The Yahara Lakes Legacy Partnership was created to coordinate, support, and provide for communication among separate public and private initiatives that emerged independently in fall 2007, each responding to identified needs for visioning and planning for the Yahara Lakes. The goals of the partnership are to support the Yahara CLEAN Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) between DNR, DATCP, Dane County, and the City of Madison, and to formulate a plan for continued, long-term, broader partnerships aimed at protecting and enhancing Yahara lakes and watersheds.
The Yahara CLEAN MOU stipulates specific goals for identification of major sources of sediments, nutrients, and beach bacteria and of solutions to remediating those sources. The YLLP Coordinating Committee and several technical committees are assessing and modeling Yahara watershed conditions, and developing a final Yahara CLEAN report, including recommendations for priority actions and associated costs.
Recommendations for reducing sediment and nutrients will likely include a focus on manure management, changes to crop rotations, and urban erosion control and stormwater management. Current modeling work will enable the partners to focus on recommending practices in subwatersheds with the highest levels of existing phosphorus and sediment runoff.
With respect to reducing beach bacteria, near-term pilot projects are being recommended to improve conditions at two of nine City of Madison beaches listed as "impaired for bacteria" by the US EPA under the Clean Water Act. Recommended practices are likely to include stormwater management measures and goose control.
We anticipate that implementation of the recommendations of the Yahara CLEAN report will begin in 2010. We also anticipate continued development of a more comprehensive long-term plan for protecting and improving the Yahara lakes though a partnership of engaged stakeholders.
