2026 LAKES REU Student Researchers

Research Poster: Cherry_LAKES 2026.pdf

Like many Americans, I grew up with a nearby stream to play in. I loved to go down to the stream and observe all the different insects and rocks I could find. But what I didn't know was all the stressors that these streams face because they are located near city development. Urban stream syndrome (USS) refers to the negative effects on stream quality that happen because of activities in nearby cities. In many cities, streams play an important role in our stormwater management systems that direct water from storms to prevent flooding. Often, urbanization increases the amount of water entering streams which can lead to an excess of dirt and sand (sediments) being washed away from the stream banks, which can cause them to collapse. In addition, large amounts of impervious surfaces such as concrete and asphalt surrounding a stream have been correlated to a significant decrease in the diversity of living organisms in the stream, a key symptom of USS. Macroinvertebrates (insects and other water-dwelling creatures with hard exoskeletons) can be classed by their levels of pollution tolerance, and evaluating populations of different classes can be used to understand the health of a stream. 

Galloway Creek, located in Menomonie, Wisconsin, is likely suffering from USS due to the urban, suburban, and commercial land use of the surrounding area. However, local interest groups and the City of Menomonie have been working together to restore the area surrounding the stream to reduce invasive species and increase native tree and shrub cover to help reduce the effects of USS. In order to assess the effectiveness of this restoration at increasing usable habitat, water quality, and biodiversity, sampling sites were established along the length of Galloway Creek from the headwaters near Phelan Park to the mouth where it meets the Red Cedar River. This study included both restored and unrestored stream sections along with reference (not urbanized) sites at Birch Creek and Hay Creek in nearby areas. At each site, water quality was measured with temperature, dissolved oxygen, pH, and conductivity. The macroinvertebrate community was sampled to calculate a biotic index and to determine overall diversity. Habitat characteristics, such as the ratio of how wide the stream is versus how deep the stream is, were combined into an overall habitat index score for each site. Comparison between unrestored, restored, and reference stream types showed significant differences in water temperature, conductivity, and pH. This means that water quality was better at some site types as compared to others. There was no significant difference in the percentage of dissolved oxygen, biotic index, habitat index, or macroinvertebrate community. Of the significantly different metrics, restored sections were more similar to the unrestored sections than they were to the reference sections. This means there is a possible need for more restoration to bring about the desired outcomes. Further study is needed to get more data to support these findings. 

To increase macroinvertebrate diversity and improve water quality, we recommend focusing restoration efforts on reducing impervious cover where possible throughout the watershed, continued work at reforesting the stream corridor, and improved stormwater management. Green Stormwater Infrastructure is a set of methods that includes activities like constructing bioswales (channels with plant cover designed to slow how fast water comes into urban streams) and planting rain gardens (shallow temporary pools that allow for greater groundwater recharge which happens when water is able to soak into the ground). These methods to slow the flow of stormwater can reduce the amount of sediment removed from the stream banks and help maintain a more diverse set of habitats within a stream. Continued invasive plant removal and tree/shrub planting in the stream’s corridor can also increase the amount of habitat types in a stream by increasing the amount of organic matter introduced to the stream. Trees provide organic matter in the form of sticks, branches, and leaves that can accumulate into a snag in the stream which slows down the speed of the water and provides habitat for macroinvertebrates. Careful urban planning that maximizes the amount of water that can soak into the land, along with dedicated work improving the habitat along and in our urban stream, can continue to go a long way toward promoting stream health and a more beautiful and sustainable city.

Research Poster: Deveraux_LAKES 2026.pdf

I had not thought about local community much at all before this research project, but Menomonie has a vibrant community feel that you can sense the moment you enter town. When I thought of “local” back in Knoxville, where I grew up, it was limited to Asian corner markets and the artisan market held every so often downtown. Local, to me, was a proximity, and not “locally owned” or anything near shopping locally. I also did not realize the benefits of shopping locally, especially in a small town such as Menomonie. Initially, while biking around the city, it was shocking how many stores were locally owned and operated. Talking to people at the farmers market as part of my partner’s project also showed how much people care for the vibrancy of the local community here. Upon realizing this, it was very easy to understand the importance of the LAKES project here in Menomonie. 

