This morning I buried one of my turtle brethren in the shallow, weedy grave shown above.
In celebration of the life of this creature, I invite you to think big with a question:
If you had $1,000,000 to spend towards a more swimmable lake for humans and turtles alike, what might you do?
I’ll start with three suggestions:
- Create a program incentivizing construction of Renewable Natural Gas plants on farms in the Yahara River watershed. This technology is tried and tested, creates jobs, and effectively turns phosphorus rich waste into liquid money.
- Get communities involved in bringing back native mussels to targeted areas. My suggestion would be to start with Starkweather Creek, just down the shore from my neighborhood. Bivalves are tremendous filters. Re-establishing these keystone species would have benefits for decades to come.
- Promote the idea that the problems in our lakes are solvable. Hopeful community members and citizens take action, and advocate for systemic change. When we lose hope, negative thoughts become self-fulfilling prophecies. Conversely, when we believe in the power of human ingenuity, incredible ideas come out of left-field to solve the unsolvable.
Americans have been to the moon. Wisconsinites can figure out how to get control of the human inputs that are making our capitol city less and less of a beach town every decade.
For today’s fun fact: you can blame “Sweaty Corn” for the ungodly humidity we’ve all been experiencing. Like humans, corn plants cool themselves by sweating. To quote Beavis and Butthead, aka the namesake for my college Ultimate Frisbee team, “That is not helpful corn!”
Corn and humans also have similar genome sizes. Think about that one.