LISMA April 2021 Newsletter

This position will work in a joint capacity with Glacierland RC&D and the Brown County Land & Water Conservation Department to provide conservation technical assistance to landowners in Brown County.  This position will be responsible for a variety of duties which assist Brown County’s Land & Water Conservation Dept. in developing and carrying out a coordinated natural resources conservation program tailored to landowners’ needs.

Interested applicants should see the full position description. Download Here

·    Application Requirements: Submit a cover letter, resume, and three professional references

·    Application Deadline: May 3, 2021

·    Submit Application Package as pdf file(s) to: [email protected]

·    For Questions About This Position or Application Process: contact Kari Divine at (920) 465-3006 or [email protected].

·    Anticipated Start Date: June 1, 2021 (estimated)

Dense stands of garlic mustard can produce more than 60,000 seeds per square yard. It can out compete native wildflowers and other understory plants, changing the structure of plant communities on the forest floor. Garlic mustard is also allelopathic, producing chemicals that inhibit the growth of other plants and mycorrhizal fungi needed for healthy tree growth and tree seedling survival.

Haskell Noyes State Natural Area is a classic example of southern dry-mesic forest dominated by sugar maple and red oak. The forest was never heavily logged and has a rich spring flora and diversity of ferns. Garlic mustard has become established in this area but we have been working to control its spread.

This spring will be the fourth year that volunteers will be helping to control garlic mustard at Haskell Noyes SNA. Because of these efforts, garlic mustard has been reduced in this area. This plant is easily identified when it is flowering so we will be again conducting our volunteer days during May and early June. This year we have organized nine volunteer days to be held from 4:00 pm to 7:00 pm on Tuesdays May 11, 18 and 25 and Thursdays May 13, 20 and 27. We will also conduct work days from 9:00 am until noon on Saturdays, May 15, 22 and 29.

We will meet at the parking lot on County Road GGG just south of the intersection with County SS. This is located just east of New Prospect. For anyone arriving later in the day, we post directions to that day’s work location at the parking lot. Remember to wear long sleeves, sunscreen, a hat, and bring insect repellent and drinking water.

Be part of the solution to preserve and protect this outstanding natural area in the Kettle Moraine State Forest – Northern Unit. For more information, call Connie Ramthun at 920-533-8939 or Douglas Stadler at 920-979-1357. In case of severe weather we may need to cancel a workday. In this event, please call at least two hours prior to the scheduled work day to check on arrangements.

Photo of garlic mustard in bloom

LNRP recently received a second grant from the US Forest Service to continue their collective efforts on EAB mitigation and coastal ecosystem restoration. The projects are funded through the Great Lakes Restoration Initiative (GLRI) under an agreement with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. As part of a multi-agency regional working group, the U.S. Forest Service uses GLRI grants to strategically target the biggest threats to the Great Lakes ecosystem and accelerate progress toward shared long-term restoration goals.

LNRP and local partner SRBP have collaborated with the Rotary Club of Sheboygan to create an emerald ash borer mitigation program engaging town, village, and municipal governments. ROOTS has established the Community Investment Fund providing resources for projects such as ash tree removal, replanting of a diverse array of native trees, and innovative education and outreach or mitigation planning.

Five collaborative private-public sector projects were funded in 2020 and provided for the accelerated EAB mitigation of substantial ash tree loss through replanting of diverse, large, non-ash species:

·    City of Sheboygan Project 1: Replanting of over 75 trees in Lakeview, Rotary and Evergreen Parks at an overall project cost of $24,477.

·    City of Sheboygan Project 2: Replanting over 52 trees in Veterans, Cleveland, Roosevelt and Evergreen Parks at an overall project cost of $55,150 including substantial contractor removal of large numbers of diseased trees.

·    City of Plymouth Project 3: Replanting of over 44 trees in Lone Oak, Lions, Meyers and Rotary Parks at an overall project cost of $15,000.

·    City of Sheboygan Falls Project 4: Replanting of over 57 large trees in River Park and its Western Avenue corridor at an overall project cost of $53,695.

·    Village of Elkhart Lake Project 5: Replanting of over 50 large, diverse non-ash species trees in Fireman’s and Lion’s Park as well as Village Park Square and along area parkways at an overall project cost of $13,000.

The integrated project builds on complementary and established relationships with local government, WDNR, and nonprofit partners that are now all part of the local EAB mitigation effort, Restoration of our Trees Sheboygan (ROOTS).

The Lakeshore Phragmites and Japanese knotweed control project involves a number of private, non-profit, and public partners who are all contributing to mitigate the impacts of these highly disruptive invasive species.

Both Glacierland Resource Conservation and Development Council and the Lakeshore Natural Resource Partnership have recently secured DNR Aquatic Invasive Species (AIS) Control Grants to expand the effort to Fond du Lac and Calumet Counties.

Support will begin control efforts on properties that provide permission for treatment crews to access their properties. Both public and private properties that contain either phragmites or J apanese knotweed were mapped in 2020. The project has already generated significant interest with permissions coming in from both counties.

A series of outreach events and materials will be developed in the upcoming months with the first treatment season running from July to October later this year. A publicly accessible version of this web-map is available http://bit.ly/InvasiveWebMap where property owners can designate a property where either phragmites or Japanese knotweed is found.

The project partners have an aggressive goal of eradicating the target species where possible and have committed to a long-term integrated approach which is likely to take four or more years for many of the populations. Many populations in Manitowoc County, where treatment and monitoring has occurred for four or more years, have been fully controlled, and no target species has been observed for two or more years. Continued and consistent monitoring and treatment is needed to meet the project objective of land-scale scale reduction of the target species. Additionally, native revegetation is an important part of the integrated approach to this project. Where appropriate, native seed has been installed to provide long-term protection against reinvasion by invasive species.

​

Mapping has been completed across the counties and each landowner with invasive Phragmites will receive a letter in the mail requesting permission to access and control this species. It takes two years of herbicide treatment to kill the underground rhizome system of these invasive species. First time treatment sites will be treated with machine crews later in the summer and early fall. The treatment crews do one township at a time as they work throughout the Counties.

​

In order for you site to be treated with these grants, a written permission form must be returned to Melissa Curran from Stantec, [email protected]. We will need these permissions by June 15th for planning purposes. Once you have granted permission for your property to be treated at no cost to you, that permission will last for the length of the project and you will not have to re-up your permission. If your sites have not been mapped or you have not received a letter you would need to contact us. We have had landowners discovering new sites on their property that were not in our program and some folks are hearing about the project from their neighbors.

To see if your property has been mapped, check out the public web map at the button below.

You can also find all this information on the LISMA webpage.