A bicyclist rides on the East River Trail on May 30, 2024. PC: Fox 11 Online
BROWN COUNTY, WI (WTAQ-WLUK) — This week provided a valuable reminder of how quickly the East River in Brown County can flood, and it comes at a time when efforts to mitigate the issue are being shared with the public.
Parts of the East River Trail were underwater almost all of 2019. Communities where the trail runs have been working together on solutions to avoid that from happening as often.
“We’re not even thinking of costs,” said Chris Clark, Allouez’s parks and recreation director. “These are just ideas put on paper so we can go the next step would be let’s look at some projects we can do.”
The ideas were shared with the community at Allouez Village Hall Thursday evening.
“I’ve been in the Green Bay area since 1971, so I’ve seen many times that area has been flooded,” said Doris Theeke of Bellevue. “It needs to be improved.”
While there is talk of moving parts of the trail, the preferred method right now seems to be creating alternate pathways at problem areas.
“Currently if the trail is in good shape and there’s no flooding, no reason to move it, but have these options of times when the water might be high and it would be inaccessible,” said Clark.
Environmental nonprofit The Nature Conservancy has been helping get the various municipalities on the same page, focusing on nature-based solutions to limit flooding. An example is turning underutilized properties into wetlands to act as flood storage.
“We’re not totally ruling out gray infrastructure or hard infrastructure within the watershed,” said Kari Hagenow, Coastal Resilience Specialist with The Nature Conservancy. “These things are still important.”
After gathering public feedback, the plan is to start pursuing funding to get some of the projects going.
“I don’t want to instill false hope and say we’re going to fix everything that is wrong here, you’ll never be flooded again,” said Hagenow. “In some cases, that’s just not the case, but we hope we can reduce those impacts.”
The East River Trail is 6.5 miles long, starting in east Green Bay and ending in Ledgeview.
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