The Wild Side
By Dan Wilcox
September 29, 2005
Community Worked to Restore the Kinni
Bruce Foster the fish magnet asked me to meet him after work last week at his office behind the hardware store. Bruce has been my fishing and Scouting friend for nearly 30 years. Bruce grew up in River Falls. Like a kid in a mud puddle, Bruce enjoys being in or on a river. Bruce’s ancestor Joel Foster was a pioneer founder of River Falls. Bruce is a dedicated historian of this area. Careful to avoid “enhanced memory,” he likes to recount past times. I settled down to take notes at the dog-grooming table. Bruce kicked back in his office chair. He told me about how the Kinnickinnic River has changed over the years.
Today we can call the Kinnickinnic River a community watershed restoration success story. When Joel Foster settled what is now River Falls in 1848, the Kinnickinnic was a clear, cold prairie stream with lots of brook trout. By 1930 the river was a mess. Today, it is mostly clear, clean, and cold again with lots of trout — a much-loved and tremendously valuable part of our community. Bruce emphasized that this was due to the hard work, cooperation and enthusiasm of the community of people in the watershed.
In the late 1930s and early 1940s, members of the River Falls Rod and Gun Club noticed the river deteriorating. Most of the area along the river was wide open due to cattle grazing. Cows wandered through the stream at will. Bank erosion was extensive, especially on the outside of bends. Lots of sediment, manure and fertilizer washed into the river from the row cropland that was moldboard plowed and disked every spring. The river flooded often and ran muddy. The native brook trout population had declined and the fishery was being maintained by stocking — fingerlings in the fall and larger trout in the spring. It was mostly a put-and-take fishery, with limited trout reproduction.
It was a time following the Great Depression, the Dust Bowl, Civilian Conservation Corps projects and establishment of the Soil Conservation Service. Aldo Leopold was teaching wildlife management and conservation at UW-Madison. The need for soil and water conservation was becoming widely recognized.
River Falls Rod and Gun Club members decided to embark on a stream improvement project. Working farm by farm, they contacted landowners in the watershed to ask for their cooperation. The Rod and Gun Club worked with farmers to fence cattle away from the river and build rock bottom cattle crossings and watering areas. Rod and Gun Club members cut tons of willow brush, tied it up in bundles, and used the willow bundles to stabilize eroding stream banks. Relationships between the Rod and Gun Club and farmers were great. Members built miles of fence. Landowners provided access easements and pitched in with the projects. Stiles with steps were built to allow fishermen access across fences.
The Soil Conservation Service (SCS, now the Natural Resources Conservation Service) began working with landowners in the watershed to install soil and water conservation features like drop structures, grassed waterways, contour tillage, terraces and small floodwater detention ponds. These projects stabilized eroding gullies and greatly reduced sediment transport into the river. The Wisconsin Conservation Department (now the DNR) purchased fishing access easements along the river. Working with the Rod and Gun Club and landowners, they installed more than 15 miles of fencing and stabilized 7500 feet of riverbank.
Results came fast. With the cattle out of the river, vegetation growing in the buffer zones, miles of stabilized riverbanks, and conservation practices in the watershed, turbidity in the water went down and trout fishing picked up. The bank stabilization and stream improvement projects lasted through floods.
Active River Falls Gun Club members during those years included Fred Sederquist, Walker Wyman, Oscar Sandberg, Tom Chapman, Earl, Art and Bert Foster and many others. Boy Scout Troop 121 members, Bruce Foster and Nick Jadinak among them, spent weekends working along the river and planting trees. It was hard, dirty work, and you could be pretty sure of getting wet.
The watershed and river restoration work by the River Falls Rod and Gun Club, the SCS, the Wisconsin Conservation Department and the landowners was successful and popular, even though much of the work was experimental. The Rod and Gun Club held an annual spring landowners’ appreciation pancake feed and fundraiser at the River Falls High School. The events were well attended, filling the auditorium to honor participating landowners. The crowd would adjourn to the cafeteria for pancakes, door prizes and raffles of prizes donated by River Falls businesses. Just about everyone won something.
Bruce Foster gave me a pamphlet published by the Wisconsin Conservation Department in 1954 entitled Wisconsin’s Stream Improvement that recounts projects throughout the state including the Kinni. Edward Schneberger, Superintendent of Fisheries Management, wrote in the introduction:
“A land is as good as its arteries and with general cooperation and support stream improvement work may well prove to be the magic key to open the way to better land, water, wildlife and a more productive agriculture.”
Restoration of the Kinnickinnic River ecosystem has been very effective. The river is much improved due to the good work by landowners in the watershed, units of government, and conservation organizations over four generations. Now the Kinnickinnic River is again flowing clear, clean and cold and supports a self-sustaining trout population. Let’s continue to work to keep it that way.
Please send any comments and suggestions for this column to me at rfjwild@rivertowns.net.