For my project, I investigated the barriers that local businesses were facing in the modern economy. Shopping locally, at a farmers’ market, for instance, puts money back into a community member’s pocket, and they can then buy more things with it, so the value of the dollar increases. This is called the multiplier effect, which is central to a circular economy. The circular economy involves keeping money in the community through shopping locally. In comparison, shopping at big box stores like Walmart or online retailers like Amazon takes money out of the community. This negatively impacts the economy of the area because the dollars spent at stores not owned locally spend less time here. In other words, the choice to shop at locally owned stores or at big box stores or online can change how much money goes back into the community.

After learning the ins and outs of the circular economy and the multiplier effect, I decided to interview members of the Menomonie Area Chamber of Commerce and local business owners. The Chamber of Commerce has a good feel for the connectedness of the local businesses in the area, and they organize most events that happen downtown. Local business owners understand the ups and downs of managing a local business. After talking to all of these people, I found several important themes in terms of the barriers faced by locally owned businesses.

First, the prevalence of online shopping affects local businesses and the local economy more generally. Most online shopping is from national companies, rather than local businesses, sending money out of the community. As more options for online shopping become available, there is also less human interaction happening. People can tap one button on their phone and have a week’s worth of groceries delivered right to their door; no interaction necessary. This negatively impacts the community by taking away more personable interactions. It also takes away the need or desire to go to community-centered events, like the farmer’s market, or to buy from locally owned businesses or from local producers. 

Another major barrier for local businesses is inconsistent student foot traffic. Since Menomonie is a college town, student spending is important for local businesses.  When students leave for the summer, it takes away money that would otherwise create a more vibrant community, If students were around over the summer, they would spend money at local businesses which would help those businesses be more stable. That creates the question: How do we keep students engaged and living in town year-round? 

Finally, other barriers included vacant downtown properties, inability of local businesses to increase hours, burnout, and the “news desert” that is so prevalent in Menomonie. 

Diagnosing these barriers and seeing how they are linked gives researchers and the community a better understanding of ways we can address them in the future. I believe the first step of addressing these barriers is to create a conversation about them. The more we talk about them, the more community action can be taken and economic change can be made. Addressing these barriers through future research, policy changes, and government programs can create a more vibrant community. We need to find ways to keep students on campus and engaged, provide necessary help to local business owners, and provide new experiences for everyone who lives here. With an already strong foundation of local community, I believe Menomonie is a perfect town to make significant economic change that will strengthen the community.

I am incredibly grateful for this LAKES internship experience, and the feeling of local community is something that I will take back home with me to Tennessee, where I want to look into the actions being taken there to create a more personable community. Local community is what makes a town thrive, and that connection creates a strong force of passionate community members.

Research Poster: Dudley_LAKES 2026.pdf

Across much of the United States, local economies are being increasingly shaped by the large corporations. As these corporations expand their presence in communities, they draw consumers away from locally owned businesses, changing how money circulates within the local economy. Corporations such as Walmart and Amazon are the biggest competitors in this system, and their profits tend to leave the communities where they operate and go directly to the company. On the other hand, money spent at locally owned businesses is more likely to stay locally. In economics, this is called the local multiplier effect. This term refers to how a dollar spent at a local business tends to multiply and stay in the local economy as people take the money they receive in sales or wages and use it to buy other things they need locally. When money stays in a community longer, local businesses in the area can flourish. This creates a circular economy where dollars spent at local businesses stay in circulation and increase the wealth of an area.

In addition to their tendency to extract money from a local economy, these large stores’ presence also puts pressure on locally owned businesses who often cannot compete with the lower prices and larger variety of goods that these corporations can offer. Our question becomes: What is stopping people from shopping at locally owned businesses, and how do the behaviors of those who shop online or at places like Walmart differ from that of people who typically shop locally?

