[Above: Vision for the future of the Lake Monona shoreline, from Agency Landscape & Planning]
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Big news! Three finalists in the Lake Monona Waterfront Design Challenge have figured out how the city can fix Lake Monona’s water quality problems–while also redeveloping the shoreline and boosting downtown Madison’s economy!
The three design team finalists presented their proposals at Monona Terrace on November 7, 2022 (you can watch the 3-hour presentation here).
Proposals were intriguing and ambitious. The slides were beautiful. I was impressed—and even slightly hopeful. Consultants envisioned redesigns for the lakefront that will do everything, undoing many past city mistakes: they will make an ugly, loud six-lane highway (and adjacent unsafe bikepath) pleasant and safe, reconnect people to the lake, create more fish habitat and shoreline fishing places, treat stormwater runoff to curb pollution, restore wetlands—and even re-create the culture and ecology of the lakeshore that was present when Ho-Chunk lived here before European-American settlement.
Wow! These design firm proposals promise to help Madison fix many of the ignorant, racist and ecologically destructive decisions of its past leaders—and do many things the city’s current leaders aren’t able or willing to do. Proposed redesigns, consultants say, can restore the ecology of the highly engineered Lake Monona shoreline (mostly made of waste and other fill), while also creating recreational and entertainment activities on the lakeshore for the denizens of Madison and beyond—all of them, no matter what race or class!
Sadly, the glimmers of hope these lovely visions briefly ignited in me were swamped by their hubris and arrogance, as I pondered them within longer story of the city’s history. Can privileged city leaders whose predecessors totally destroyed the Ho-Chunk paradise that was here before European settlement and development—after violently removing most of the Ho-Chunk people, and then thoroughly poisoning Lake Monona—now fix their toxic messes with yet more development?
Will these grand dreams compel current city and county leaders and government agencies to do what they haven’t been able or willing to do to date—for instance, to allocate resources to do everything possible to prevent more toxic pollution from flowing into the lake—or even to test water, sediments, and fish to know what’s there and what lakeshore subsistence anglers are eating? Will these dreams give the city and county the political will to follow existing environmental laws (which they aren’t doing now)?
Will these visions inspire city officials and agencies to work better understand, deeply engage with, and do something to address the glaring race and class-based health risk and cultural disparities at the shoreline (BIPOC subsistence anglers) that have been right in front of them for decades, but they have ignored?
Or, will these promised future miracle fixes leave the city off the hook for the present-day public environmental and health risks, along with the race and class disparities, which it played a big role in creating?
Are these dreams even possible? Beautiful visions deny physical and regulatory realities
[Note: Regulatory challenges related to the lakeshore redesign project are discussed below. At the November 21, 2022 Lake Monona Waterfront Ad Hoc Committee meeting, according to the minutes, “Landscape Architect Mike Sturm presented the design team reduced slide decks from the check-in event and led a discussion on regulatory factors for lakeshore development.” Unfortunately, there is no recording of this meeting.]
In the golden glow of these lovely Fantasyland visions, depicted with gorgeous slides, the presenters carefully avoided some seemingly obvious logistical and regulatory questions and problems.
Firstly, as I’ve outlined already ad nauseam, the shoreline they are redesigning is a landfill built right IN the lake, leaching poisons into it. Disturbing this “made land,” no matter what the noble and well-intended goals, will further disrupt and release these poisons.
All the design firms envisioned restoring wetlands. Though I fully support restoring wetlands, I have no expertise in this, and many questions come to mind. How will ecologically healthy wetlands be created on these artificial, poisoned sediments? Will native wetland vegetation even grow in this toxic sludge? Won’t this require more fill?
As for “treating” stormwater, one of the most critical challenges on the lakeshore, shoreline redesigners hoping to win the design contest echoed the failed promises of the Monona Terrace proponents in the 1990s: that the center would be a model of stormwater runoff control, decreasing runoff into the lake. But these claims proved to not only be overly ambitious–they were apparently undoable. Read more details about that here.
