Along Rock River, demands to solve flooded fields and dying forest

LEBANON, Wis. - There is more snow sitting on the ground now than we have seen in a decade in southeast Wisconsin. Along the Rock River in Dodge and Jefferson counties, frankly, it is snow they do not need. 

Fields have been flooded for months and farmers have lost hundreds of acres from water that won’t seem to drain. The problem that has been years in the making, has accelerated in the last 24 months and is stirring debate for who is responsible.

Kyle Zwieg’s farm in Lebanon has been in his family's name for longer than the state of Wisconsin has existed.

"Our farm was established in 1856 -- and I’m the 6th generation to farm here. My kids will be the 7th," Zwieg said.

The area is so beautiful it wouldn't be out of place on a postcard. It is a spot some might consider perfection if only part of it wasn't disappearing. 

A quick walk among the fields and you will notice there used to be more land here.

"I would say just as a rough number, we’ve completely lost 30 acres," Zwieg said.

The Rock River, which attracted his ancestors long ago, is now threatening to wash parts of it away. Up and down the Rock River, basin farmers and landowners say they are dealing with the same problems.

There are signs here what is happening is historical. Trees that have stood for more than a century are dying. Roads that normally shut down for a few weeks for high water have been shut down for months. Locals say the normal twice-a-year flood cycle is now a year-round event.

"Yeah, something has changed," said Lebanon Town Chairman Lohny Fredrick.

At Harnishfeger Park, Fredrick shared pictures that show a river that has grown in size.

"This used to be a river channel. And you can see it’s outside the river channel right now," Fredrick pointed out. "We sit here with this water. And it doesn’t dissipate."

One thing everyone agrees on -- the main culprit comes from the sky. A stretch of river,  which runs from the Horicon marsh from the north through Hustisford and Lebanon before snaking its way to Watertown, usually sees an average of just over 33 inches of rainfall per year.

For the past eight consecutive years, it has been above that -- way above that. In 2018 and 2019, the river basin saw more than a foot of rain above the average. The point of contention here is the response to getting rid of all the sitting water.

"No one knows or cares what’s going on on this part of the river -- and we’ve been fighting for about five years to get someone to pay attention," Fredrick said.

Locals say they are stuck between the Rock and a hard place. The area sits between two dams -- the Hustisford dam to the north and the Upper Watertown dam to the south.

"We’re really at the mercy of the Watertown dam and the Hustisford dam," Zwieg said.

Along with dams in Horicon and a lower dam in Watertown, there are four in the region with three different operators -- many here who believe are not helping drain the water.

"It seems like there is very little communication. And whatever happens on the northern dams doesn’t correlate to actions on the southern dams," Zwieg said.

In Watertown, many of the complaints about the dams and their impact on the flooding flow right to Thomas Reiss.

"If the dam wasn’t even here, you would still have the flooding up in Lebanon," Reiss said.

Reiss operates the two dams in Watertown to make electricity -- and said many of the people complaining don’t understand what's causing the water to sit. Reiss said the reason flooding persists is how Mother Nature designed the land.

"The main problem is the topography here is so flat. And it is especially flat, the Lebanon, north part of Ixonia, up into Ashippun -- it’s extremely flat," Reiss said.

Over the 20 miles for the water to travel from Horicon to Watertown, the river drops only a few feet and Reiss says the topography resembles a bowl. When the amount of water in the basin increases, instead of getting deeper in the bowl, it spreads out. Reiss said the top lip of the bowl closest to him is upstream of Watertown, which his dams have no effect on.

"We have held the water lower than we have to, and upstream we still have flooding. At my home, we have flooding," Reiss said.

Reiss is not just a dam operator, but also happens to be a farmer who lives along the river. He said he has lost hundreds of acres to a problem he would fix if he could.

 "There is no easy solution," Reiss said.

The state agrees.

"The solution to the problem in my view point is not is not something the dams in their current configuration can wholly solve," said Uriah Monday, a water management engineer with the DNR.

Monday explains the dams along the Rock River only have a few gates, whose ability to change the flow of the river is limited. He said they have the ability to change depth levels by inches, not feet. Monday said there are possible solutions.

"They're as you can imagine, those would be expensive propositions," Monday said.

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New dams or dredging would cost millions of dollars and could just shift the issue elsewhere.

"It doesn’t necessarily have to be that way. It didn’t use to be. So that's we are stuck in the quandary here," Fredrick said.

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Those along the river are not giving up. They hired their own engineers who they hope can find some solutions to draining the water. They promise the issue won’t keep them from working this land.

"We are in this for the long haul and we’ve adapted out management practices. But it would be much better if the problem didn’t exist," Zweig said.