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| Algae beginning to form on the surface of Lake Menomin |
It was 9 am
on Tuesday morning when everything finally clicked. My hands were cramping from
my tight grip on my pen and my handwriting was illegible from my furious
scribbling. Most of the LAKES group was in attendance at the Total Maximum
Daily Limit (TMDL) Implementation Plan team meeting at the Dunn County
Agricultural Services Center. We were sitting in chairs along the back walls of
a small conference room watching the group of around 15 people from various state
and local agencies, NGOs, and corporations providing updates on the work they’ve
done toward planning the implementation of TMDLs.
Some quick background
information: Lake Menomin is on Wisconsin’s List of Impaired and Threatened
Waters and under the Clean Water Act, the State is responsible for developing TMDLs
for those water bodies. A TMDL is a calculation of the maximum amount of a
pollutant that a water body can receive and still safely meet water quality
standards. Phosphorus is the targeted pollutant in the TMDL for Lake Menomin
and targets have to be set for the reduction of the pollutant. The State is
required to submit TMDLs to the EPA for approval and then must prepare a plan
for implementation.
I knew all
of this. I spent hours poring over the decision document for Tainter Lake and
Lake Menomin’s TMDLs, and digging through Wisconsin’s Administrative Code and
city ordinances in order to understand the political structure of phosphorus mitigation
governance. When the group members introduced themselves one by one at the
beginning of the meeting, I was excited that I was able to place a face to many
of the names I recognized from the contact list Rachel and I built for our
research.
When the
updates began, I wasn’t prepared for my reaction. My head was spinning as I
attempted to keep up with the conversation in front of me while simultaneously
trying to not feel overwhelmed by the name-dropping of dozens of organizations,
departments, people, and acronyms. I remembered my former self, comfortably
shuffling through pages of official documents, writing notes, and jotting down
questions to myself and I felt a little out of my element. Though I’ve always
been content to do research in the form of literature reviews I do recall memories
of feeling a fleeting sense of skepticism after finishing a paper, often
wondering “But what did they actually do?”
As I
listened to the members of the TMDL Implementation Plan Team describe their
meetings with other officials, workshops held and informative conversations
with community members and farmers, I was finally able to understand the action involved in the planning process.
The difference between me reading about plans and actually seeing the process
of implementation unfold in front of me was such a breath of fresh air. This is what I’ve been missing. Toward
the end of the meeting someone made a comment saying that despite EPA’s expectations
of a formal TMDL implementation plan, the group has already taken steps toward implementation,
saying, “We can’t look at it like ‘Now I have this document, now I know what to
do.’”
Moving
forward, I still expect to experience many more hours staring at my computer
screen, digging for information in the form of papers and official documents.
However, the TMDL Implementation Plan meeting served as a sneak peek into the
deliberate local collaboration behind those documents that I have and will
continue to review.
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