County Deploying $1.3 Million in Environmental Cleanup Grants

Kletzsch Park Dam and fish passage. Photo by Graham Kilmer.

Milwaukee County Parks is preparing to deploy more than $1.3 million in grants in its effort to improve the environment and natural habitats along Milwaukee’s waterways.

The grant funds are being directed towards the department’s ongoing work to delist Milwaukee estuary as a federally-designated Area of Concern (AOC). The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) gives this unfortunate designation to the most polluted site around the Great Lakes.

The Milwaukee estuary was designated an Area of Concern in 1987. It includes the Milwaukee, Kinnickinnic and Menomonee rivers.

Parks received four grants totaling $1.33 million from the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources for the AOC project. Three grants will fund habitat restoration at three sites within the estuary; a fourth will fund attempts to improve water quality at Bradford and McKinley beaches.

The sites identified for habitat restoration include Kletzsch Park ($325,000), a section of the Menomonee River Parkway between W. Hampton Avenue and W. Capitol Drive in Wauwatosa ($475,000) and another Wauwatosa site that includes parts of the Milwaukee County Grounds, Hoyt Park and the Menomonee River Parkway ($325,000).

They are called wildlife enhancement projects because they are designed to improve natural habitats for specific species found in the area. Animal species include crayfish, Butler’s Garter Snake, Monarch Butterflies and approximately 165 species of migratory birds.

McKinley Beach and Bradford Beach are frequently closed for swimming because of E. Coli bacteria in the water. A $200,000 grant will allow Parks to add new sand to Bradford Beach, filling in depressions that allow for standing water, and to install gull deterrents on the breakwaters at McKinley Beach. Gull droppings are known to spread E. Coli bacteria.

Sup. Sheldon Wasserman, chair of the county board’s Parks and Culture Committee, was curious exactly how gulls could be deterred from McKinley Beach. Natalie Dutack, AOC Program Manager for Parks, explained at a meeting earlier this month that this might involve bird spikes on the rock, but said the county would likely need to hire a specialist, a “gull deterrence consultant,” to develop a solution.

Local governments and the Milwaukee Metropolitan Sewerage District (MMSD) have undertaken major AOC cleanup projects with funding from the federal government and the DNR. In 2023, the MMSD finished a major AOC abatement project when it completed a fish passage through Kletszch Park, removing the largest fish barrier on the Milwaukee River between Grafton and Lake Michigan.

Project Maps

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Related Legislation: AOC grants and project descriptions