By Pam Powers, UW-Stout Office of University Communications
Eight students from around the United States spent eight weeks this summer researching water quality in the Red Cedar River watershed and exploring whether restoring wild rice beds there could have a positive impact on phosphorus levels.
Students in the program shared the results of their research with the public in early August in Menomonie and Chetek. Their research focused on issues related to the blue-green algae in the Red Cedar watershed and how the resulting drop in water quality affects the region.
The watershed includes Lake Menomin, Tainter Lake and the Chetek chain of lakes. The students’ research took note of the effects that climate changes and increases in major rainstorms are having on wild rice in the area.
“Wild rice has had a hard time with the big rain events,” said Arthur Kneeland, a UW-Stout senior biology lecturer. “It’s also important for the region. It’s a very culturally significant plant.”
Wild rice is a staple food in Ojibwe communities across the Upper Midwest and is also used in traditional Native American ceremonies. Lake Menomin occupies what seems once to have been a wild rice marsh that was flooded by the mid-19th century damming of the Red Cedar River to create a log reservoir.
“Menomin” has been translated as “the place where the wild rice grows,” according to “Where the Wild Rice Grows: A Sesquicentennial Portrait of Menomonie,” a book published in 1996.
Students this summer researched whether growing wild rice would impact phosphorus levels in the watershed’s lakes and reduce algae growth. Kneeland said that wild rice could slow water runoff and prevent sediment from flushing further into waterways.
Wild Rice Beds in Lake Menomin?
Lake Menomin currently has no wild rice beds. Kneeland noted that starting beds to grow it there could have economic viability.
“We could make money off it,” he said. “It sells for around $10 a pound.”
Kristen Ondris, a senior studying civil engineering at the Cooper Union in New York City, said the original plan this summer was to study individual wild rice plants. That was modified to studying existing beds in the region.
The study’s results show there tends to be more phosphorus in the sediment of wild rice beds. The next step would be to study why this happened – whether it was because of wild rice plants dying in the area or the plants trapping sediment.
Ondris said she liked the interdisciplinary study approach at LAKES.
“It was really interesting to study something that was applicable to here,” she said.
More From Student Research Projects
Naomi Albert, a senior natural resource planning major at UW-Stevens Point, said further study is also needed to look at the phosphorus levels of wild rice beds throughout the entire growing season. The plants may well be absorbing phosphorus from the sediment and water that has settled in the beds.
“Having aquatic plants like wild rice may help with seasonal phosphorus issues,” she said.
Zayyan Swaby, a senior studying biogeochemistry at Stony Brook University in New York, presented research on creating a smartphone app or a website to enable people to check area water quality that would be measured by small reading stations. He also looked at whether the stations could be powered using sediment to generate energy.
In its five summers, LAKES’ student research has produced data on social, economic, ecological, cultural and spatial issues related to the toxic algae blooms, which are caused by excessive phosphorous in the waterways. The program was renewed last year by the National Science Foundation for another three years under a $303,000 grant. The first LAKES grant cycle ran from 2014 to 2016.
The program collaborates with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, the state Department of Natural Resources, the Tainter/Menomin Lake Improvement Association, Dunn County, Barron County, the City of Menomonie, the Red Cedar Lakes Association, Chetek Lakes Protection Association and the Big Chetac and Birch Lakes Association.
The Red Cedar watershed includes about 40,000 acres of open water and 4,900 miles of waterways.
Note: the home page photo shows LAKES REU student Kristen Ondris discussing her research project on wild rice with UW-Stout assistant professor of Biology Julie Beston. (UW-Stout photo by Pam Powers)