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| 8/31/2007 12:23:00 PM | Email this article • Print this article |
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| This boat dock on the Rainbow Flowage exhorts visitors not to dive into shallow water. This year, there is no water below the dock.
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While rains fall to the
south, Northwoods remains parched
Water levels fall to record lows as years-long cycle of dry weather drags on
Ed Culhane
Reporter
While heavy rains have pounded southern Wisconsin into a disaster area, the Northwoods remains parched and dangerously dry.
Low water has meant useless docks, broken boat props and ruined weekends for some lake dwellers. Damage to the Northwoods has been more troubling as trees suited to a colder, wetter climate begin to die and new seedlings fail to survive. Grass and forest fires are attacking parched wetlands, burning below the ground.
For years now, it seems, most storm events veer to the south, bypassing Vilas County and northern Oneida County. Stevens Point gets buried while snow plows in Minocqua, once a major crossroads for snowmobiles, sit idle.
"You guys are just a little too far north for the storm systems that have been coming across," said Ed Hopkins, assistant state climatologist. "Down here, in southern Wisconsin, we're floating in rain."
Weather forecasters predict storms in the north, but it is hard to believe them anymore. The dark clouds keep turning south.
"They get two inches, and we get two-tenths of an inch," remarked John Kubisiak, DNR fisheries biologist for Oneida County.
The two nights of rain that fell earlier in the week, while they offered a nice diversion, did little or nothing for surface or groundwater levels.
"This time of year, when it rains, the plants take it up," Kubisiak said. "They don't let it get past them and into the groundwater."
A natural event
Kubisiak and others said droughts are a part of the natural cycle. They can improve the health of lakes and wetlands by allowing native plants to establish roots in newly drained soils and compacted sediments
"Then, when the water comes up, you have good wetland conditions," Kubisiak said.
Similarly, dropping and rising lake levels encourage shoreland vegetation and improve habitats for amphibians and reptiles.
"It's absolutely a good thing for that to happen periodically on these lakes," said Scott Provost, a DNR water resources engineer. "It's Mother Nature's way of doing a shoreline restoration project."
Still, this drought has been persistent and now it's getting nasty.
At the Trout Lake Research Station near Boulder Junction, UW scientists have been monitoring lake levels since the mid-1980s. The seepage lakes, those without an inlet or outlet, have been the hardest hit. Crystal Lake has dropped by three feet.
"It's the lowest we've seen since we started taking measurements in 1985," said research director Tim Kratz.
More dramatically, a groundwater monitoring well at Pelican Lake in Oneida County has been kicking out monthly measurements for the U.S. Geological Survey since 1944. Those levels have been dropping to near record lows since early spring, and in July and August they set new record lows.
No reason for alarm
This is not cause for panic. While the levels are at a record low, it still represents a drop of less than two feet.
In central Wisconsin, the effects on lakes have been particularly severe because of sandy soils and the large number of high-volume wells used for irrigation. Groundwater levels have plummeted. Some lakes and small streams have virtually disappeared.
"We haven't seen levels this low since the early 60s," Provost said, "which means a lot of people have never seen it this low before."
Two weeks ago, Gov. Jim Doyle declared a drought emergency. This allows farmers to use an expedited process to apply for 30-day irrigation permits.
In the north, with far fewer high-volume wells, groundwater levels are more stable. The wells that supply Minocqua's business and residential districts reach 90 feet beneath the island. Water levels have dropped a couple of feet since the drought began, said Ron Groth, superintendent of the Lakeland Sanitary District, but this is no threat to the supply in the massive aquifer.
"We're pretty lucky compared to a lot of places," he said.
DNR firefighters are feeling less lucky. It's been a bad year. Marshes are so dry, the loose organic materials below the soil become flammable and fires that were once stopped by wetlands now burn beneath the ground.
"They are burning into the organic materials in the soil," said Mike Luedeke, DNR forester for the northern region. "These are very difficult fires to put out, and we've had a number of them. In normal years, a fire would not carry across these wetlands."
Different cause of fires
Usually, the fire season ends with green-up in the late spring. Not this year. Wisconsin crews recently headed north to battle a 20,000-acre fire in the Upper Peninsula. The strain on resources, especially human resources, has been daunting, Luedeke said.
Another result of the drought has been a shift in the cause of fires. Generally, nearly every forest or grass fire is caused by humans. But this year, there have been 25 fires across the northern part of the state sparked by lightning strikes.
Precipitation in the Hayward area is down 30 inches from the average since 2003, Luedeke said. That's an entire year of snow and rain by the averages.
Beyond the fires, the scorching heat and dryness are taking a toll on trees suited to a cooler, wetter climate. White birch trees are dropping their leaves early, calling it quits for the year. Some are dying because their shallow root systems can't reach moisture. New seedlings can't reach wet soil either.
"This was a bad year to plant trees in the wildlands," Luedeke said.
In an area that depends on tourists, it's been a bad year for boaters, which means business has been good at The Prop Shop in Woodruff.
"Our workload has probably doubled over the past year," said Steve Waters.
He tells recreational boaters that they should keep an extra prop on hand.
"They've had a lot of weekends destroyed this year for not having an extra," he said.
Nor should boaters trust the depths on lake maps.
"Most of the maps are three feet off," he said.
Bill Green has been a lake monitor for the state for 15 years, doing most of his checks at his home on Myrtle Lake in Vilas County.
"We've been here since 1980," he said, "and this is the lowest we've ever seen it. We're down 15 inches from last year."
At nearby Torch Lake, a friend's dock is totally out of the water and the shoreline is 80 feet from the high water mark near her cottage.
Channels in the Tamarack Flowage have been rendered impassable.
"It's not just us," Green said. "It's like this all over."
Steven Petersen, superintendent of the Northern Highlands American Legion state forest, said boat landings throughout the area have been rendered useless by receding shorelines. He recently checked the landing at Razorback Lake. The shoreline has moved significantly.
"There really isn't a boat landing there anymore," he said.
Ed Culhane can be reached at ed@lakelandtimes.com.
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