Welcome, everyone, to Midday Magazine for this Thursday, June 20th, 2024.
Have your host, James, with you.
And right now, we're being joined by our good friend,
Jen McNally, Natural Resource Groundwater Educator,
UW-Madison Division of Extension.
Jen, good to have you with us.
Hey, glad to be here.
Always appreciate the time.
And I have to always tell the audience not only do I learn,
but I know they do every time you join us.
And there's always an interesting conversation to be had.
And today, we're going to be getting into the perception
and managing water on our property.
Fantastic subject for today.
Right, super timely, given especially how much rain
we've had over this last week.
It seems to be the topic of conversation for everyone.
So where would you like to start with this topic?
Because this is a pretty big one.
Yeah, so you know what, the question that we're getting asked a lot
is, is it a wet year?
Do we have, we had a lot of rain.
It certainly feels wet, but you know, given last year,
we had pretty dry conditions last year.
And back to it was classified as kind of drought condition.
Was it?
Yeah.
So to go from one extreme to kind of the other,
you know, feels like a little bit of whiplash to a certain degree.
But the short answer to that question is,
yeah, it is a wet year.
So typically, Wood County receives about 31 inches
of rain or precipitation in a given year.
From January to May of this year,
we've already received almost 17 and a half inches.
And in the month of May alone, we had eight inches,
which is almost double what our typical average is.
And that's not even factoring in June,
which we know has been quite wet as well.
So yeah, it is a wetter than average year for us.
Okay, it's great to actually have that we have our feelings
and we know what we feel and what we see and everything,
but it's good to know statistically what that is.
And it's important to know these things,
not only because we have certain parts of our community here
that are more prone to flooding,
but just even being aware of this stuff,
I think, really helps.
As you mentioned last year going into this year
and going forward even.
Absolutely.
So what does all this rain mean for our water resources?
Sure. So it means a couple of different things.
You know, the easy ones to see and to kind of gauge
are our surface waters.
So, you know, lakes typically in a wet year
have a little bit higher lake levels,
which you can see it sometimes takes some time
for those levels to respond to what's happening,
you know, in rainfall and stuff.
But so generally they're going to be a little bit fuller.
Our rivers and streams are going to have more stream flow
or they're going to have more water flowing through them.
So it's going to be a little bit quicker,
a little bit faster,
which is important to know if you're recreating on them.
You know, you want to be aware of those conditions.
The one that most people don't see, though,
is our groundwater,
which is connected to our surface water.
So as rain falls on the ground,
it really has two options.
It can run off or fall directly in our surface waters
or it soaks into the ground.
And once it soaks into the ground, it becomes groundwater.
And that affects how much precipitation we have,
it affects how much soaks into the ground.
And it can raise or lower our groundwater levels.
So in a wet year, we can have higher groundwater levels
and in extreme cases,
we can even have something called groundwater flooding.
Which is where groundwater comes above the land surface.
Oh yeah, I think we've seen that.
Yeah, exactly.
And you know, a few years ago,
we saw that a lot in like Adams County
down there, you know,
and that's a pretty, pretty extreme case.
And then the other thing that it can really affect is the runoff.
Like I said, when it runs off into our surface waters,
a lot of times the amount of water running off is in the issue.
It's what that runoff carries with it.
It carries a lot of debris.
Certain types of pollutants and excess nutrients.
And that really can have an effect on our surface waters.
You know, debris reduces visibility in the water,
which is important for our aquatic life.
And those nutrients can fuel things like algoblooms.
And in fact, you know,
I was talking to the county health department the other day.
They test the beaches and what county on a regular.
And they are struggling this year with some beach closures
due to high bacteria counts.
And when I talked to Ben Jeffries over in the health department,
he was saying, you know,
a lot of times that has to do with the precipitation.
After we have a big rain event,
we see these bacteria level spike.
And so it's important for people to just kind of be aware
of those issues before they're going out and recreating.
Yeah. And, you know,
they're the what this affects.
And the why it's so important to know these things.
Things that we'll talk about throughout the conversation here.
And maybe hit on before we wrap up.
But it's important stuff.
And it really affects almost everything walk of life.
Whether you're talking an economy,
taxes, certainly talking,
you know, recreational stuff.
Like you mentioned there, Jen.
And so many other things.
We'll get into that more as we go.
But does lots of perception impact me?
