East Central has acted as the West Winnebago Pool Lakes Aquatic Invasive Species (AIS) Coordinator for the past three years, working to control the spread of AIS to and from the Winnebago Pool Lakes.
Over the course of the last year East Central has facilitated working meetings with Calumet, Winnebago, Shawano, Menominee and Waushara County Planning Directors and county Land Conservation Department (LCD) staff, the Golden Sands RC&D Director, the Glacierland RC&D Director, and Bob Wakeman, WDNR to explore ways of creating sustainable regional AIS control programs that are not heavily dependent on State funding. As a result of these meetings East Central has submitted a two-year (April 2014 – April 2016) Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources (WDNR) Aquatic Invasive Species (AIS) Prevention and Control Grant (WI Administration Code NR-198) to educate, prevent and control the spread of aquatic invasive species.
The proposed AISC will provide a regional approach to educate, monitor and control the spread of aquatic invasive species for the Lower Wolf River Watershed (LWRW) encompassing approximately 41% of the Wolf River Basin and a small portion of the Green Bay Basin (within the northeast portions of Menominee County) which is an area of 1,492.4 square miles (955,155.3 acres) encompassing all of Menominee and Shawano Counties and the Northwest two-thirds of Outagamie County.
The proposed LWRW area is rich with surface water resources. There are a total of 189 named inland lakes, 163 unnamed lakes (a total of 14,594 acres) and approximately 50 public boat landings. The LWRW region has a total of 244,695 acres of wetlands, and 10 State Natural Areas totaling over 30,000 acres.
AIS Resource Links: