Bunk asked: “What about doing a large-scale cattail chemical treatment, because it’s (vegetation) blocking my sightline, my kitchen window; we want to be able to get out to the lake, things like that?”   

She responded: “So right now the cattails are taking up a lot of the nutrients in the lake and they are helping with the clarity and they are helping with the establishment of the desirable submersed water plants.

“If a large number of them are killed all at once, you would greatly increase the chances of having a large-scale algae bloom on the lakes, blue-green algae, which we certainly don’t want because it can release toxins and filamentous algae that is certainly aesthetically displeasing. 

“So, as I said before, the cattails are helping to establish those native aquatic plants in the water that are submersed. They certainly provide wildlife habitat and then the impact to the amphibians and birds, there can be of course impacts to their habitat. And also there are some secondary impacts to birds and frogs through some of the chemicals, they might not be lethal but they can certainly hinder their ability to live their fullest life.” 

Bunk talked about chemicals available for aquatic use, such as 2, 4D, which, she said, is typically used in agricultural and aquatic spaces to eradicate milfoil.

She described milfoil on the two lakes as “not very widespread.”

“I was told this question might come up: What’s going on with 2, 4 D; is it ok to use?” Bunk said.

She responded by saying that the DNR had been partnering with the UW-Madison to perform “some studies on fish and see if this most commonly used chemical could have an impact on them.”

She noted that with chemicals that are approved by such regulatory agencies as the EPA and others, tests are performed on fish species, which she described as “not very sensitive.”

Referencing the DNR and UW-Madison’s study, she said: “this study is looking at the fish in their very early development as eggs and as larvae.”

She described the feeding cycle of larvae, noting that they begin feeding on microscopic animals in the water between three and seven days after they hatch.

“In those studies, they found that there are impacts to fish both when they were in the eggs and when they were in that larval state,” she said, adding that the fish that were impacted in those stages included fathead minnow, white sucker, northern pike, large mouth bass, white crappie, walleye, and yellow perch.

Citing anticipated questions, Bunk asked: “What would you use for chemical treatment of cattails?” 

She answered: “Typically it’s Imazapyr, glyphosate, and both of those do best when they have a surfactant added to them. And a surfactant basically is a substance that when dissolved in water, lowers the surface tension and allows the chemical to be absorbed better by the plant you are targeting.”

Bunk said there are a number of different surfactants available, but, she said, “the ones (treatments) that aren’t using Methylated Seed Oil (MSO) are toxic to frogs and turtles.”

She advised that any treatments considered for use against cattails should include MSO. 

Offering information specific to city-approved dredging plans this fall, Dujardin said areas that would be targeted include the fishing pier, canoe launch and bump-out in Cravath Lake and the boat launch in Trippe Lake.

Bunk asked: “Who owns the water?” and “Who owns the lakebed?”   

Bunk noted that waterbodies within the state of Wisconsin are held in trust for the people of Wisconsin, and are regulated by the DNR. 

“If you are a riparian landowner, your ownership stops at what’s called the ordinary high water mark. The ordinary high water mark is where you have a distinct mark on the bank — maybe you have rocks, maybe you have seawall, maybe you have … plants —  and you will see a distinct mark where the water is most often at.

“So the city doesn’t own that lakebed. The citizens of Wisconsin own it and it is regulated by the Department of Natural Resources,” she said.

Ownership is calculated differently regarding streams, she said, with riparian ownership to the center of the stream, but, she noted, “if there is water, then the public is allowed to use that stream bed. If it is dry because of a low water level, the public has to keep their activities in the areas that have actual water.” 

Bunk said handouts provided during the meeting offered information to riparian landowners about resources they might consider when dredging, mowing, and using chemical treatments on their properties.

“In terms of removal of aquatic plants, if you are doing it by hand — no mechanical devices — you can do 30 feet along your frontage and out into the lake up to 100 feet by hand. You must remove all the cut material, you must place it in an upland, it cannot go in a wetland, in cannot go in a floodplain, and it cannot go back into the lakebed,” she said.