I'm just wondering about myself here.
No, no.
But the general me.
Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
So, you know, there's lots of pros and cons
to have in a white year.
You know,
well, obvious ones,
you don't have to water your lawn as much.
It's a great thing.
That's good.
Just stop right there.
Exactly.
You know, decreased risk of fire or wildfires.
So, you know, there's a lot of great things to go with it.
It can be a challenge, though, too.
You know, for while our agricultural communities
also appreciate not having to water their fields
or irrigate as much.
It is certainly a challenge for them to get out and plant.
And you might be noticing that in some of the fields.
You know, you're not seeing the green sprouts
just because planting has been so mocked up
with wet fields and getting machinery out there.
So, that's a challenge to them.
And that's obviously going to have an economic impact,
like you said,
for those communities.
Risk of potential flooding.
You know, I just, I think I got a warning today
that we're in a potential flood advisory.
Which can have a big significant impact on some folks.
And then, you know, even going,
you and I are wet basements.
That's one that we get a lot of.
Big questions about in these wet conditions.
So, it certainly has the impacts across the, you know,
the spectrum of everyone.
My parents really appreciate you bringing up the basement thing.
I want to say it was about two weeks ago
they had flooding in their basement.
And they haven't had it in years.
And it's something that they were prepared for
when the last time it happened.
And then this time came around
and sure enough, lost a couple things.
And even though they were prepared for all this,
it still happened with like that.
So, it's something to keep in mind.
One of the ways to keep an eye on this
is to keep an eye on rainfall
and how that is affecting our,
and not only our personal lawns and houses,
but of course our communities.
Yeah.
And Jillian, what can I do to manage water
and perception on my property?
I certainly, we can only do so much
with the rain coming down.
We can't stop that.
Mother Nature does not stop for anybody.
She is queen and we understand that.
I respect Mother Nature, shout out Mother Nature.
But there are things we can do to kind of counter this.
Yeah. So, you know, one of the things is to be,
like you said, to be aware of what's happening.
So, you know, common ones, that was how folks,
if you have gutters or downspouts,
you really watch where those gutters or downspouts are headed.
The farther you can move water away from your property,
or you know, especially your home, the better,
that does not mean direct your downspouts
to your neighbor's house,
or directly into a lake.
It's a good point.
Those are things we don't advocate for.
But if you have a vegetated area or someplace
where, you know, it doesn't really matter
if it's gonna get wet, those are great areas
to direct those downspouts to.
Even better, if you can use a rain barrel
and capture that water, you know,
then you don't run the risk of it affecting somebody else.
And then you can use that water at a later time.
Vegetation is always helpful.
If we can slow down water and give it a chance
to soak into the ground, that's ideal.
So, you know, paved surfaces are really hard
for us to manage water on.
So, you'll see things like rain gardens,
or, you know, depressions where we can get that water
to flow to, it can have a chance to sit there,
soak in, filter out any of that debris or nutrients.
I think, again, I was in talking,
and I was in talking about prairie plants last year.
Those are great plants for the same reason
that they can help us control water as well.
And if you have a really wet basement,
you're probably looking at something
like either a French drain or a tiling system,
but those really require some specialized expertise
in designing.
But there are ways to kind of handle that as well.
Especially if it's a consistent issue for you
and everything.
We've got a lot of great people in this area
that do that kind of work and encourage you
to reach out to them for that.
And we're speaking with Jen McNally,
Natural Resource Groundwater Educator
with UW-Madison Division of Extension.
Jen, you mentioned rain barrels,
and I did want to touch on that just for a second.
One, because I've got a lot of students
that I've worked with that are in their early 20s
that are kind of discovering these things
that have been around for a very long time,
but to them, they're brand new.
And so we're seeing these actually
in a lot of urban areas too,
which is really unique and cool to see.
And then there are people in rural areas like this area,
like my parents and others that are looking into these
that have never necessarily looked into them before.
And one of the first things that a lot of people are saying,
well, this is very affordable.
This is a very affordable thing to be able to have
in your right outside your house.
Absolutely.
I mean, you can really use any container
that can hold water.
It's a great chance to recycle and reuse other containers.
You've seen the big plastic containers on farms.
I've seen people use those as rain barrels.
Old garbage cans, or if you really want to go
like an aesthetic route, like whiskey barrels even,
anything that holds water can really be used as a rain barrel.