 To answer this question, during June and July of 2026, I conducted a quick, two minute in-person survey and talked to sixty-three people. The survey questions focused on their shopping habits, the places they shop, and how frequently they shop. Survey participants were primarily found at the Farmers’ Market in Menomonie and elsewhere in West Central Wisconsin. I met everyday people in these places and wanted to see if the attitudes or behaviors differed between Farmers’ Market shoppers and those who shopped at “big box” stores.

 I used the Theory of Planned Behavior, a psychological framework, to understand people’s decisions and why people choose to shop the way they do. This framework has three main components: people’s values, beliefs, and perceived barriers. These three components work together to shape an individual’s attitudes, decisions, and behaviors. Values are a person's opinion about an item or topic. Beliefs are what they think their friends, family or society want them to do. Perceived barriers are how easy or hard someone perceives an action to be. Together, these factors influence a person’s intentions to engage in a particular behavior and the likelihood that they will follow through. Understanding people’s beliefs and values might also help us make changes to the local economy to keep wealth circulating in the community. 

I found that participants at the Farmers’ Market defined “local” differently than individuals elsewhere. They defined local to be locally owned while people elsewhere defined local to be distance from oneself (e.g. shopping at the Menomonie Walmart would be local since it is in the town in which they live). Also, people at the farmers’ market were more eco-conscious and had an anti-corporation mindset compared to other participants. People who shopped at locally owned businesses, in this case the Farmer’s Market, often cared where their food came from and who was benefiting from their dollar. 

I also learned what barriers exist that keep people from shopping at locally owned businesses. Affordability, accessibility in the form of local business being open later and being close to local stores, and knowledge about shopping at locally owned businesses were all important. What accessibility means to people is having local businesses open for extended hours and the farmers market open more than twice a week for people to do their shopping. Many people have said shopping at the farmers market means planning their meals in advance, something that just isn't feasible for most people who want to shop at the farmers' market. In addition, participants who had an eco-conscious or sustainability mindset felt more capable of shopping locally and reported they were more likely to shop locally. Shopping locally was also discussed by participants as making people more involved in their community. The more involved a person is the more socially aware they become, which drives them to continue to shop locally. In short, I found that those who shop at locally owned businesses had particular values such as being socially conscious of how their actions impact the environment and their economy. They were also more active in their communities through farmers markets and community festivals. Therefore, they were more likely to shop locally and circulate wealth within their local economy.

We need to move toward an economy where more money is staying in communities so that more people are thriving and helping to protect our environment. When money stays in communities, it can multiply and benefit the people who live there. This must start with a unified community that is knowledgeable about their economic impact. When a community becomes unified, they become more aware of where their dollar is going. Along with barriers that stop people from shopping locally such as not having access to farmers markets or locally owned stores. Also not having the time to shop locally due to having a busy schedule and convenience. Using the Theory of Planned Behavior to understand why people shop the way that they do allows us to find new solutions to move communities toward that goal. 

Research Poster: Larson_LAKES 2026.pdf

You have likely heard someone pitch the idea: “Let’s go thrifting!” In the last decade, second-hand shopping has grown in popularity. Second-hand shopping refers to the consumption of used products, such as clothing, furniture, appliances, and more. Additionally, second-hand shopping can be formal, such as buying from a local thrift store, or informal, such as trading used clothing with a friend. The growing popularity of second-hand consumption, as well as my own love for thrifting, inspired me to research consumer attitudes and other sustainable behaviors in rural Wisconsin. 

Alongside Dr. Sarah Wood, a psychology professor at University of Wisconsin-Stout Polytechnic, and Annabel Raffin, an undergraduate from Amherst College in Massachusetts, we brainstormed the most effective way to gain an understanding of individuals' attitudes towards second-hand shopping. Ultimately, we landed on Ajzen’s (1985) Theory of Planned Behavior, a theoretical model that focuses on three factors that influence behavior: attitudes (e.g., believing that second-hand shopping is good), norms (e.g., believing that second-hand shopping is common), and perceived behavioral control (e.g., believing that second-hand shopping is up to me). Additionally, we were interested in exploring the connection between second-hand shopping and other sustainable behaviors. Previous research suggests that second-hand shopping may function as a gateway to other sustainable behaviors such as recycling and conserving home electricity, gas, and water for environmental reasons. To assess this, we created an online survey with questions about people's sustainable behaviors and attitudes about climate change. We also asked participants about their general shopping habits. Our team used a variety of methods to recruit participants, including sending emails, creating social media posts, putting posters up in local businesses, as well as passing out small QR code cards locally. Annabel and I often handed out QR codes for our survey near the local farmer’s market. Overall, I got survey responses from 113 Wisconsin residents.