She added: “If you are doing any sort of mowing, then you need a permit. If you want to remove more than that 30 feet by hand, you need a permit.”

Bunk noted that chemical treatment of any type would require the landowner to apply for a permit. When using a contractor, she said, the company typically fills out the paperwork for the client. She advised that homeowners allow contractors to take those steps on their behalf.

“If you want to do some dredging of navigational channels, you need a Chapter 30 permit,” which, she said, was handled by the DNR’s water management specialists.

Dujardin next shared a slide offering information about obtaining permits through the city to hunt geese and ducks within zones on both lakes.

Permit applications were due Aug. 23, she said. 

Hunting of geese and ducks will begin on both lakes on Sept. 1. The permits runs until the end of the year.

Forming a lake association or district

Bunk next offered information about forming lake associations and districts, saying that, to date, the city has undertaken the task of management of the lakes. Many lakes have either a lake association or a lake district to perform the management duties, she said. 

Bunk described a lake association as a membership-driven group where members pay dues and membership is voluntary.

A district, she said, requires that a boundary is set and those living within the boundary pay a tax to the district.

“Districts clearly would have more spending power to do projects, and so there is a very complicated process to become a district. Becoming an association is much simpler. If the membership here decides that they would like to pursue the potential to become a district, then I would arrange for a webinar. There are a couple of folks at UW-Extension that are experts on this and so they’ve done a lot of webinars to help you get started,” she said. 

“Typically districts manage contract harvesting, or in-house harvesting, for example, here by Whitewater/Rice lakes, they have their own in-house harvesting. So they own equipment, they hire staff, and do their own harvesting,” Bunk adding, noting that she was aware of grants that are available to help districts with projects.

“The city did receive one grant for this project,” she said.

Dujardin said city staff and “a group of individuals” were exploring options, “to see what all of this entails.” 

Before inviting the public to make comments, Allen offered what he said were “things that we all notice.”

Said Allen: “We can’t see the water from our yards. We can’t get through the cattails to get to the water. If we go any length of time without rain, they stink.”

Allen said the community had taken the DNR’s advice and spent more than $1.5 million, and, he stated, “we didn’t get what we wanted.

“So we want their (DNR) expertise to help us get back to the way they (lakes) were.

“We talked about bringing in experts from the UW. I personally asked at least 10 times .. who’s the hydrologist? Do you have any water studies?”

Addressing Bunk, he said: “You just talked about having experts come in and talk to us, but where were all the experts when we asked how do you know this is going to work?” 

Additionally, Allen said: “You control the permits that you talked about. I don’t think the city or the residents should have to pay for any more permits. I think the DNR should capitulate to that and extend the permits that we have so we can get on with our lives and get these lakes back to the way we want them to be.” 

Public comments

The floor was next opened for public comments.

Whitewater resident Geoff Hale called information provided by the DNR “a lot of wallpaper paste.”

Addressing Bunk, he said: “You didn’t give an answer to how to fix what we’ve got.”

Hale expressed frustration with the DNR, citing the department as a source of “excuses,” with, he said, “excessive turnover,” and exhibiting a lack of common sense.

He advocated for having “bulldozers pushing shallow lake bottoms into habitats,” making islands, for, he said, “a fraction of the cost” of having dredging spoils hauled away.

“There are multiple current projects in the central part of our state where bulldozers are being used to create lakes and valuable tax incremental shorelines, as simply pushing dirt and building islands.”

Additionally, he asked: “What’s going to be done about the floating bog?”

He suggested that the community acquire a vegetation cutter. 

Andrew Crone said he learned to swim in Trippe Lake. He noted that his son was involved as a volunteer with an “experimental” conservancy project which focused on the removal of cattails.

“They have had an over 98% success rate of keeping cattails away that grow in three feet of water,” he said, adding, “the technique that they’ve used, which, for them, is like a brand new research technique, is to cut the cattails above the water, apply the herbicides to the cattails — and this is a space that has endangered species, so they are very protective that way — and they’ve had just immense success of no return of the cattails. It’s labor intensive because you have to do it by hand.”

