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Wild rice, clear water: crop a boon to Northern ecosystems
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| By: Anita Zimmerman |
October 14, 2009 |
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As locals look to fix the green water problem, they could take a new approach that's as old as the lakes themselves.
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Back when Prairie Lake was called Prairie Rice Lake, wild rice was a thick, grassy presence in the lake's shallow waters.
What killed the Chetek chain's rice beds isn't documented, but word is that the dam, installed to regulate water levels and prevent seasonal flooding, or some facet of the logging industry, were likely culprits.
For the past 15 years, the Great Lakes Indian Fish and Wildlife Commission, a sort of tribal Department of Natural Resources, has been working to rehabilitate native ecosystems throughout Northern Wisconsin by reseeding wild rice.
An Oct. 5 Milwaukee Journal Sentinel article gave a nod to reseeding efforts designed to revive wild rice's heritage as a dietary staple during long, cold winters.
What the article didn't touch on is also what makes wild rice attractive to communities with troubled waters: reseeding the crop can restore natural ecosystems, boost wildlife and draw excess nutrients out of the water-nutrients that feed algae, the Chetek lakes' biggest scourge.
Peter David, biologist with the Great Lakes Indian Fish and Wildlife Commission, says replanting the Chetek chain's native crop is a historical restoration, one that requires more attention than a sprinkling of seeds.
David coordinates most of the organization's wild rice restoration activities. Each body of water is unique, so it's impossible for him to speculate about the outcomes of reintroducing the plant to the area.
Although wild rice can't single-handedly fix all the problems in a system, he's witnessed what it can do.
"Rice is an unusually ecologically vibrant plant," he says. "It's unique in its attractiveness to wildlife," and promotes ecosystems that are "very abundant and diverse."
Rice beds can legitimately help clean the water, he says. Plants grow best in shallow waters with muddy bottoms, and the root masses help hold sediment in place, even after the seasonal plant dies.
Because wild rice helps keep nutrients in the sediments instead of the water column, it can change nutrient levels in the water and compete with algae, the most prominent benefactor of the Chetek chain's phosphorus-rich waters.
A very nutritious seed, wild rice also draws nutrients out of the water and attracts wildlife that have the same effect.
The grassy plants themselves also serve as a buffer to the winds that stir up lake bottoms.
Challenges
Bodies of water that naturally host wild rice, including the Chetek chain, are actually harder to reseed than lakes that don't, David explains.
When rice dwindles and dies instead of flourishing, there's always a reason, and replenishing rice beds means confronting and resolving those issues.
Dams, for example, control water levels and prevent seasonal fluctuations, but wild rice is an annual and needs a certain amount of natural disturbance to flourish.
"Just throwing in seeds would have a short-term benefit," David comments.
Also, a good rice bed looks more like a meadow than a lake; some bays would be made inaccessible to fisherman, although David predicts fisheries in general would improve.
"Anecdotally, when people lose their rice beds, they lose their fish," he says.
Besides efforts already in progress-boosting shoreline buffers and eliminating lawn fertilizer-lakeshore owners would have to agree to work together. Planting an acre here or there wouldn't do much for the lakes as a system.
Cheap project
Unlike more conventional restoration efforts, which require hundreds of thousands of dollars in engineering studies and hours of grant writing and begging off legislators, reseeding would be inexpensive.
David gets seeds for a couple of dollars per pound. The GLIFWC sends experts to speak at meetings and, if projects take off, they help with planting and share costs with locals. Sometimes they even pick up study costs.
"A thousand dollars goes a long way," he says. "It doesn't take a lot of money to do a test seeding."
Permits
No permit is required to plant native species, David says.
A permit for harvesting wild rice costs $8.25.
Partnerships
The GLIFWC regularly works with state and federal government and is always looking for new partnerships, says David.
As they seek out new grant opportunities, the commission is turning its focus to restoration. A project like the Chetek chain would be long-term and "very involved," but doable.
"There's more and more of a need for this kind of work," he adds.
To contact David, call (715) 682-6619, ext. 123, or e-mail pdavid@glifwc.org.
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©The Chetek Alert 2009
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Mike Oium |
Oct, 16 2009 |
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What are we waiting for? This sounds like a healthy, natural and logical alternative to begging for grant money and basically spinning our wheels! Because of the low cost investment, it shouldn't be difficult to get support for this project. When you can improve the fish population, produce a consumable crop and clean up the lake all at the same time, seems like a no-brainer to me. We will drag our feet for the next 10 years trying to figure out what to do with the lake and get the finances to be able to do something. Let's get this started now!! I've been spending time on the lake for nearly 50 years. I'd like to see it reach its potential in my lifetime. A cleaner Chain of Lakes will bring in more visitors.
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