As long as you direct the water into it,
and it can hold it, you know, you're good to go, so.
It gives you, as you touched on chances
to reuse that water for other things,
and certainly keeping it out of the ground
and helping yourself.
So it's true win-win kind of situation.
Yeah, and it's a pretty simple, affordable thing
that folks can do to, you know,
it really doesn't require any high technology,
any expertise in order to put it in place.
You know, if you put a thread attachment on it,
then you can even hook a hose up to it,
and you reuse it later.
There's a lot of ways to be able to use those
and encourage it to look into that.
Jen, I imagine that I know our meteorologist,
Brittany, joins us every morning,
and one of the things that I know she's getting a little tired of,
and I imagine that some people in this field get tired of hearing,
but the question being asked over and over,
is this weather going to be the new normal?
Is this the new norm?
That's a phrase you've been hearing a lot of since for years now,
but this is something that I know a lot of people
are probably asking, and you've had,
this isn't the first time you've been asked this.
No, it's a question that we get asked all the time.
And drought conditions and wet conditions,
like, is this what it's going to be?
And like you said, mother nature is queen.
So, you know, we don't have a crystal ball to say
exactly what's going to happen in the future.
Ups and downs, dry and wet is always normal.
You know, that going back hundreds of years,
if you look at precipitation,
you know, the fluctuation between the two.
So not uncommon to go for a dry year to a wet year.
Where we get a little bit more into kind of like the science of it,
is with climate scientists,
and kind of what they're predicting for the future.
You know, if you look at our weather, it's changing.
There's not a whole lot of denial in that.
The thing that the climate scientists are predicting
for the state of Wisconsin,
is that it is supposed to be wetter, warmer and wetter.
And so, yeah, it may be, you know,
it may be the new normal that we're above average
in precipitation each year.
And so then it becomes, okay, well, what's the new average
when we look at that?
The other thing, you know, a little bit warmer
in wetter, probably not a big deal for most folks
when they're trying to deal with it.
The one thing that I find really interesting about their predictions,
though, is not only the amount of precipitation,
but how that precipitation is going to fall, you know.
If you think back, it used to be a pretty common thing for us
where we would have like these nice drizzly days
where we're kind of raining all day long
and really slow, not a ton of, you know, precipitation,
but it would fall over a longer time period.
And those, it looks like that's going to change.
And we're going to get less of those, you know,
long rainy days that we would typically expect.
And we're going to get shorter, more intense storms.
And that really becomes a challenge
when we talk about how we manage this precipitation,
because if we're having these really intense, hard rainfalls,
no matter what type of vegetation we have on the ground,
it doesn't allow it to soak in.
And so we're looking at more runoff,
we're looking at kind of even infrastructure,
how do our storm drains and storm sewers handle, you know,
that increased precipitation that's falling faster and harder.
And it kind of circles back to our own management of it too.
How do we handle these really short, intense storms
that we're not used to?
You bring up nothing but great points, Jen.
One thing I would like to go back to a little bit
is the history of weather and the history of weather
in your area wherever you're listening to us.
I'm a big believer in talking more and more
about how two things can be true at once.
You could chew gum and walk at the same time,
these kind of things.
Climate change is real and it's something
that we have to face and deal with.
It's not so much about us as it is future generations
and then being able to enjoy this beautiful planet we have.
It's important and it's not, if I could be blunt,
it's not about you, it's about us, it's about the future,
it's about so much more than just one individual
or one individual's home or any of these things.
And but one thing I also end to keep in mind too
is that this doesn't mean that it's the end of all things
or what have you or all this kind of,
it seems like we have to go to such extremes
on both sides with this where it's such a middle-grounded thing,
it's such a great area thing.
If you do look at the history,
let's just talk about this area.
Jen told you a little bit of it.
It's for one, I'm a history nerd.
So I, of course, promoting this.
But it is important because it gives context
and a little bit more like,
oh, well, they dealt with this in 1842 or something,
like it means, it doesn't mean that these things aren't important,
that paying attention to climate change
and some of this stuff is important
because a lot of these things are happening much more consistent.
But it does also give a little bit of,
I would say grace to the subject in some ways of,
hey, we can do this, we can survive this,
we can manage this, they did it in 1842.
I mean, who are we in 1924?
Are 2024 to not be able to do it?
Right, absolutely.