Crone suggested that the city form a “team of volunteers” to remove the cattails by hand.

“Whitewater has been known for having bad water in the first place. Now, you put weed killer and all that on top of this water, whether it’s bogged ground or cattails, something is going to have a consequence,” Doug Behrens said, adding that when the city drew down the water from the lakes, “they shot themselves in the foot.

“Mother Nature is telling you something here. What you got to remember is those were never lakes.” he said. 

Behrens described the two lakes as manmade impoundments created for industrial purposes.

“My take on this is Mother Nature is turning them back the way she wants it. And I don’t think we stick another red penny into something that’s never going to be what everybody wants it to be. I agree they should be able to do something — you want to go out and cut the cattails and stuff, more power to you. And I don’t think as a taxpayer it should come out of me or anyone else.” 

Addressing Bunk, Larry Kachel asked if the DNR had approved with the city’s project a permit for “some spraying to occur on the weeds.”

Bunk said it had.

Kachel asked why the chemical application did not occur.

“I believe it was a timing issue,” Bunk said.

Kachel asked which chemicals had been approved for use with the project.

Bunk said she did not have the permit available for reference.

Kachel asked if the DNR would have approved the chemical application permit if it thought the products being used were harmful to reptiles and fish.

Bunk said that typically permit applications for chemical treatments “check the boxes” for Imazapyr or glyphosate, the two chemical she identified within her presentation.

While the products are considered safe for animals, Bunk said, “we are limited sometimes as to what studies are available. We do know, like I mentioned (earlier in the presentation) that certain surfactants are bad for frogs and turtles, and so we tell people not to use those, but there could be a study that comes up in the future that shows an impact of glyphosate or Imazapyr on animals.” 

Kachel, referencing the potential of forming an entity such as a district to manage the lakes, asked about costs associated with lake-related projects, saying: “Let’s say they want to spend $300,000 and bring in a weed cutter … those members of that district have to fund that. Is that correct?” 

Bunk said the members of the district would vote on whether or not they wanted to fund certain projects.

“Well the only way that this could possibly work is if the lake district was the entire community,” Kachel said.

Kachel questioned whether the intent of the DNR and the intent of the community was in alignment when the city undertook its dredging project. He cited weeds as the community’s primary concern, yet, addressing Bunk, he said: “you dredged in the middle.”

He cited her earlier comments about landowners’ rights ending at the ordinary high water mark, saying: “technically the water in front of them belongs to everybody in the state. Weeds were not in the center of the lakes. They were along the shores. Nothing was done along the shores. Did you have a different intent of what you wanted the project’s outcome to be?”

Said Bunk: “So there’s a distinction here between what you own and what you have rights to do. So in your riparian zone, you do enjoy some rights, like, for example, the placement of a pier, the ability to apply for a treatment, a chemical treatment, around your pier, the ability to apply for a harvesting permit in your riparian zone. So to say that you have no rights would not be the most accurate thing to say. Your ownership ends at the ordinary high water mark. Does that distinction make sense?”

Citing channels dredged in the center of the lakes, Kachel said: “I realize the intent was to get more flow through. I am not a lakes expert, but to me, you’ve created a 50-foot by 6-foot dredge hole that as the water comes in from Trippe down to Cravath, it just runs even faster through.”

Kachel said residents along the lake used to have lake frontage. Now they have a marsh view. 

He asked: “Was there a particular reason why you couldn’t have done some of the dredging of, the weed killing, closer to the shore where the weeds actually were?”

Said Bunk: “What the city had chosen to spend the money on it, potentially, I would have had to look at it from a permitting standpoint, but what we did say at the time is that landowners have the right to do stuff in their riparian zone. We had handouts about what they could do. And, of course, it costs the landowners money, and so a lot of them, you know, didn’t feel like they could afford it, was the feedback I got.

