USGS Multimedia Gallery: (Video)--Watershed Action Teams Connect People with Their Urban Streams

[Music playing]

Faith: I heard about the Sweetwater Trust working

on the Little Menomonee Creek which is up in more

of the protection enhancement area. But it's really

neat seeing how developed the plan is for the Menomonee

River and the watershed action plan. So have you

been involved in the process or how is the City of Brookfield involved with?

Theresa: The City of Brookfield is a little

unique in that the vast majority of the City is

actually not in the Menomonee River watershed.

But we do have a nice, good sliver of the City

that is within that watershed area. So, most of

our tributary area is small streams that actually end

up eventually really contributing into a larger

aspect. So, we figure, even though we are only

a small portion, in this watershed, there are still

things that we can be doing to help contribute

to the improvement of the area.

Faith: And all those streams add up to bigger water…

Theresa: And most of the City of Brookfield

is very developed, maybe a good portion that are

residential but there's not a whole heck of a

lot of open space left anymore.

Faith: So are you doing something like taking cement out?

Theresa: We have looked at a couple, we had one

project, and it was the last stream that was enclosed in

1967 that we actually looked at, opening that back up.

I did a lot of analysis on it. I met with the residents in

multiple occasions, had a couple of meetings with

the Board of Public Works and eventually the project

was determined not to be viable for that area. But,

that was just one so there some other areas that

we’ve opportunities for removing some pipes where streams were enclosed.

Faith: How’s your interaction with the other groups within the trust?

Theresa: We get together, we have – through

our permit, we actually formed a group for our

permitting process, the MS4 Group. We actually meet

every six to eight weeks with several other communities.

Some of which meet pretty much on a regular basis,

sometimes a few others will join us. We all get

together and go over the different activities that

we’re all involved in, what's, like the Menomonee

Falls is doing all the pet waste activities so it’s

like, how can we incorporate their activities into the

City of Brookfield, without having to reinvent

the wheel. Then we have other spots where we’re

working with MMSD, on a green-roof project, and

hopefully we’re also doing the Rain garden project

in conjunction with that. And it's sharing that

information with the other communities and saying,

these are the stumbling blocks that we encountered

and this is what I would recommend and if you guys

plant to implement something like this in your community,

you may want to do this, this, and this, instead. It’ll

make the process go out smoother. It’s good sharing pieces of information like that.

Faith: And then you’re at that sub-watershed scale, so

you can hone in the issues or you can even find out

what the issues are to start with.

Theresa: Absolutely. We do a community

newsletter that goes our quarterly. We also put

information in there about pet waste, salt applications,

information to the residents about stuff like the newest

phosphorus rules and how that affects them and

what things they can do and how to educate

themselves about that. Also, it's just a little…

Faith: Education.

Theresa: Right. Mostly, just making sure

you get the community involved. It's like, the whole

crux of it. I mean, you can, you never know how much

people want to get involved until you really put it

out there and ask the residents and you’d be

surprised how many people really want to do

projects like rain gardens in their own properties. So… it’s exciting.

Faith: So you’ve seen a lot of involvement. Has it

increased a lot over the last couple of years?

Theresa: Absolutely. And I think that it has a

lot to do with the education, not just the city is

putting out there but organizations like Sweetwater

Trust, MMSD, and all the other ones that have their

different websites and newsletters and newspaper

articles and it peeks people’s interests and it gets them kind of thinking more about it.

Faith: Makes them more aware of what's there.

Theresa: Absolutely.

Faith: That’s neat.

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Action Team- Theresa Caven (Meeting2-Interview 2v2)
Faith Fitzpatrick (U.S. Geological Survey) and Theresa Caven (City of Brookfield)

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