In the early 1990s, after the Common Council required it and new state stormwater laws had just been promulgated, city stormwater engineers proposed strategies (such as wet ponds or raingardens) to better infiltrate water downward at Law Park. But DNR didn’t approve of these strategies there because encouraging infiltration isn’t advised on a landfill—it directs surface water down through contaminated wastes and then to the groundwater. These approaches also require some excavation, which is discouraged if not prohibited on a landfill (purportedly only six inches of soil cover the wastes at Law Park).
In fact, landfill regulations typically require capping landfills to prevent water from infiltrating downward (see links below). Unless regulations have changed, this seem to be a major problem with some of the redesigners’ well-intended visions, which emphasize raingardens and other infiltration approaches.
Then there’s the huge problem of the extremely shallow groundwater under the landfill. Essentially, the whole lakeshore there IS the lake. When the area flooded in 2018, the bike path was under water. Any raingardens built there would immediately fill up with groundwater, and underground stormwater treatment devices also do not work well (or at all) when they are under water. Case in point: the city’s lead stormwater engineer told me a few weeks ago that the stormwater control devices the city installed next to Monona Terrace couldn’t be maintained because lake water kept rushing into them. So they were abandoned.
Consequently, to date (as far as we can tell), City of Madison stormwater engineers have not treated any of the numerous stormwater outfalls that go through Law Park near Monona Terrace and drain directly into Lake Monona, nor do they monitor any of these outfalls (which seems to violate NR 216 stormwater laws).
Over two decades later, these three design firms certainly have more sophisticated stormwater control technologies in their wheelhouses than what was available to city engineers in the 1990s. But city engineers will be the ones expected to enact these redesign proposals if they come to pass, and stormwater laws have become much more stringent since the 1990s (so the city will have higher standards to meet).
Can the technologies in these redesign proposals do what Madison stormwater engineers have been unable—or unwilling–to do to for the last 28 years since stormwater laws were promulgated? At lakeshore “land” that is practically part of the lake?
Floating wetlands were also proposed. That sounds really cool. But how will these filter runoff from heavily paved downtown land and city storm drains?
Last but not least, there’s the pesky problem of DNR regulations on development over landfills. Some of the design teams’ beautiful visions may not even be allowable given DNR’s current regulations on developments over landfills, which indicate that any redevelopments along the lakeshore on the landfill will need an exemption through the NR RR 700 (Remediation and Redevelopment) program (which in turn could require further investigations of the landfill by the city, as the responsible party for the landfill, and the developers).
But course, the DNR’s Waste and RR programs are full of loopholes and some project managers are very lax about issuing exemptions, especially when those proposing them are powerful entities, as was the case with the Monona Terrace project. This is also the case now with the powerhouse Juggernaut behind the lakeshore redesign.
Maybe the Juggernaut already knows that all relevant city, state, and federal regulations will be brushed aside for them, as they were in the past?
Beautiful developments along the lakeshore will not fix a privileged, classist, racist culture
What about the design team promises to make all of these Fantasyland proposals welcoming to all people, from diverse racial/ethnic backgrounds and incomes? I am not at all hopeful about this. The long track record in highly privileged, largely white Madison is abyssmal.
These redesign plans may create fun and enticing places for the mostly white, privileged residents of downtown Madison, and university students, to recreate, eat, drink and play together on the lakeshore. Will low income people, such as the Black anglers who travel from Milwaukee and other nearby cities to fish at Monona Terrace, feel welcome in these places?
The cultural dynamics at the Monona Terrace fishing wall since the Terrace was built don’t bode well. If the privileged people, institutions and culture in Madison are systemically racist and classist, even the most beautiful shoreline development plans won’t change that.
They might make it worse.
Below is a closer look at a few aspects of the three design team proposals…
“Filling the lake to create land for human use has…damaged the lake’s ecosystem health”
The first design team, Agency Landscape and Planning, began with some history of the region, going back to the Ho-Chunk. “Our lake reflects our past decisions and our values,” they explained. I couldn’t agree more.
In that context, the presenter admitted that “[f]ill decisions have left an ecologically compromised lakefront,” stressing that fill is “no longer feasible” on the lakeshore. I am relieved! Of course, they would also have some significant political and regulatory challenges if they proposed more fill in the lake.
Another slide depicted the same image I included in a previous post–of garbage being pushed out into the lake in the 1940s (below–did they grab this from my post?).
