July 18 Sunny Wingra Creek

This is a view of Wingra Creek from the bridge on Park Street. The creek looked beautiful today with the greens of lilypads and cottonwood leaves set against the deep blue of sky and water. Before the 1920s, Wingra Creek didn't really exist. Lake Wingra slowly drained through a wide series of wetlands, including Gardner Marsh in the Arboretum, on its way to Monona Lake. Then in the 1920s the Lake Forest Land Company built the levee - now Arboretum Drive - and dredged the creek channel, effectively directing most of Lake Wingra's flow into the newly dug creek. Before 1800, there were 1500 acres of wetland in the Lake's watershed and now there are 210 left. As south Madison became more developed, the need for the dam at the head of the creek arose to control flooding of the artificial channel. This year, the City of Madison completed a three part project to naturalize Wingra Creek's channel and restore native vegetation to its banks. It looks pretty good, and next the City and the Friends of Lake Wingra are working to begin reducing the major contaminants that have killed the waters of the lake and creek. These are road salt, phosphorous from plants, and sediment, all of which get to the lake from stormwater sewer outflow.