1. 2012 Status Report

2. Greater Milwaukee
Watersheds
Area:
Watershed: (in sq. miles)
Kinnickinnic River 24.7
Menomonee River 135.8
Milwaukee River 700.0
Oak Creek 28.2
Root River 197.6
Lake Michigan Direct
Drainage Area 40.7
Total Square Miles: 1,127.0
Total Perennial River Miles: 600+
Number of Counties: 9
Number of Local Municipalities: 83

3. Sweet Water Ahead
 Vision to reality
 Learning
 Seeing the way
 Moving ahead
 First
 A brief look back
Milwaukee River
Downstream of North Av
3

4. The Sweet Water Back Story –
A Need and a Hope
 A watershed approach
 We face urgent problems – e.g. dropping water
tables & on-going water quality issues
 Jurisdictional overlaps, policy gaps and lack of
data hamper solutions
 Need to think strategically and regionally
 Build new tools to fill the gaps

5. WARNING: The next slide is rated R.
5

6. Conception: Spring 2007
MMSD
Local
Business
Gov’t
DNR
Scientists
Farmers
NGOs SEWRPC
6

7. Gestation
 Building trust
 Two kinds of people:
 “Let’s just do it!”
 “Let’s get it right . . .”

8. Sweet Water’s Goals
• Make measurable progress
• Focus on land use practices
• Leverage funding
• Recommend new policies
• Insist on cost-effective projects
8

9. Measurable Goals
• Targets from SEWRPC’s Regional Water Quality
Management Plan Update
• Convert 48 square miles of marginal cropland to prairie or wetlands
• Establish or expand riparian buffers along 325 miles of stream bank
• Reduce the existing pollutant loads to streams and lakes as follows:
• Phosphorus ↓ 15%
• Total Suspended Solids (TSS) ↓ 40%
• Fecal Coliform Bacteria ↓ 50%
• Nitrogen ↓ 30%
• Bio-chemical Oxygen Demand ↓ 15%

10. Birth: Spring 2008
 Steering Council
 Committees
 Joyce Foundation grant
10

11. Taking Our First Step, 2008-2012
 Watershed Restoration
Plans
 Implementation Plans
 Water Quality Trading
White Paper
 Annual Conference
 Mini-Grant Program
 Rivers Report
 Watershed Watch
 And more . . .
11

12. Sweet Water’s Outreach Efforts

13. Clustered Residential BMP Project
KK River Watershed

14. Green Infrastructure Mini-Grants

15. Sweet Water Goals Results . . . So far
Make measurable Benchmarking:
Menomonee, KK, and Root Water Restoration Plans
progress Regional Public Survey on Knowledge and Actions
Focus on land use On the ground projects with multiple partners:
Mini-grants
practices 16th Street Community Health’s BMP on the KK
Priorities identified through WAT implementation plans
Leverage funding • Joyce Foundation grant
$3.4 million over six years
• PLUS $450,000 in 2011
• PLUS grants our partners secured with Sweet
Water match or focus
Recommend new • Water Quality Trading White Paper, March 2010
policies • Watershed-Based Permit in Menomonee
• Broadcast public education campaign
• $200,000 to $250,000 with Root-Pike WIN for 2 years
Insist on cost- In progress
effective projects

16. Cool Stuff You May Have Missed
 Greater Milwaukee Water Quality
Connections

17. Cool Stuff You May Have Missed
 Inside the Greater Milwaukee Watersheds
50-page summary of
the 2007 Regional
Water Quality Plan
Sets stage for
why Sweet Water
focuses on
stormwater
17

18. Cool Stuff You May Have Missed
 Speakers’ Bureau with 42 specific topics
18

19. Cool Stuff You May Have Missed
 Menomonee River Mainstem Land Protection
Plan
19

20. Mission Success
 Increased communication between partners
and sectors
 Increased collaboration between partners
and sectors
 Shared understanding of how we will tackle
the problem

21. Looking Ahead:
Our Teenage Years
 Strategic planning
 Learning how to bridge differences
 Learning how to survive and thrive
 “Out there on our own . . .”

22. What Will Middle-Age Look Like?
 Hundreds of
organizations
 Government
 Non-profit
 For profit
 Hundreds of
thousands of
people
 Property owners
 Volunteers
22

23. Research
public
knowledge
Municipal
Stormwater
Media
How We Work
Campaign
Communi-
cations Menomonee
Committee River
Habitat
indicators
Kinnickinnic
River
New
Science Watershed
bacteria
Committee
Sweet Action
markers
Water Teams
Root River
Tracking
emerging
issues
Policy Watershed Action
Committee Teams to follow:
Key role in
Watershed-
State’s
based
new water
storm Milwaukee
quality
water River
trading
permitting
efforts
effort
Oak Creek
Total
Guiding Maximum
new Daily
phosphorus Load
rules (TMDL)
Projects 23

24. Chaordic Organization
 Dee Hock, founder of Visa
 Chaotic and ordered organizational structure
 “encourage as much competition and
initiative as possible while building
mechanisms for cooperation”
 Can we use competition to find the most cost-
effective solutions?
“The Trillion Dollar Vision of Dee Hock,” by M. Mitchell
Waldrop, in FastCompany
24

25. Chaordic Organization & Hock
 $135,000 grant from Joyce Foundation
 Be adaptable and responsive, while
preserving unity of purpose
 Find delicate balance to avoid turf fights
 Cultivate equity, autonomy, and individual
opportunity
 Governing structure must distribute power
and function to the lowest level
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26. Chaordic Organization
 Governing structure as a framework for
dialogue, deliberation, and coordination
among equals
 Federated structure
 Members with voting representation
 Sweet Water original Policies and Procedures
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27. Thank you!
For more info, visit
swwtwater.org