But notably, the word “landfill” was carefully avoided in the presentation, as was any mention of toxic chemicals leaching from it.
“Our master plan,” the presenter gushed, “will embrace the power of ecological restoration.” It will be the “[b]iggest urban marsh restoration in the upper Midwest” if not the country. We aim to “make this a healthy lake again.”
Incredible. As much as I would like to be hopeful, I struggle with this ambitious promise. Are we to assume that the toxic chemicals in the sediments, water and fish there will be magically fixed by the beautiful “blue-green” lake edge infrastructure that will “process and filter” the pollutants draining into the lake?
Amusingly, a presenter gushed over another slide, quoting someone else saying that the shoreline redesign is the “[b]iggest development opportunity for Madison of the 21st century”! The biggest development opportunity for Madison will also be the biggest urban marsh restoration in the region?
Watching the show, my head was spinning with the magical thinking. So the city dredged nearly all of the natural wetlands in the area, and filled many of them with toxic wastes, but we can now fix those ignorant mistakes by making new wetlands on the Monona lakeshore?
And again– how will wetlands and marshes be created without more fill? Will native wetland vegetation be planted in the contaminated sediments? Will it thrive there?
“Restore nature and ecological function”
The 2nd team, James Corner, also claimed they would “[r]estore nature and ecological function to lake edge.” They presented a lot of beautiful photos of the lake, city, and other projects they’ve done elsewhere.
To inform their plans, they reviewed the natural history of the area and formation of the lakes by glaciation, as well as the “heritage and legacy of the Ho-Chunk and how they settled in a way that worked with natural systems, that honored them and respected them, working with topography, working with hydrology.”
Indeed. Our apparently ecologically ignorant European-American ancestors ignored and destroyed the natural topography and hydrology–dredging, draining, channelizing, filling wetlands, and polluting everything with toxic chemicals. They dug up and built over most of the Indigenous burial mounds. And now, somehow, the descendants of the early European American city leaders who caused this genocide and ecological destruction will know how to fix the land and water they ruined? While we are all still living in the same (or even more) ecologically destructive ways that caused the damage? In a capitalist, consumption-driven culture?
James Corner presenters also said their team was inspired by the renowned Madison ecologist Aldo Leopold and his legacy of ecological restoration in the area and country. In this context, their plans would “work with natural systems.”
That’s great. I support it. But what about the deeply degraded state of the lake? Presenters listed many sources for the lake’s pollution problems. Agricultural runoff. Past copper sulphate pesticide treatments. Legacy industrial pollution from the east side. Nitrogen and phosphorus. Erosion and sedimentation. Urban pollution. Leaves. Salt. Thermal pollution.
The presenters weren’t clear how their plans will fix these problems. And, not surprisingly, they mentioned nearly everything BUT the toxic chemicals leaching from the landfill they will redesign—and forget about the PFAS leaching from a giant storm pipe from MGE into Law Park.
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I was glad, however, that one James Corner presenter highlighted an obvious, huge challenge (and source of toxic stormwater pollution to the lake): the fact that 80% of the shoreline area is paved and meant for cars. (City leaders sure did make a huge mistake building that highway there, huh? Oops!) Making it even more daunting, he pointed to the “really thin buffer zone” on the edge of lake next to the highway, and the fact that a lot of this area is also “hardened” with impervious pavement and big concrete walls that don’t help reduce runoff or increase infiltration. The slide presented with this showed areas near Monona Terrace (above).
Unless the city removes John Nolen Drive (haha!), how much can really be done about this, with so little space between the highway and the lake? With the city growing rampantly (something like 70,000 more people expected by 2040?) and thousands of people being packed into high rises downtown and all over the city, this highway is only going to have more and more cars on it. Planting more trees and grass along its edges, which I support, will not change this reality.
James Corner presenters explained that they would “[r]estore nature and ecological function,” in part, by removing concrete barriers and impervious materials on the shoreline to reduce stormwater runoff and create ways to encourage infiltration. Sounds good. But again, are they completely oblivious to the fact that building Monona Terrace over the landfill was allowed, in part, because the giant building serves as a cover–to prevent infiltration into the landfill? And the concrete walls there were built to hold in the landfill, to keep wastes from floating out into the lake?