“My understanding at the time is that there was a budget limit, and so it was decided to go where the common areas are, and so the dredging project was kind of the thalweg area.”

Bunk said some of the goals of the project were to provide an adequate depth for boating in the main channels.

“So there’s a difference between what the city goals might have been and what landowners’ goals might have been,” she said. 

Gayle Stettler said she spoke with Boettcher about a month ago and he told her that the city had budgeted for a weed cutter, and that there was a possibility for federal financing to help purchase the equipment. Additionally, she said, he noted that if the landowners did form a lake district, “it won’t be just the people who live on the lake, it will be all those who enjoy it, would pay for the ribbon that goes around  the edge. That was what he was proposing.” 

Said Allen: “To be clear though, a weed cutter doesn’t cut cattails. It only cuts those other species of weeds that we have up to the surface, and it cuts them about two feet below the surface. It’s not going to do anything for the cattails.

“After this is all said and done, and we get our lakes back, we can certainly look into getting a weed cutter then.”

Weidl said that he was aware that Boettcher did place within the city’s capital budget $125,000 for the purchase of equipment.

Bunk said she, too, had been involved with similar conversations with Boettcher.

“He was looking at options,” she said, adding that the piece of equipment that is used to mow cattails is called a Truxor, but, she said, “cities don’t typically buy or typically lake districts don’t buy Truxors.”

She said contractors typically do that work. 

Returning to the podium, Hale talked about the DNR’s permitting process, saying: “It would take an Einstein to fill out this … darn thing. The number of pages and the amount of paperwork that the individual would have to do, you’d have to have an attorney to fill out one of those goofy permits.”

He added: “And then on top of it, each individual landowner would have to pay up to $2,000, $1,500, something crazy, just to get that permit, when there was already a permit for everybody in this community to use tagging along with the city.” 

Bunk said she was not a decision maker regarding dredging permits.

“That is a decision that was made way up in the management level for water management specialists, and they have to look at what the code provides, as to what the law provides, and so that’s the interpretation that they gave. If you want to get an answer from a supervisor in that area you can do that,” she said. 

Addressing Hale’s earlier suggestion about bulldozing spoils to make islands, Bunk said: “We did allow that once down here, and what the islands turned into was just a messy, weed-canary grass, slumping slope island. And so we have found that they don’t serve wildlife purposes. They often cover up habitat for other things, but they don’t stabilize. So they cause a lot of sediment redistribution within the lake. That is typically why we don’t allow it.”

She said she was not aware of places within the state were such islands were being constructed.

A Cravath Lake property owner said that the city had in the past used a weed skimmer on the lake. The landowner said he had spoken with the skimmer operator who told him that he was supposed to clean the shoreline, but he couldn’t do the full job because he couldn’t access the full shoreline.

“He couldn’t get down the lake because he needed three feet of water,” the property owner said.

He added: “I’ve been cleaning the lake by hand for five years, and I can tell you, I was in there this morning, and it is barely over my knees. So there’s no three feet of water to get a weed skimmer in there.” 

Said Allen: “We’ve heard it several times that the lakes don’t seem to have the water level that they used to have. So if both dams are up as high as they go, why does it seem like the water level is lower?” 

“Right now we’re at drought,” Bunk said, which, she noted, meant that not as much water was coming into the lakes.

She said water was still going over the dams to maintain state requirements, as she had earlier mentioned, and the distribution flow to the streams.

Arriving at the podium and addressing Bunk, Whitewater Common Councilwoman Jill Gerber asked: “What is your plan that you are recommending to us going forward?” and, she asked: “Are we on the right path?” “Are we supposed to be dredging?”

“I hear conflicting information on the seeds of the cattails, like there’s no point to dredge because the seeds will come from the other ones, and they are going to reseed and regrow anyway. So is that recommended to spend the $100,000 that we did? Is it right to do it in October? Is there going to be cattails coming back — I just want to know what your plan is that you are recommending, so our city manager and our park and rec director here know what they can research and move forward with.” 

