NORTH LAKE
North Lake is a beautiful 438 acre body of water in Northern Waukesha County located in what is known as “Lake Country.” It has plentiful fishing and is in fact now open to public fishing. An unlimited number of public fishermen can access the lake from the Cory Oil site on the east side of the lake. There are no rules forbidding public access, and in fact public access has been encouraged for many years.
The RRNA does not oppose a public boat launch; quite the contrary. It welcomes public access. Its only quarrel is with placing the boat launch on the Kraus Site, which is located in a rural residential area bounded on the West by farm fields and on the South, North and East by residential property in what is known as the Reddelien Road neighborhood. In fact, the DNR plans to build their Kraus boat launch right in the middle of a pristine wetlands, located approximately at the area where the red arrow is pointing on the second map at the right of this page.
The proposed DNR launch on the Kraus Site is in and next to a large navigable wetlands which is below the ordinary high water mark of North Lake, and thus is part of North Lake. It is a place abounding with wildlife and it is where fish from North Lake breed. The DNR launch will effectively destroy the filtering effect of the navigable wetlands thus allowing large amounts of farm nutrients to flow directly into North Lake from over 100 acres of farmland now served and filtered by the wetlands. As is discussed in the page dealing with ecology, in the Spring or during rainy weather the asphalt parking lot and launch site will cause the wetlands to overflow and fill the lower Reddelien Road where leach beds and septic systems will be compromised, thus causing E-Coli pollution of North Lake.
By contrast, there is a perfectly suitable launch site available at the Kuchler Site, located on Highway 83 near the blue star on the second map to the right of this page. This site is located in a business district which will benefit considerably from the business which will be generated by placing the site there. It is easily accessible at all times of the year and will furnish fishermen and other public boaters with easy year round access to North Lake.
And yet, the DNR proposes to cut down nearly 600 mature trees and replace the navigable wetlands on the Kraus Site with a huge amount of asphalt. They want to create a large football-field sized asphalt parking lot. The DNR insists on doing this even though it may mean that the farm nutrients will be flushed into our beautiful North Lake, polluting it. They insist on doing this even though it will force water over lower Reddelien Road, thus compromising the leach beds and septic systems on lower Reddelien Road, which will flush E-Coli into North Lake.
And why is the DNR intent on doing this? Because six years ago it purchased the Kraus Site for twice what it was worth and now is determined to recoup its bad investment at the expense of Reddelien Road and North Lake. Of course, there should be public access to the lake, especially for fishermen. But the DNR ignores the fact that 10 to 15 fishing boats now in fact access the lake via the Cory Oil site. The plain truth is that the DNR ignores alternate means of achieving access via the Kuchler Site or enhanced access via Cory Oil because they are focused on avoiding responsibility for their bad investment at all costs.