Wisconsin Citizen Lake Monitoring Network awards local volunteer analyst

CORNER LAKE – The Wisconsin Citizen Lake Monitoring Network (CLMN), an extension partnership between UW-Stevens Point and the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources, awarded Ken Sedmak a 30-year water quality monitoring award.

Sedmak and his wife, Sharon, purchased a property in the Town of Corner Lake in 1991 and began monitoring the lake in 1995.

As a professional environmental biologist, chemist and former wastewater treatment consultant, caring for and studying the waterways of Wisconsin has been important to Sedmak for decades.

He explained the water quality monitoring process, “[the CLMN] sends me, on a yearly basis, the materials and chemicals to do the analysis of the lake. I send them back a sample on a monthly basis through the summer months that they conduct additional analysis on in Madison.”

There are a variety of different monitoring opportunities available to the over 1,000 volunteers within the organization. Water clarity monitoring, aquatic invasive species monitoring and water chemistry monitoring are a few of the different areas that volunteers like Sedmak dedicate their time to understanding and documenting.

The CLMN reported that over the past 30 years Sedmak has collected 212 water clarity readings, 121 phosphorus samples, 90 chlorophyll samples and 13 ice cover reports.

While Sedmak has spent a significant amount of time contributing to these volunteer studies, he shared that there are steps that everyone in Marinette County, and beyond, can participate in to take care of their waterways.

“We ask the community, the people who bring boats to the lakes and the water, that they clean their boat and trailer of any invasive species that may have tried to hitch a ride with them, so to speak.

They should clean their livewells and remove any of those invasive species because the Town of Corner Lake does not have any [invasive species] right now,” Sedmak encouraged the public.

For more information on how to get involved with the Wisconsin Citizen Lake Monitoring Network, visit dnr.wisconsin.gov/topic/lakes/clmn.