Water Quality on the Milwaukee River

Milwaukee River water quality.

This spring I have been amazed at the increasing quality of the water on the Milwaukee River. Last night while trying out longer bellied spey lines at Hubbard Park, I observed an amazing mixed hatch of mayflies and caddis. Tan caddis lightly sprinkled with black caddis, blue winged olives, warm water cahills, midges, sulphers, and possibly gray drakes. This is a tremendous sign that water quality is good. The non-spawning immature smallmouth bass in the riffles that were home to the hatches were gorging on food.

I had an introduction to water monitoring for the Milwaukee Riverkeeper by my friend Rick F. We took PH levels, dissolved oxygen, and temperature and turbidity. In addition to that, we pried up streamside rocks to find out what kind of larvae were living under them. All this in the Hubbard to Capitol drive stretch which emerged from suffocation when the North Avenue bridge came down. Before the dam was removal, the only bugs in the area were mosquitoes, and the water stank.

Water clarity in the Milwaukee was excellent all year until recently when rains coincided with farmers plowing their fields. The north branch of the Milwaukee is running rather muddy, and downstream the silt is being carried in the water.

Recently a beaver has been spotted in the clean water around Good Hope road. (pictures here from the Milwaukee RiverKeeper). This stretch runs clean until the MMSD outflow pipe on the northeast bank of Green Tree road adds fecal matter and stink. Then downstream on Green Tree Rd. the water backs up from the small waterfalls at Kletzch Park, and is slow and unhealthy.

Beavers are a sign of healthy water and habitat. The Milwaukee River has come a long way since the days of its reputation as the big stinky. The removal of the Estabrook dam is the next step in aiding the river in repairing itself from the best intentions of mankind. That and preventing MMSD from arbitrarily dumping sewage in the river every time Milwaukee receives more than two inches of rain. If we are going to call ourselves “The Water City” we better clean up our act first.

A colleague of mine was teasing me about the beaver, theorizing that perhaps it had been recruited by the Estabrook Dam preservation faction to perform repairs and stabilize the structure with its beaver-dam engineering skills. ;)