What we found was that our respondents were very into second-hand shopping. More than half of our participants reported that they often or always shop second-hand. This suggests a rise in popularity of this behavior. Our analysis also revealed that those who have positive attitudes, perceptions of norms, and belief in ease of second-hand shopping were more likely to shop second-hand. Additionally, participants who reported frequently shopping second-hand also engaged in a few other sustainable behaviors such as recycling, avoiding products with unnecessary packaging, and purchasing second-hand products for environmental reasons. This implies that shopping second-hand may be a gateway to other sustainable behaviors. These findings provide evidence that it may be easier to convince those who already shop second-hand to also participate in behaviors such as recycling, reducing car use, and a variety of other sustainable behaviors. 

Overall, this research project is a good starting point to understand attitudes and behaviors that can be utilized to promote greater local change. Future research should recruit a sample group of participants with a wider variety of beliefs and habits regarding sustainability and second-hand shopping. Future research should also ask participants more in-depth questions regarding positive environmental behaviors within private (e.g., household initiatives) and public spheres of life (e.g., participation in collective action groups). In all, the LAKES REU research program has been a wonderful opportunity to lead a research project and challenge myself, as well as providing the chance to build a deeper connection with the local community. I believe that the interdisciplinary skills I have gained from this summer will have a lasting impact on my future endeavors.

Research Poster: Peterson_LAKES 2026.pdf 

During my first week in the LAKES summer program, I attended the event Uniting West Wisconsin: A Regional Response to Data Centers. The event was advertised as a “night of education and entertainment about Data Centers in west Wisconsin,” where “neighbors” “connect to protect” Wisconsin’s natural resources. However, the lead organizer, Blaine Halverson, began the event by telling the crowd that “this really… isn’t about data centers.” This is an odd way to begin an event organized in the midst of the controversial Menomonie data center proposal. Months earlier, Balloonist LLC, an anonymous developer representing a major technology company, purchased 320 acres of agricultural land in Menomonie with the intent to build a data center. When the proposal became public, it was met with intense community backlash; Menomonie residents expressed concerns about water use, electricity rates and loss of rural character. At the time of the Uniting West Wisconsin (UWW) event, activists had created several roadblocks for the developer but had yet to definitively cancel the project. After months of organizing, those activists wanted to share their experiences and help other west Wisconsin communities be proactive against data center development. Thus, the event seemed firmly focused on data centers. However, Halverson continued “this really is… an instinct that we all have... we can see that [data centers] could steal the soul from our community.”

What is the ‘soul’ of Menomonie, and why are data centers imagined as a threat to that concept? I spent the next eight weeks exploring these questions alongside my colleagues, Jacob Smertneck and Daniel Rogers. In that time, we attended government meetings and activist events; reviewed government records of the controversy; scoured the ‘Stop the Menomonie Data Center’ Facebook page; and interviewed 27 community members. In our research, we heard a diverse array of residents describe the ‘soul’ of the Menomonie area. At the core of those discussions was the concept of ‘rural character.’ In our archival review, the words rural character were often referenced but never defined. During subsequent interviews with government officials, activists and residents, we asked each participant to explain what rural character meant to them as an avenue to understand what constituted the ‘soul’ of the community. 

Interviewees held diverse views of rural character. To some, rural character is an aesthetic defined by green, open space, while to others, rural character is inextricably connected to a community of productive family farms. Still other residents defined rural character as a way of life, based on slow pace, trust, longevity and a supportive community. Regardless of the specific vision of rural character, interviewees shared a deep connection to place, so much that rural character functioned as a part of their identity. In data center debates, the amorphous concept of rural character functioned as a way to express connection to place and mobilize community opposition based on shared values and experiences. 

