Water Quality BMPs

Comment on Wisconsin Forestry BMPs for Water Quality

Wisconsin Forestry Best Management Practices (BMPs) for Water Quality are designed to provide practical, cost-effective methods for protecting water quality during forest management activities. Over the last year, a review was conducted of the BMPs and public comments on the proposed updates are being sought.

Summary of Proposed Changes
In 1995, when the Forestry BMPs for Water Quality were first written, there were 143 individual BMPs. This is the first review since their inception. The proposed updates include 9 new BMPs, 52 modified BMPs, and 8 deleted BMPs, for a total of 144 BMPs. A significant change is also proposed to the RMZ categories for streams, moving from a system based on stream navigability and duration to a system based on stream width.

Informational Meetings
Three informational meetings will be held around the state to provide opportunities to learn more about the proposed changes. The meetings will be:

January 13 in the Spooner Agricultural Research Station, Auditorium, at W6646 Highway 70, Spooner.
January 14 in the Marathon County UW Extension Office, Rooms 1 and 2, at 212 River Drive, Wausau. Directions: www.uwex.edu/ces/cty/marathon/map.html
January 19 in the University of Wisconsin-Madison Arboretum Visitor Center, Auditorium, at 1207 Seminole Highway, Madison.

The meetings will run from 4:30 pm to 6:30 pm. The first 45 minutes will be for informal questions. At 5:15 pm, there will be a formal presentation on the proposed changes, with the remainder of the evening for questions. It is not necessary to attend a meeting to provide comments.

Submitting Comments
Comments can be submitted via an online survey or submitted in writing to Forest Hydrologist Carmen Wagner. The deadline for comments is February 12, 2010.

Reviewers submitting their comments via the online survey may want to type their notes into a word processing program and cut-and-paste the statements into the online survey document. The entire online survey needs to be completed in one session; it is not possible to save the survey and finish it at a later time. Anyone submitting written (hard-copy) comments is asked to send them to:

Carmen Wagner
Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources – FR/4
PO Box 7921
Madison, WI 53707

Comments can also be e-mailed directly to Wagner at carmen1.wagner@wisconsin.gov.

Participants are asked to spend some time reviewing the new and modified BMPs in the draft document, focusing comments on whether material in the draft manual (each specific BMP, accompanying text, appendices) is understandable and whether important topics and other considerations are missing.

Last Revised: Friday December 18 2009