Dane County > Land & Water Resources > Office of Lakes & Watersheds > Management Issues & Activities > Yahara Lakes Legacy Partnership

The Yahara River’s chain of five beautiful lakes defines our community and region and is integral to everything we are and do.
The quality of these lakes deteriorated significantly over time as our population and use increased.
Many public and private organizations have dedicated time and resources over decades and have solved many Yahara Lakes problems, yet new challenges have emerged.
We are at a critical moment in the health of the lakes, and have an unprecedented opportunity to bring together key stakeholders from all sectors.

Learn More About the Yahara Lakes Legacy Partnership (YLLP)

What is the Yahara Lakes Legacy Partnership? Click here to learn more.

YLLP Pursues Goals for Clean Lakes as Outlined in the Yahara CLEAN Memorandum of Understanding (MOU)

The Yahara Capital Lakes Environmental Assessment and Needs (CLEAN) Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) is an agreement between Dane County, the City of Madison, the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources, and the Wisconsin Department of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection. These four organizations agreed to undertake six activities to improve water quality in the Yahara Lakes. YLLP works with other agencies to pursue these Yahara CLEAN goals. Click here to learn more about the Yahara CLEAN MOU.

Offer Comments on Possible Long-term Partnership Structure

The Yahara Lakes Legacy Partnership is focused in the short-term (through December 2009) on supporting goals for reducing nutrients, sediments, and beach bacteria; and on developing a framework for a long-term community-wide visionary plan for protecting and improving the quality of the Yahara waters. We invite your comments on a possible long-term structure for implementing a visionary plan involving many more stakeholders and issues.

Yahara CLEAN Progress Report

What nutrients and sediments flow into our Yahara lakes? Where are they coming from? How can we decrease this pollution in order to improve water quality? What causes bacterial outbreaks at beaches on our lakes? In February of 2008, Dane County, the City of Madison, the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources, and the Wisconsin Department of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection agreed to look for answers to these questions. Click here to see their progress on this agreement.

We Want Your Input on a Draft Vision for Our Yahara Lakes

Public input has given us some initial elements of a vision for the future of the Yahara Lakes. Click here to see them. What comments do you have regarding your vision of cleaner, healthier lakes? Please send any comments to: Ezra Meyer (Clean Wisconsin and Yahara Lakes Legacy Partnership member) at emeyer@cleanwisconsin

View the Results of the October 10, 2008 Conference "A Clean Future for the Yahara Lakes: Solutions for Tomorrow, Starting Today"

This conference, hosted by the UW Madison’s Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies and supported by the Yahara Lakes Legacy Partnership, gathered more than 300 citizens, scientists, regulators, advocates, farmers, business people, riparians and other experts and stakeholders to work toward collaborative, effective and lasting solutions to the nutrient and sediment pollution that degrades our lakes. Specific focuses of the conference were: community action and partnerships, opportunities in manure management, reducing urban and rural sediment and nutrient run-off, and investigating and controlling pollution sources that affect our beaches. To see a description of each focus area and the resulting recommendations, click here. The conference was taped, and those recordings are available for viewing. Click here to view videos of the talks and PowerPoint presentations made at the conference.

History of the Yahara Lakes Legacy Partnership

This exciting emerging partnership to protect and improve the Yahara River chain of lakes was strongly influenced by the North American Lake Management Society's 25th Annual International Symposium, held during November 2005 in Madison.

At the symposium a special daylong event entitled "Madison's Lakes and Nearby Waters" allowed conference-goers and local residents to hear presentations by local experts addressing the latest research and developments about Dane County lakes, streams, wetlands, and groundwater. The presentations also emphasized important future challenges that will require an integrated approach with strong citizen support and involvement to effectively manage, protect and improve those local waters. (Note: Summaries of “Madison Lakes” session presentations can be found by way of this page.)

