Each quarter, the Dane County Land Water Resources Department offers an update regarding the recent Flooding Task Force recommendations. The following is from the update in late August.

At the time of the update, all the lakes in the Yahara chain were at summer maximum. Efforts continue to lower them further. The Babcock and LaFollette Dams continue to be fully open, processing as much water through as possible.

Dane County has two additional aquatic plant harvesters this year. In addition to these, we also have a barge that can offload the harvesters while they are at work. This saves the harvesters from having to travel back to the shore, offload and travel back to the place where they left off. This is making the process much more efficient and allowing much more harvesting to happen. Currently, there are seven harvesters at work on the Yahara River. The flow of water is dramatically improved with the harvesting. It is estimated that Lake Monona would be a foot higher without the harvesting efforts.

The county also plans to remove sediment from the system. In order for this work to happen, there is a lengthy permit process through the Department of Nature Resources. The process is nearly complete for the section of water from Lake Monona to Lake Waubesa. Work will hopefully begin in October 2019 for this section. The permit application for other areas is also in process.

While rainfall levels are still high and there is still a high level of water in the system, the efforts are making a positive change. I look forward to the continued work to make the system work more efficiently.

Please feel free to contact me with any concerns or issues. I can be reached at 608-335-6827 or ritt.michele@countyofdane.com.