Some News about the Big Eau Plaine

Marathon County to fund aerator -
By Brian Reisinger
The Journal
August 12, 2009

Marathon County's Finance Committee on Monday approved funding half the cost of a $54,000 project to refurbish the aerator, which releases oxygen into the reservoir on the Wisconsin River.
"If this is going to help produce the oxygen that the fish need out there, then it's money well spent," said Gary Wyman, chairman of the Finance Committee.

The roughly $27,000 will come from money paid to the county by the American Transmission Co. for environmental impact, not from tax revenues, Wyman said. The Big Eau Pleine Citizens Organization, a group of residents and business owners who pushed for the funding through the town of Bergen, will try to raise the other half privately, said Tim Garrigan, president.
A dilapidated aerator contributed to the death of about two-thirds of the fish in the reservoir, along with the drought, low water levels and agricultural run-off. Garrigan said the citizens group hopes upgrading the 28-year-old aerator's motors and increasing the size of its oxygen lines will begin by September.

"A lot of advances have happened in the last 20 years," Garrigan said of his hopes for the new technology.
The citizens group, county, Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources and Wisconsin Valley Improvement Corp., which sets water levels on the Wisconsin River's various dams and reservoirs, also have joined to discuss other strategies in the next two years.

Stakeholders on all sides of the issue have said that sustained talks on long-term solutions also are necessary to prevent another kill.