Of particular interest was local historian David Mollenhoff’s opening presentation: “Lakes of Silver and Green: The Intense City-shaping Relationship between People and Water in Madison, Wisconsin.” He concluded with a history-inspired challenge for the future: to develop a “practical vision” for protecting and improving the Yahara lakes. That challenge resonated with many people, especially as Mollenhoff’s article appeared in local print media, and he repeated his presentation at a May 2007 conference sponsored by the Yahara Lakes Association, a 600-member lakeshore property owners’ group, and the University of Wisconsin’s Gaylord Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies.

There were also presentations by local water experts Dick Lathrop (Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources) and Ken Potter (UW-Madison Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering) showcasing challenges that must be met: manure runoff in late winter, invasive species prevention and management, increased storm runoff coupled with declines in groundwater, and near-shore water management problems. The entire half-day conference was taped and can still be accessed online through the archives of Madison’s city cable network, Madison City Channel–12, here:
http://www.ci.madison.wi.us/mcc12/streaming.html#archives.

In the fall of 2007, three independent initiatives emerged, each aimed in part at responding to Mollenhoff’s challenge of practical visioning and planning for the Yahara lakes:

Yahara CLEAN––a Memorandum of Understanding between Dane County; the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources; the Wisconsin Department of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection; and the City of Madison. Purpose: to assess existing nutrient and sediment loading to the Yahara lakes and determine actions required to decrease the loading and address bacterial outbreaks at beaches to improve water quality. (Note: Dane County has provided funding to support this work.)
A City of Madison budget amendment providing “funding to initiate a planning process to pull together stakeholders and community members to establish clear and achievable goals and an implementation plan for cleaning the lakes.”
The Yahara Lakes Legacy Project, in which Gathering Waters Conservancy and Clean Wisconsin––two nonprofit organizations with funding from the Madison Community Foundation––will develop a report documenting historical lake rehabilitation efforts and “develop a common vision for restoring and maintaining a healthy, sustainable [Yahara lakes] watershed.”

Beginning in December 2007, the Dane County Lakes and Watershed Commission invited key people involved in the three initiatives to discuss how these efforts might be effectively coordinated. The group is now moving toward developing a formal partnership agreement.

So far the emerging “Yahara Lakes Legacy Partnership” has agreed that its lakes and watershed planning needs to be “practical,” in the sense David Mollenhoff urged. Thus, the coordinated efforts will include specific implementation objectives and timelines aimed at producing achievable results.

The partners have also agreed that planning needs to be “visionary,” in the sense that it inspires the community to develop goals reflective of the will of the diverse stakeholders in the Yahara lakes, even if those goals may be viewed by some as unachievable due to constraints of resources and/or political will.

Over the next two years, the partners intend to develop a “visionary plan” that provides:

Community ownership in a common vision for the lakes, resulting from a well thought-out process of public participation.
A single over-arching plan for the Yahara chain of lakes that includes specific measureable goals and timelines.
A detailed outline of implementation steps (or “road map”) that spells out how and when each action will be taken, who is responsible, how it can be funded, and what results can be expected.
Collaboration among all the political jurisdictions involved.
Coordination with local watershed groups, lake user groups, community and neighborhood organizations, etc., in order to build on ongoing initiatives and their grassroots energy and creativity.

One of the challenges that the group faces is to acknowledge, appreciate, and build on existing knowledge and the significant lake improvement initiatives that have already occurred to-date. Lake scientists and managers know a lot about the Yahara system, especially with Lake Mendota having served as a limnology lab for University of Wisconsin researchers since the late 1800s. In addition to earlier efforts to divert all treated wastewater effluent from the lakes, millions of dollars have been spent to reduce nutrient and sediment runoff and address other pollutants from urban and rural sources in the watershed since the 1970s. This includes the state-funded “Lake Mendota Priority Watershed Project,” whose 11-year implementation phase ends in 2008.

Within the context of this new lakes partnership, area residents, businesses, and other partners will become more engaged to assist lake managers in regrouping, reassessing, and identifying what focused efforts remain that could really make a difference in improving the health and enjoyment of the Yahara lakes. The Partnership’s hope is that a community-supported “practical vision” will inspire broader community involvement and funding for implementation to reach the vision. And there is hope that a long-term partnership organization will emerge to guide and track progress in reaching that vision for the future of the Yahara lakes.