Douglas County has a lot going for it.
One of the largest counties in Wisconsin, it is home of the largest municipal and county forests in the state, ranking fourth and third, respectively, in the nation. With the second-largest port on the Great Lakes, it is home to two major watersheds -- Lake Superior and St. Croix, and 430 lakes. Soon, it will be the site of the nation's second freshwater National Estuarine Research Reserve.
The land provides water for 390 farms.
According to the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources, Douglas County has the most land legacy sites in the state. When it comes to wetlands, Douglas County has more gems than anywhere else in the state, according to the Wisconsin Wetlands Association.
But while the county has a lot to boast about, it has its areas of concerns on the St. Louis River and with aquatic invasive species.
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A new plan adopted by the county last week is designed to address those concerns and provide the resources to conserve the county's land and water.
The Land and Water Resource Management Plan has garnered the support of the state Land and Water Conservation Committee.
Three weeks ago, the county's conservationist, Christine Ostern, said she presented the plan to the state Land and Water Conservation to present the plan for their approval.
The plan is required by the state and allows counties to access grants through the state for their conservation programs. Douglas County receives $223,000 to implement the land and water plan. The money helps the county leverage more than $400,000 in outside grant funding, limiting the burden on the tax levy to $25,600 to the program -- about 4 percent of the conservation department's annual budget.
Having a land and water management plan enables the county to reach a lot of funding not otherwise available and facilitates the county conservation program.
It also allows the county to lend a hand to people facing environmental issues, said Mark Liebaert, a county supervisor who serves on the land conservation committee for the county.
The county has had a plan since the mid-1990s; however, the most recent revision is the first time the Douglas County has had an individual plan since it separated from adjacent counties and developed an independent conservation program.
The 10-year plan for the first time addresses aquatic invasive species as an issue Douglas County has to work on, Ostern said.
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"It's becoming a bigger issue because of where we are next to the Great Lakes, next to the second-largest port in the Great Lakes, where a lot of the invasive species come from," she said.
For the first time, the plan also includes evaluation tools to determine the county's progress in conservation efforts. She said the newly adopted plan has fewer objectives, goals and activities, and is based on the reality of limited time, staff and money.
Many of the goals and activities in the previous plan placed the burden on other entities like the DNR, Ostern said, but the new plan focuses on what the county's conservation department can achieve.
In addition to adopting a new plan for land and water conservation, the county adopted a 20-year comprehensive plan designed to guide future development. The plan was developed over three years with input from most Douglas County towns and villages, and the efforts of more than 100 residents who participated in plan development for individual towns and villages to the broader countywide plan.