In our conversations, data centers were imagined as threatening the many definitions of rural character. Like Halverson, residents evoked images of the data center as a deadly, destructive force which contrasted sharply with the tranquil, pastoral images they used to describe Menomonie and the surrounding area. Residents described their home as “fertile farmland” where “animals flourish,” and then imagined data centers to “prey on the countryside” and destroy the quiet, secluded greenspace they value. As data centers “gobble up” rural land, they destroy the agricultural lifestyle that land supports. The region once supported a network of small family farms that created an economic “powerhouse in the community,” but that economic system has been on the decline after decades of farm consolidation. An interviewee described the data as the “final nail in the coffin” for that self-sustaining economic system; with the data center as a “vulture-like” industry, feasting on the corpse of the declining family farm ecosystem.

In residents’ imaginations, the destruction from the data center quickly rips through the town and then disappears, leaving the city permanently damaged. One resident described the data center as a “tornado in Menomonie,” another compared the data center controversy to his own battle with cancer. In both cases, the language of trauma and upheaval communicates the emotional weight of the data center threat. In contrast, residents described rural life in calmer, less emotionally charged ways. They spoke fondly of “camp[ing] out on a stream bank” as kids or their family’s generational connection to the community. Where data center development is swift and indiscriminately harmful, rural life is slow and emphasizes care and longevity. Similarly, residents valued their supportive community. Menomonie transplants said that moving to the area “just felt like home.” Notions of community support is based on trust and authenticity, which residents felt the data center destroyed. They imagined the developer as a “wolf in sheep’s clothing” conducting “sleight of hand, middle of the night” deals with local officials.

The various unknowns surrounding the data center’s end-user further complicated the lack of trust in the community. As the city government scrambled to respond to the community backlash, the developer quietly faded into the background. The developer’s silence transformed the data center into a liminal force in the community: both present and invisible. Residents described the data center as “ghost” which had been “lurking” in the city for over a year. This liminality prompted residents to describe the data center with even more otherworldly images. One resident likened the data center to a “vampire” that kept coming back over after it had been killed, yet another compared the data center to Darth Vader’s Death Star.

These evocative, monstrous images convey the emotional depth of the data center threat, in turn used to mobilize community members against the developer. Residents and activists draw on shared place identity through visions of rural character and then pose the data center as an inhuman entity that stands to annihilate that shared identity.

Research Poster: Raffin_LAKES 2026.pdf

From composting to carpooling, there are a wide variety of sustainability initiatives that aim to address environmental problems like climate change. Often these initiatives have a central goal that requires collective effort to achieve. My research focused on whether these goals successfully motivate people to act more sustainably. 

I began my project by reviewing past research on goal-setting behaviors and sustainability initiatives. Past studies mostly focused on individual goals, like getting households to lower how much electricity they used. They frequently found that setting individual goals improved sustainable behaviors. However, most sustainability initiatives set goals that require collective effort because environmental issues are often connected to one another. Goals that require collective effort are more complicated than individual goals because of factors like perceived community participation: when people think that others in their community are not working hard to achieve a goal, they become less motivated to work hard themselves. My hope for this project was to understand more about how to motivate people to engage with sustainability initiatives that require collective effort. As a result, I decided to use Ajzen’s (1991) Theory of Planned Behavior as a framework for my study design. The Theory of Planned Behavior connects attitudes to actions while also considering factors like norms and how much control people believe they have over their behavior.

With the help of Dr. Sarah Wood and Hattie Larson, both from the University of Wisconsin-Stout Polytechnic, I created an online survey asking people about a “100 percent carbon-free electricity by 2050” goal. Depending on where they lived, participants read about a goal that was either specific to the City of Menomonie or to the State of Wisconsin. They were then asked about how aware they were about the goal, how achievable they thought the goal was, their attitudes towards the goal (e.g. the goal is positive), how common they thought supporting the goal was, how much control they believed they had over their actions, and how much they thought other members of their community were participating in taking action to meet the goal. We distributed surveys through a variety of methods, including social media posts, hanging posters in local businesses, and passing out small QR cards at various locations. 