This team also highlighted people’s desires for more “amenities.” “There are few destinations and amenities” for people at the lakeshore,” one of the presenters said.
There’s not much to do there other than bike and jog, and watch water skiing and Iron Man, she noted, so their team proposes to “[c]reate dramatic lakefront destinations for all.” A slide of people eating and drinking at the Memorial Union Terrace served as an example at this point. The presenter noted correctly that not everyone feels welcome there (presumably meaning lower income, non-university people, but this wasn’t made explicit). This comment seemed to be an attempt to signal that their proposals would also create a welcoming environment and desirable “amenities” for BIPOC and lower income people. How so? They didn’t say.
People surveyed live during the presentation said they wanted more “facilities” for performances and places to eat and drink beer along the lakeshore downtown (the below numbers fluctuated during the presentation as people submitted responses). I wasn’t there, but a few brief shots of the audience indicated that it was mostly middle aged and older white people.
Remarkably, presenters argued, they would promote ecology while also creating places for many people to recreate and spend time. This in itself, they argued, will help the lakes. “If we can appreciate the lake more” by spending time there, she said, “we can be better advocates for lake water quality, which then will translate to better practices in our watershed” and will “promote lake health far into the future.”
After three decades of activism, and many years of academic research on citizen engagement in environment issues, I find this argument dubious at best, if not just outright BS.
James Corner also proposed building a giant cap bridging up and over John Nolen Drive with overlooks out on the water. Slides indicated that they might propose filling further into the lake at the northeast end of the shoreline; one depicted a large Frank Lloyd Wright-designed boathouse at this location. Wow. Would the city really dare to put more fill into the lake?
These ideas, while intriguing, also sounded and looked a bit like an amusement park at the lake. And where will all these people going to the lakeshore for its exciting “destinations” and “amenities” park? Won’t the city have to build more big parking lots and ramps somewhere? More impervious surfaces?
Finally, the James Corner team advised more development facing the lake. “The city is growing rapidly, but development does not embrace the lake.”
In sum, more iterations of the now-familiar doublespeak magical thinking: restoration through more development.
Stormwater outfalls are the biggest source of pollution to the lake
The Sasaki team was the last to present their ideas. It was a lovely presentation, with a focus on the ecology of the lakes, understanding water flow in the whole lake system, improving fish habitat and water quality. So far, so good.
Sasaki presenters stressed that their redesign was focused on “giving back” to the lakes, understanding the critical impacts Lake Monona has on the downstream lakes–and highlighted that they would design for resiliency, recognizing that flooding is expected to worsen in coming years.
The presenter noted, correctly, that Lake Mendota is kept several feet higher than Lake Monona (by the Tenney dam) and the gradient of flow is to the south/southeast from Mendota into Monona and to the lower lakes.
She didn’t mention, however, that–as noted by engineers and hydrogeologists during the Monona Terrace project–because of this gradient, the groundwater also pushes through the isthmus from Mendota to Monona, flowing through the Law Park landfill before oozing into the lake, drawing toxic landfill leachates with it.
Pollutants admitted, but glaring and relevant sources carefully avoided
The Sasaki presenter mentioned several sources of pollutants to Lake Monona, including PFAS, noting that Lake Monona has a “large amount” of these forever chemicals. “We need to try to reduce them,” she said, and their team aims to develop a plan that will “leave water better than how we found it.”
Great idea. I hope this miracle-magic is possible.
But how? To reduce the PFAS in the lake, we need to honestly identify and treat the sources.
The PFAS entering Lake Monona, the presenter said said, is coming from the airport and base via Starkweather Creek.
This is true. But she did not say anything whatsoever about the PFAS sloshing from the giant stormwater outfall into Law Park coming from Madison Gas & Electric and probably other downtown sources. (With a MGE representative on the Friends of Nolen group supporting the redesign, mentioning this is likely verboten.) She also did not mention that a toxic brew of metals and other poisons—probably including PFAS—is leaching from the old city landfill along the entire lakeshore.
Raingardens on top of a landfill?
