Supervisor Pushes Kletzsch Park Dam Overlook

Kletzsch Park. Photo by Susan Ruggles.

With repairs to the Kletzsch Park Dam and construction of a fish passage almost complete, a Milwaukee County Supervisor is moving to develop an overlook and portage around the historic dam.

Sup. Liz Sumner, whose county board district includes Kletzsch Park, sponsored a resolution to allocate approximately $309,000 to develop a scenic overlook at the dam. The overlook will provide a place for canoers and kayakers to portage, keeping them out of the fish passage on the east side of the river, and it will improve access to the river and the dam for visitors with disabilities, Sumner’s resolution states.

The board will vote on the legislation this month.

Repairs to the Kletzsch Park Dam and the construction of a fish passage are almost complete. The Milwaukee Metropolitan Sewerage District (MMSD) took the project over in 2021, through an agreement with the county, to get the project underway and remove one of the last remaining barriers to fish passage on the Milwaukee River.

The county began work on the Kletzsch dam project after the Department of Natural Resources cited the county in 2010 and 2016, ordering repairs to the dam.

When Milwaukee County Parks brought the project before the board in 2020, it faced significant opposition from county residents and failed to gain board support. Opposition centered around the county’s plan to build the fish passage on the west side of the river, which would have necessitated the removal of some old-growth trees. To build the passage on the east side of the river, the county would have had to acquire property and it did not have the funding.

A year later, MMSD stepped in and offered to take the project on and bankroll the acquisition of properties on the east side of the river.

“They had the unique opportunity and statutory authority, as well as access to additional funding opportunities that Milwaukee County Parks would not have,” Parks Director Guy Smith said in 2021.

The Kletsch Dam project is part of a larger effort to delist the Milwaukee estuary as an Area of Concern. The designation as an AOC was given to the Milwaukee estuary by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency in 1987. The estuary is made up by the confluence of Milwaukee’s three major rivers: Menomonee, Kinnickinnic and Milwaukee. The designation is given to waterways and bodies of water connected to the Great Lakes that are seriously degraded.

“The Kletzsch Dam fish passage and abutment repair is such an important project for the Area of Concern, but also for Milwaukee County Parks and for the region,” Kevin Shafer, executive director of MMSD said in 2021.

The Kltezsch Dam project is aimed at a critical piece of AOC work: restoring fish passage for native species like Northern Pike and Sturgeon. Opening up the passage will restore natural habitats for the fish and improve the natural reproduction and spawning of the species.

Under the agreement with MMSD, the county will retain ownership of the dam and the passage and will be responsible for long-term maintenance.

The sewerage district is nearly finished with the dam rehab and passage construction, according to an MMSD project page. The fish passage will be completed this month and water will begin flowing through the channel.

Once finished, according to MMSD, fish in Lake Michigan will be able to travel upstream to “areas encompassing 25 miles of river, 29 miles of tributary streams, and 2,400 acres of wetlands – reconnecting river habitats and allowing the fish to migrate throughout the region.”