Data from 108 surveys revealed that people who had more positive attitudes and stronger perceptions of norms and control over their behavior thought that the goal was achievable. Interestingly, there were no significant differences in responses between residents of the City of Menomonie compared to residents from other parts of Wisconsin. This suggests that the size of the group did not influence people’s attitudes and perceptions about the goal. In other words, although individual and group-level goals might have some important differences, the relative size of the group (city vs. state) did not make a difference. Notably, although most people felt that members of their community were not working as hard as they could to achieve the electricity goal, they still believed that they, as an individual, would continue to work hard. 

What must be considered when thinking about the results of this study is that participants were mostly people who were already environmentally oriented, suggesting that people who care about the environment feel more motivated to act sustainably regardless of other people’s actions. The skewed nature of the sample points to a greater challenge: how to get people who are not as environmentally oriented to engage in sustainability work. Future studies should investigate if focusing on aspects of sustainability initiatives that are not about the environment, such as possible economic benefits, motivates people who are less concerned about the environment.

Research Poster: Rogers_LAKES 2026.pdf

What does it mean for a community when a $1.6 billion data center comes to a city of roughly 16,000 people? At the beginning of the summer, my colleagues Jacob Smertneck, Sydney Peterson, and I set out to explore this question and learn what the citizens of Menomonie and surrounding towns thought about the project. As I began to work, I became interested in how this data center project intertwined local government with the everyday lives of Menomonie’s residents and business owners. Local government drew my attention because of the size of the proposal, the policy needed to accommodate such a development, and the amount of money being spent by a shell company going by the name “Balloonist”. This led me to focus my research on exploring the world of government and corporate policy and introduced me to questions such as: How do people think about the future of data center development in Menomonie? And how do business practices such as non-disclosure agreements impact people’s trust in their government? 

With these questions in mind, Jacob, Sydney, and I began to interview a wide range of individuals who held different positions in the community. The interviewees included government officials, local business owners, residents, and industry professionals. The questions were focused on learning about the people’s unique perspectives on this data center project and how they believed it would affect the community. The work was done over the course of 9 weeks and consisted of researching local histories, conducting 27 interviews, and attending public events such as government meetings and public forums.

As the work moved forward, two themes became clear to me. The first was that NDAs and government transparency have become extremely important topics for many in the community. There is a stark contrast between people who believe that NDAs are “just a standard business thing…” (Business leader), and people who believe that “If this is common practice, then shame on us” (Local resident). These opinions showed me that this topic is deeper than simple disagreements over government procedure; they show a divide in how people think their government should work. To some people, NDAs are nothing more than a legal formality, and, to others, they are a threat to government transparency. This topic of transparency is even more of an issue when considering the size of this data center. At over 320 acres, this would not be a small development. Because of its size, it would directly impact the lives of the people who live in the area, especially during the construction period. This makes the need for transparency an even more important subject for residents who want their government to keep them informed when dealing with such large projects that would affect their day-to-day lives. As one local business owner pointed out “when you sign these NDAs…you’re no longer working for the city; you’re working for this outside entity”.

The second point that became clear to me throughout this research was that even in a place with a strong sense of community, money can circumvent these ideals by giving the landowners an opportunity they could not refuse. Some of the people we interviewed felt like big companies had unequal power over local decisions because of their money. One resident I spoke with said, “when they [developers] start waving money around like that, you can’t blame these guys [landowners] to sell” (Red Cedar resident). For me, this quote presented a dilemma; if local farmers don’t have a choice but to sell when presented with large amounts of cash, how will governments resist? As a town official said during our interview, “You don’t pay that kind of money and not get what you want” (Local official). The power that big money has over local decisions was also seen by the speed with which development began. At the start of this process, the city council decided to add the piece of land to the city [a process called annexation], and as a local official describes it: “they heard it one night and agreed to it that night to annex it into the city” (Local official). This has shown me that many people are unaware of development decisions until they are already happening; decisions that are often influenced by money. This led some people to blame their local government for not being more transparent, and it sparked debate over who’s voice should be listened to. As a city official said, “We’ve got Balloonists’ voice against the community voice”.

