Four Lakes Flooding

I attended a Dane County meeting on the proposed widening of the railroad bridge over the Yahara River at Upper Mud Lake on Wednesday. The overall project also includes a multi-use pathway running parallel to the tracks between Lake Farm Park and the village of McFarland.

The impact of the railroad trestle on water elevation is still under evaluation. The models are being fine-tuned. It appears likely that the trestle does not significantly affect lake levels. The final data may change this tentative conclusion. However, it is clear that the trestle restricts flow during times of high water.

Regardless of the bridge's impact on water flows and levels, widening the opening railroad bridge would also improve boat navigation. The existing opening basically creates a one-lane road for boats under the bridge. A widened opening would allow boat traffic to proceed simultaneously in each direction.

I also attended a meeting of the Monona ad hoc committee on flood mitigation [Flood Mitigation Advisory Committee (Ad Hoc)]. We received some moderately encouraging news about Lake Levels. After staying quite high all winter, the county and the weather have cooperated to bring down the level of Lake Monona to within a couple inches of the summer minimum and about .4' below the level last year on March 6. (I am told the lake needs to be at the summer minimum by about March 1 for spring fish spawning.).

We caught a break with the lack of snow after New Year's so the snow melt should present as many challenges as last year. These factors provide the county with a little more flexibility in managing lake levels. The large amount of precipitation the last two years still means the groundwater is quite high, however, so large spring rains will still potentially cause problems.

The other bit of encouraging news is that the county (read Kevin Connors) is providing more information to the various stakeholders (I hate that word; please suggest a better one!) like Monona, Madison, McFarland, and the DNR. Along with others I have urged the county to be more transparent in the way it operates the lakes. We may still disagree about how the lake levels are managed, but at least when we disagree it will be with the same data in hand.

I also have to give kudos to our County Supervisor Robin Schmidt who loves meetings so much that she started her Wednesday morning attending the Monona Drive Advisory (Ad-Hoc) committee meeting, ended the day with a Madison Area MPO meeting and then attended most of Monona's Flood Committee meeting in the early evening of Thursday before heading off to the Dane County Board Supervisors regular meeting.