Channeling its Resources

Baraboo sets higher standard for
development along Wisconsin rivers

By Dustin Block

Kevin Olson, of the Baraboo Canoe Club, works to pull a tire out of the Baraboo River during a cleanup project last summer. Photo courtesy of Rick Eilertson

There’s no getting around it. The Baraboo River was a toilet.

Cement blocks, boat trailers, grocery store carts. You name it, and Joe Van Berkel yanked it out of the water.

Last summer, Van Berkel and other members of the Baraboo Canoe Club rigged up two canoes with a winch, pulled together every storage container they could find and unearthed 60 tires from the river and still didn’t finish the job.

The tires were the remnants of a flood in 1993 that wiped out a warehouse and swept debris into the river. The club will be back this summer to haul out the remaining tires.

“Rivers used to be our garbage dump,” said Van Berkel, who lives in Baraboo and has worked the last 29 years as a Sauk County conservationist. “Factories used it for disposal. The whole nature of the river was it washes down and out of sight. People treated the river as our sewer.”

Perhaps nothing represents Wisconsin’s old guard of river thinking better than the twobusinesses that flank the river in the heartof Baraboo.

On one side is a power company. On the other is a garbage company.

But Baraboo officials, like many in the state, are working to rehab their invaluable riverfront properties.

The wheels have been set in motion to relocate both companies, freeing up eight acres of land for residential and commercial development.

The hope is the development, named Ringling Riverfront after the city’s famous circus family, will top $40 million in property value when complete.

“There’s an amazing amount of public support for this project,” said Ed Geick, Baraboo city administrator. “There’s no vocal opposition at all.”

Looking to the west along the Baraboo River the east end of the Circus World Museum in Baraboo is seen in February. The City of Baraboo, the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources among other groups are working to improve the condition of the Baraboo River corridor. Photo by Scott Anderson

Geick said Veolia Waste Disposal has a contract with Baraboo to move by the end of the year. Alliant Energy is on a similar schedule, he said, though contaminants on the site from past businesses make that development more complicated.

Baraboo was one of three cities in Wisconsin to receive a $2.5 million grant from the state Department of Commerce to plan for development along its river. The money, which was used to bring in experts and residents to hash out ideas, kick-started a vision for rebuilding the city’s riverfront.

Elaborate plans are sketched out for development along the river, and a handful of big-time developers from Madison expressed interest in building in the area.

They have to wait for the companies to move and probably won’t start construction until the economy picks up. Within a year, though, work is likely to begin on transforming one of the oldest sections of Baraboo into a model development for the rest of the state.

Baraboo is not alone in its wish for development, or its need for cleanup, along its riverfront.

Cities and rivers have gone together since, well, cities were formed. Rivers brought people and industry to cities, and the communities grew around the water.

A view shows the Alliant Energy Corporation’s property along the southern bank of the Baraboo River. The city of Baraboo hopes to relocate Alliant Energy in order to redevelop the waterfront for commercial and residential use. Photo by Scott Anderson

But as people moved away from urban areas, neighborhoods along rivers grew older and less attractive, while businesses continued to dump waste and garbage into the streams to be swept away.

If there was a watershed moment for Wisconsin rivers, it was the Clean Water Act passed by Congress in 1977. The law regulated pollution in rivers, meaning businesses and communities couldn’t just throw whatever they wanted into the water.

Around the same time, an environmental movement developed, and people began seeing natural resources like rivers as assets instead of as toilets.

In Baraboo, fish spawned a turnaround for the river. For years, the waterway was stopped up by four dams, which created pools of stagnant water and stifled ecosystems. In 1997, after ad nauseam debate, the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources removed the first of the four dams and discovered something remarkable: the fish came back.

Within 18 months after the dam was removed, the number of species of fish increased from 11 to 24, and the number of smallmouth bass in the river jumped from three to 87. Practically overnight, a section of the Baraboo River became a great bass fishing stream.

“That really fired the community up,” Van Berkel said. “A lot of people started speculating that if you removed the three other dams you’d have a better fish habitat.”

The three remaining dams came down with little debate.

For the first time in decades, the Baraboo River was a free-flowing waterway. Record numbers of people began canoeing and fishing the river, and it was then city leaders began to realize the potential of this resource.

• To begin with, the river, once developed, could fit well with Baraboo’s already picturesque surroundings. The city is located next door to Devil’s Lake State Park and is home to the Aldo Leopold and International Crane foundations.
  
  
• Also, developers are flocking to waterfront properties. The long and short of it: People like to live near water. A healthy, flowing Baraboo River could give the city valuable land on both shores to attract new residents and grow the tax base.
  
  
• Finally, rehabbing the river could help Baraboo develop its downtown. The city has an attractive town square, with City Hall in the center and stores and restaurants lining the streets. With the river located just a few blocks away, development offered the city the opportunity to bolster its already burgeoning city center with new development.

To capitalize on some of this potential, the city is working with the state to extend the Ice Age Trail along the river to the state park and is also trying to connect the downtown with the nearby Circus World Museum, which attracts thousands of tourists every year.

“We’re not looking at putting in competing businesses,” Geick said. “We want businesses and residential development that will help support the existing downtown. We don’t see the sections as being separate. It will blend the sections together better than they have been before.”

The Wisconsin River Alliance supports Baraboo’s plans, said Denny Caneff, executive director of the environmental organization.

Mark Hayes, left, and Rick Eilertson, both members of the Baraboo Canoe Club, connect a winch to two canoes near the Baraboo River last summer. The winch was used to lift tires out of the water. Photo submitted by Rick Eilertson

“I think the biggest single problem with development along rivers is when someone takes over the riverfront and basically privatizes it,” Caneff said. “Municipalities really need to think about whether they want to lock up a nice piece of real estate for one developer.”

In Baraboo’s case, early indications are the river would remain a public asset. People would be able to access the water and walk along the shores, as well as buy a condo or eat at a restaurant overlooking the water.

Opposition to riverfront projects around the state has formed when the public feels it’s being locked out of a natural resource, Caneff said.

“We all understand people’s appetite for living by water,” he said. “Just don’t privatize the shoreline.”

Baraboo’s initial plans call for a river walk, a place for canoe rentals and the Ice Age Trail connection leading to Devil’s Lake, all of which suggest the city is keeping in mind Caneff’s question of how to keep it as an asset to the community.

Twenty years ago, Van Berkel realized the Baraboo River was near his home. But it wasn’t a particularly scenic or clean body of water; just another neglected and dammed-up urban stream.

But Van Berkel was a conservationist by trade and a paddler by hobby, so he set out on his local river in 1987 and has yet to leave. It’s taken time for him to find company on the water, but he’s got it now.
“After 20 years, you realize progress is slow,” Van Berkel said, “but it’s really exciting. We’re a few steps away from really making a change in that area.”

And that’s saying something.

The smallmouth bass are swimming, at least 40 canoes were out on the river last Labor Day, and the community is looking at millions of dollars in investment. Even the annual river cleanups are getting easier.

Save a few tires, volunteers spend most of their time picking up litter instead of industrial waste.

Van Berkel recently stepped down as president of the Baraboo Canoe Club. He’s still a member, though, and he’s not leaving the city any time soon. He’s actually hoping to move closer to the river.

“I hope some day, there’s a condo I could buy into,” he said. “Then I can stop shoveling snow off my roof and play in the river even more.”