And that's a case of learning from our past,
and how do we adapt and handle these things?
And how do we prepare for them?
I think if we just take our heads in the sand
and ignore it, that's what's gonna get us in trouble.
But if we can take what we know
and even what's climate scientists are predicting,
and are, okay, how do we design
and how do we prepare ourselves for this?
I think that's where we have opportunities
to learn and to grow.
And speaking of learning,
I think that that's another key part of this too,
being informed, and certainly,
we touch on a couple of different ways to do this,
but for those listening, those wondering,
where can one people go for more information on this?
Because, like we learned from extension all the time,
no matter who the guest is,
knowledge is not just power, it's life,
and it's such a key part of it.
You know, bringing down some of the dismay
or some of the pushback on some of these subjects,
it's not gonna push back,
you're not gonna really stop people
from thinking or feeling what they do,
and you shouldn't want to,
but what you should be doing
is spreading information, spreading facts.
That is how you defeat these things.
That is how you really make change happen.
Yeah, absolutely.
And I happen to find the subject fascinating.
You know, even looking at it
from a historical perspective,
or what's being forecast in the future.
So a couple of great resources.
If you wanna learn about weather and precipitation in general,
NOAA, or the National Oceanic
and Atmospheric Administration, great resource.
They have fantastic historical logs of precipitation.
That's where we go to find how much rain has fallen
in any given year or monthly averages.
The state climateology office,
Wisconsin has its own state climateologist.
There are ones that are working with climate
and climate change,
and that's actually part of extension,
even they just took over the state climateologist position
under extension.
So how's down at UW-Madison,
wealth of information on anything related
to weather and climate, great resources.
If you're interested in something like rain barrels
or rain gardens,
or what types of vegetation are great to handle wet,
are horticulturist,
and UW-Madison has horticulturist scattered around the state.
They're a great resource for anything related to that.
And then, of course,
I'm always available to answer questions too,
related to rain, precipitation, water.
And you can find our information
on the UW Extension website.
We'll get that website out to you before we wrap up.
Janelle, we're a gardening and horticulture.
When she joins us,
we've touched on this subject a little bit.
So another resource I would tell people
is our midday magazines.
If you go into our archives,
all of our shows are podcasted.
You can go back and re-listen to other interviews,
re-listen to other interviews.
We'll talk with Jen.
There's some really great information and conversation
in those encouraged people to learn more about.
And if I could just piggyback
on what you were saying there, Jen,
if you have questions, ask.
Just ask, ask extension,
ask these other resources that we have.
Know as a great resource to go to.
It is a serious topic,
but it doesn't have to be approached and done
completely seriously.
You can have some fun learning and understanding
and learn more of this.
And I think with that knowledge,
you will not only get some feeling
and some empathy for climate change in our planet,
but also some like ease and some grace on these subjects.
Of like, oh, this is something we can handle.
We can, we just work together and we follow.
We do certain things.
We can be okay.
We can make our community okay
and maybe not have a flooded basement.
Yeah, right.
Exactly.
That website that Jen mentioned there,
it is extension.wisc.edu, extension.wisc.edu.
Jen, as we're wrapping up,
was there any other notes you want to touch on?
Do we cover our bases here?
I think we covered most of it.
You know, just, it's a great,
once you start weather watching,
I think you get hooked a little bit.
But it's a great thing to just keep your eye on
and be aware of, you know, for a lot of different reasons.
If people do have follow up questions
and they want to talk with you specifically,
Jen, is there a way to reach you?
Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
Some of my contact information will be
on the extension website.
Otherwise, you know, you can call the Wood County office
and they will direct you, you know,
both Jen now and I work out of the Wood County office.
So depending on what you have questions for,
they usually can direct you in the right place.
Yeah.
And then that website again is extension.wisc.edu.
Also encourage you to follow our friends at extension
on social media.
It's a great way to keep up on everything
that you guys are all up to.
And Jen, you do two out of a job.
You got to come back soon.
We're looking forward to talking again.
Absolutely glad to be here.
Thanks for joining us.
More Midday magazine for you tomorrow, everybody.
And a big shout out to Pam Hilke
and the amazing scheduling she does week in a week out
with this.
We appreciate you, Pam.
Be listening for more great stuff coming up right here
at 97.5 FM 13.20 AM WFHR.
We are a locally grown radio.
