Sea Grant expertise is contributing to efforts to define what makes waterways aesthetically pleasing. Vicky Harris, Wisconsin Sea Grant water quality and habitat restoration specialist, helped develop an aesthetics survey that was conducted in the Fox River Valley this summer. Harris also tested a water sampling protocol for the river and Lower Green Bay and sampled water quality at five sites there.
The Fox River work is part of a larger effort to quantify how people perceive beauty in Great Lakes waterways. Defining what makes a waterway beautiful is difficult. Defining what makes one ugly is easier. In Wisconsin, the problem is floating debris, algae scum and silt; in Minnesota, it’s oil slicks, grain dust and taconite pellets; in Michigan, it’s unnatural color, foam and suspended solids.
A cadre of state workers is taking on this challenge in an effort to show progress on the cleanup of many of the 43 Areas of Concern (AOC) in the Great Lakes. These are areas with a legacy of industrialization and pollution that were designated in 1987 by the U.S.-Canada Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement. Laurel Last, coordinator with the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources (WDNR) for the Lower Green Bay and Fox River Area of Concern, is one of the cadre.
“I am a scientifically minded person,” said Last. “I like facts and data. The aesthetics issue is a fuzzy one.”
Last worked with another WDNR staffer, Christina Anderson, the co-coordinator of the Water Action Volunteer Program, to develop the aesthetics survey. They are also working to find volunteers to take the survey and get out on the Fox River to sample the water. Last said the survey is a mix of objective and subjective questions. Development of it took the help of a WDNR survey expert and many meetings of a work group, which includes Sea Grant’s Harris.
“The question isn’t ‘is algae in the water?’ ” said Anderson. “It’s whether enough algae is in the water that it bothers you. It took me a long time to wrap my head around that.”
“We’re looking for objectionable conditions that interfere with the public’s right to use the water or that discourage recreational use,” Harris said. “I’ve measured a lot of algae and suspended sediments that make the water uninviting.” Harris said the water samplers for the Fox River are a mix of citizen volunteers and people with water-monitoring experience.
Anderson sees the aesthetics monitoring effort as an opportunity to get people more involved with the health of their local river. “We want to show progress on this issue, but we don’t want to rush it,” Anderson said. “We want to make the most of this opportunity for public engagement.”
According to John Perrecone, Area of
Concern coordinator with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, 10 AOCs in Michigan have aesthetics as an issue, and it has been successfully addressed in two of them. Minnesota is in the middle of the process for its single AOC, the St. Louis River Estuary. Boaters and anglers were surveyed last year and several volunteer monitors kept track of aesthetic conditions.
“The aesthetics impairment is different from the other ones,” said Perrecone. “Although it’s subjective, there are objective ways to measure it. And it makes a lot of sense to try. It’s the kind of thing that people notice. If you’re touting your location as a place of recreation and enjoyment and there’s junk in the water, there’s a disconnect.”
If you’d like to volunteer to help with this effort in Wisconsin, contact Christina Anderson with the WDNR at (608) 266-3599.
SIDEBAR:
Aesthetics Survey Question Examples
From the Wisconsin survey
Are any materials producing color, odor or unsightliness present to the extent that they make the area unpleasant or block your ability to access or use the water?
Please circle the type(s) of algae present: blobs of floating material/attached to rocks/stringy/green soupy/ matted/other
Water color: clear/red stained/green stained (pea soup)/brown (turbid)
From the Minnesota survey
This past year, have you ever noticed any of the following on the water or shoreline while recreating on the St. Louis River: oil slicks, unnatural colors, odors, grain or taconite pellets?
How concerning was the substance you noticed in terms of your enjoyment and use of the river?
