Milwaukee has made some tremendous progress with Bradford Beach, which has just received Blue Wave certification. The certification, from the Clean Beaches Council—supported by a number of private and public organizations including the EPA and the Naitonal Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration—recognizes health, safety, and environmental improvements.
This Lake Michigan beach has overcome its share of problems: litter, algae, combined sewer overflows, and huge populations of seagulls contributing to water-quality problems. The city and several private companies have spent a great deal of money to clean up and revitalize the beach, including a million-dollar project last year to install rain gardens at the beach to treat runoff draining from the city’s storm sewers. Also in 2008, the local Miller Brewing Company donated $500,000 toward restoring the beach, including water-quality monitoring, algae removal, and bird control. Part of the money also went toward a public awareness campaign, and part even paid for the application fee for the Blue Wave certification.
One puzzle remains, though, and while the city doesn’t think it’s a serious problem, it has brought scientists from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee out to study it. Shallow pools of standing water have begun to appear on the beach. The pools themselves probably aren’t created by stormwater or dry-weather runoff, according to one researcher from UWM, but rather contain water from storm surges. They last for a few days, recede, then reappear. The question is why they’re occuring now when they didn’t before.
One theory as to their cause: infiltration from the rain gardens might be raising the water table, preventing stormwater from seeping in as quickly as it used to. Another possibility: Algae beds from the lake have washed ashore and are now underneath the sand, preventing rapid infiltration. The Milwaukee County Parks Director thinks the solution may be to bring in sand to replenish what’s been lost because of recent weather patterns wearing down a sand berm that normally protects the beach.
It’s a minor problem amid the many accomplishments for the city to be proud of, but also a reminder of how difficult it is to sort out causes and effects in a dynamic beach environment.