Also to my surprise, she stressed (correctly) that the biggest challenge in reducing pollution into the lake is the pollutants entering it via numerous stormwater drains or “local outfalls,” which she noted are getting “very little treatment” right now (a direct and accurate criticism of the city’s current stormwater program, whether she realized it or not).
Ironically, she pointed out that the biggest outfall (six feet tall, she said!) is the one depicted on the right, under water (near Machinery Row). This is one of the large outfalls that PFAS gushed out of after the MGE fire (and is still gushing out of–though MGE, the city and the DNR would like us to believe otherwise).
She proposed a number of possible stormwater treatments, including several that the city proposed in the 1990s, but either were not allowed on landfills (such as raingardens or constructed wetlands) or were tried and failed because the groundwater is too shallow (such as underground chambers).
Lake Monona is not Lake Michigan!
A few weeks ago, I ran into my 88-year old neighbor, who helped create the Yahara Fishing Club decades ago, and with his fellow fishing club members, fought Monona Terrace in the 1990s, primarily because of its negative effects on the fisheries. He has been a tireless advocate for lake health and lakeshore fishing in this community since creating the fishing club—joining us and other community activist fighting toxic pollution many times over the years.
I asked him what he thought about the lakeshore redesign plans. He became animated—and not in a positive way. “Lake Monona is not Lake Michigan!” he quipped. “It’s a small lake and can’t handle all this development and more people on the lakeshore.” He said he was planning to write a letter to the paper expressing his opposition to the project.
There are many commendable things about these redesign proposals. Aiming for ecological healing is a good thing. I support that. However, from the city’s beginnings in the early to mid 1800s, highly privileged and educated Madison leaders have been guided by overly grandiose visions of the city’s greatness—visions steeped in arrogance, racism, hubris, and denialism. And, more than anything else, these visions have been driven by the incessant desire for never-ending development and economic growth that primarily benefit the already privileged and don’t help (or hurt) the less privileged.
These very values are a big part of what led to the ruination of Lake Monona in the first place. Can proposals to redesign the lakeshore, guided by the same values, undo this legacy? Fix all the egregious mistakes? Clean up the toxic pollution?
I am not hopeful. If the city really wanted to help Lake Monona, it would, at least, discourage any further development along its shoreline–and especially on top of the Law Park Landfill. It would do what it can (and is required to do per laws) to prevent more toxic stormwater runoff into the lake, to the extent possible. Plant more trees? Yes, of course.
But beyond that–let it be.
Going further, if we were really serious about attempting to re-create what was on the lakeshore when the Ho-Chunk lived here (as these redesign firms seem to be promising), we would start by removing the huge mistakes of past city leaders: the railroad tracks, the six-lane highway, Monona Terrace, and the landfill. All the way back to the bluff that was along the downtown shoreline in the early 1800s. Let the wetlands return on their own.
But of course, this could never happen. And these design firms and Madison’s leaders aren’t actually serious about trying to recreate what was here when the Ho-Chunk lived here anyway. This is just arrogant and absurd PR from companies that want to make money by selling their magical dreams to privileged Madison, in part by assuaging city leaders’ guilt about the past genocides and ecological destruction of this former Ho-Chunk paradise. Restoring the pre-settlement ecology here would be impossible anyway because we can’t recreate what we don’t understand–especially while we are still living here in the ways we do now (car-loving, fossil-fuel guzzling, consumption obsessed)–and within a culture and institutions embedded in techno-industrial-corporate-capitalist systems.
My English ancestors came to Madison in 1851 (and the German side in the 1860s), and played roles in the ecological destruction of this place. Some of my great-great grand uncles worked for the railroad that was built in the late 1800s on the Lake Monona shoreline, just below the bluff behind their homes.
Maybe we non-Indigenous people should all go back to the European and other countries that our ancestors came from and give Madison back to the Ho-Chunk people? Now that would be reparations.
Yeah right. Of course I am not seriously suggesting this, but…
In any case, at this point any options other than further lakeshore developments are off the table for discussion. Even just leaving the downtown shoreline as it is now–letting it be–is no longer on the table. This would be un-growth–or de-growth. Gasp! Unspeakables. Both are verboten here in Madison.
These options don’t make anyone any money.
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[Why do we need “destinations and amenities” here? Isn’t the lake itself enough?]