While my research over the summer was focused on local issues regarding a data center, this topic is anything but local. Communities across the country are facing their own struggles as they come to terms with the questions I addressed in my research. The rapid expansion of data center development has left many people feeling caught off guard by big tech companies using secretive business practices. My research provides an in-depth look at how the people of Menomonie experienced change they were not prepared for and that was, for the most part, out of their hands. Speaking directly with residents, officials, and business owners, my research was able to gain a deeper understanding of the different perspectives of people whose opinions might get left out of the official narrative. This work can be used to inform future policy decisions by showing local leadership what residents need the most and what priorities they have as a community. The story of the proposed data center in Menomonie also shows that the voice of the people is not powerless, and that real change can indeed happen when people speak as one. This research matters because it can help to amplify people’s voices, making sure that local governments make more transparent decisions for their communities going forward.

Research Poster: Shires_LAKES 2026.pdf

What does the bottom of a creek look like? How does it compare between different types of streams, especially between those that are undisturbed and those in urban areas? Why does the bottom of your creek matter for the things that live there? Galloway Creek runs through Menomonie, Wisconsin, and suffers from a condition widely known in the aquatic world as Urban Stream Syndrome (USS). USS impacts the health and structure, bank stability, and sediment load of streams in urban zones and is often caused by stormwater runoff and human development on the banks. Some parts of Galloway Creek have undergone restoration practices, which begs the question: does restoration impact the quality of a stream’s bottom to improve it for the creatures that call it home?

We compared Galloway Creek to two other creeks: Hay Creek, located in the Bjornson Environmental Site, and Birch Creek, located in the Birch Creek Scientific and Natural Area on the south side of Menomonie. These streams are good examples of what a stream that isn’t flowing through the middle of a city would probably look like in our area. All three streams are part of the Red Cedar Watershed, which means everything in the area called “Red Cedar” drains into the same place. Something that impacts one part of the watershed can affect the entire watershed. Thus, creek quality is related to other surface water bodies. We sampled sites on Hay Creek and Galloway Creek, including 3 restored streams where partners had worked to remove invasive shrubs along the stream’s banks and replaced them with native trees and shrubs in an attempt to improve the stream’s water quality and habitat. We took samples of the sediments, along with a few water quality tests.

Through statistical analysis, we found that discharge and transparency did not differ significantly between sites, but depth to refusal (i.e. a measure of how far a probe can go before it hits the solid stream base) and sediment composition did vary significantly. Reference streams (non-urban and less disturbed) were shown to have a greater depth overall, and the sediment composition suggests that sediments move and change differently across our stream types. Restored sites had more or similar amounts of larger grained sediment than unrestored (those affected by USS) sites, which can create important areas like riffles. Riffles provide habitat and serve to oxygenate the water by breaking surface tension. In other words, restored sites did tend to provide better habitat.

Further sampling and study of these streams will continue to provide useful information about how the restored sites will evolve and guide future projects. Urban management may help to reduce the impact of USS, and I have a few suggestions. Large wood inclusions placed into streams can reduce sediment travel distance and increase the number of pools. Volunteer stream cleanups can improve the aesthetics of a stream and educate the public about their local waters and how they are affected. Coir fiber logs can be placed into streams to reduce bank erosion and decay within 2-5 years of implementation. They are then replaced by vegetation roots that take over the job of stabilizing the banks. This reduces how visible human disturbance is. Erosion of streambanks dump sediments into the water and can destroy habitat. Thus, my last suggestion is Green Stormwater Infrastructure. These are urban improvements like permeable pavement, rain gardens, and water harvesting. They help reduce stormwater runoff and thus reduce erosion in urban streams. I hope that this research will shine a light on the issues that are often swept under the rug about our urban streams.