Said Bunk: “In terms of what can be done, we were looking at homeowners doing their 30-foot mowing, or their 30-foot dredging, so they can have their sightline reestablished.

“We are fine with some of the cattails being removed; We don’t want all the cattails removed.

“As for the question of why couldn’t the city’s permit cover the landowners, I certainly advocated for that, and it wasn’t a decision that was up to me. I did place in another call to the supervisor for that program to ask if there’s any other way to go about this. I haven’t heard back from him yet. So I will have to get back to John (Weidl) or someone else.”

She continued: “Can you dredge in October? sure.” 

Weidl asked: “Who is the person at the DNR that I can talk to to say give me the maximum amount of cattails you can allow us to rip out and how long do I have to do it?”

Allen asked: “Can residents who are living on the lake, can they go out and spray on their property?” 

Said Bunk: “They need a permit.” 

Allen asked: “You can’t extend the permit?”

Bunk said she could not. Also, she noted, the city does not currently have a permit to treat the lakes chemically. 

“Now if the city wanted to put together a lake-wide chemical treatment permit, that can be done,” Bunk said. 

Gerber said she was confused by Bunk’s statement that the city could apply for a chemical treatment permit, citing Bunk’s presentation during which she talked about potential dangers to aquatic life.

“So which one is it? Are we supposed to spray or are we not supposed to spray?” she asked.

Bunk sought to make a distinction between what, she said, “the law allows,” and information made available through “fish studies.”

“I’m trying to give you the message that we don’t have all the answers yet as to who can all be impacted at what stages of their life development by chemicals,” Bunk said. 

“As for the question of can residents apply for their own chemical treatment permit to do a 30-foot channel? Yes, they can,” she said. 

“Is the city allowed to apply for a lake-wide permit to do those 30-foot channels? yes, they may.” 

Regarding the choice between making permitted chemical applications or not, Bunk said: “It’s a decision that is not mine to make.” 

Said Gerber: “So I’m still wondering what is the plan?”

Bunk responded: “Does the DNR have a written plan for what the residents can do this fall on cattails? No, we do not.” 

Gerber asked: “What about for the city? How are we supposed to spend our money, or the taxpayer’s dollars, moving forward to clean the lakes, to make them look like lakes?” 

Said Bunk: “So if the city is interested in pursuing a project, I’d be happy to have a meeting, then figure out the scope, then once the permit is applied for, a decision needs to be made in consultation with a wildlife biologist and a fisheries biologist.”

Said Gerber: “So it sounds like there’s no definite plan. There is no way to direct us moving forward. I can understand you are not able to answer that right now, but will the cattails come back?”

Said Bunk: “Can the cattails regerminate? Yes. Do I know they will for sure? No, I do not.”

Two photos above: Some 80 people packed the council chambers at the Whitewater Municipal Building Saturday, with more residents waiting in the chamber vestibule, each of whom had arrived to learn about alternatives which might be employed by the city to improve upon its Cravath and Trippe lakes restoration project from Department of Natural Resources biologist Heidi Bunk. 

Whitewater Recreation and Community Events Programmer Michelle Dujardin introduces herself Saturday as the city’s interim Parks and Recreation director. The city’s former Parks and Recreation Director Eric Boettcher left his position in Whitewater earlier this month.  

Aided by slides, Department of Natural Resources biologist Heidi Bunk, having visited the lakes in June, she said, offers an assessment of their progress. 

Whitewater Common Council President Jim Allen watches a slide presentation about the restoration process underway at Cravath and Trippe lakes as shared by Department of Natural Resources biologist Heidi Bunk and the city’s interim Parks and Recreation Director Michelle Dujardin. 

At least 15 members of the public, some of whom are pictured above, address Department of Natural Resources biologist Heidi Bunk during Saturday’s Community Lakes Meeting. Residents expressed concerns and frustrations, and sought advice about the city’s continuing lakes restoration project.  

Kim McDarison photos. 

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