History

The Lake

Tug Lake is a small, dark-water lake in the Town of Rock Falls, fed by a creek that drains a large area of wetlands and bog. Tannins from those wetlands give the water its tea color. A water control structure has stood at the outlet since 1922, according to a 2018 consultant report, and repairs in 2009 raised the lake by six to eight inches. The state's first survey of the lake, in 1947, recorded 159 acres and a maximum depth of 21 feet. Its depth map is still used in studies today.

Early Concern

Residents have watched this lake closely for a long time. In 1982, a resident's complaint about a nuisance algae bloom drew a written reply from the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources (DNR). That letter is known only as quoted in a 2018 consultant report; the original has not been located.

Volunteer water clarity readings began in 1986. Shirley Gajewski and Barb Rambo-Hartley carried the citizen monitoring record until 2023, when Reid Badeau and Don Olson took over the duties. Theirs is one of the longest continuous threads of volunteer effort in the District's history. Shirley Gajewski also compiled an inventory of the septic systems around the lake from Lincoln County zoning records, which the 2018 watershed report used.

In August 2014, residents had algae samples tested, and the results identified several kinds of blue-green algae. What had been a long-held local concern became a defined water quality and public health issue. On August 1, 2015, residents held a lakewide meeting with speakers from the University of Wisconsin, the DNR, and Lincoln County. They discussed water quality, invasive species, shorelines, septic systems, and whether to form a lake district.

The Task Force

In 2016, a severe bloom brought strong odors and spoiled the lake for swimming and boating. Residents formed an 18-member Tug Lake Task Force to organize study, coordinate volunteers, and consult experts. The Task Force paid for the first professional study from its members' own contributions, years before any public body existed that could have funded it.

That August, Cason & Associates tested the lake and found almost no oxygen in the deep water. In 2017, the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee began monitoring the lake with Task Force volunteers and found that some blooms produce microcystin, a liver toxin. By 2018, a monitoring buoy was in the lake, and a ten-person volunteer sampling team was collecting water samples: Reid Badeau, Mary Storm-Badeau, Glenn Hartley, Barb Rambo-Hartley, Phil Hill, Judy Hill, Jon Malm, Don Olson, Sarah Olson, and John Redmann. These are the members the record names. The list is what the documentary record holds rather than a complete roster.

That year's university study showed how the lake bottom releases phosphorus when the deep water loses its oxygen, feeding the algae. A summary of every study is on the Studies of Tug Lake page.

From Aeration to Alum

Once residents understood that the deep water loses its oxygen each summer, aeration became the leading idea. Aeration means pumping air into the deep water so the lake bottom holds onto its phosphorus. The Task Force's 2020 campaign for a lake district proposed a district that would fund an aeration system, and a 2020 consultant study of the lake-bottom sediment recommended one.

Several things turned the District away from that plan.

In 2019, Task Force members visited a lake that uses aeration. Its blooms had been reduced but not ended.

DNR staff were not persuaded that aeration suited Tug Lake. They warned it could upset the iron chemistry that helps hold phosphorus in the sediment.

Aeration has to run and be maintained every year. Wisconsin's Surface Water Grant rules do not fund the maintenance and operation of aeration systems, so that yearly cost would fall on District property owners.

In 2022, a University of Wisconsin-Stout scientist tested the lake-bottom sediment and designed a specific alternative: an alum treatment. Alum binds phosphorus in the sediment so it stays out of the water. The design calls for two doses, two years apart, on the lake bottom deeper than 10 feet. Because the sediment holds only a modest amount of loose phosphorus, the dose is at the low end of comparable treatments. A treatment of this kind can control phosphorus from the lake bottom for many years.

The District's draft Lake Management Plan follows that most recent study. It does not recommend aeration, and it recommends alum treatment as a possible future project. It does not say aeration failed; no aeration system was ever installed.

An alum treatment is not decided, and it is not guaranteed to work. The draft plan sets conditions that come first: a better measure of how much phosphorus comes from the land and how much from the lake bottom, steps to reduce phosphorus coming from the land, approval of any financing by the District's electors, and confirmation from the DNR that the project is eligible for a grant. A 2023 DNR review also cautioned that treatments aimed at phosphorus from the lake bottom are usually used where phosphorus rises through the summer, which is the opposite of Tug Lake's pattern. The plan weighs that caution rather than setting it aside.

Forming the District

The Task Force also reached a practical conclusion. A volunteer group could study the lake, raise donations, and coordinate neighbors, but it could not provide dependable funding, the power to borrow, or the continuity and public accountability that years of work require. A lake district could.

A petition to form the District was filed with the Lincoln County Clerk on December 15, 2020. The boundary was drawn around the shoreline properties whose owners are most directly affected by conditions on the lake. The Lincoln County Land Services Committee held a public hearing on January 14, 2021, and recommended approval seven votes to none.

The Tug Lake District was established by Lincoln County Board Resolution No. 2021-03-10, adopted March 16, 2021. The District held its first Annual Meeting on July 17, 2021.

The District's Work Since 2021

The District has kept the monitoring going and widened it. From 2022, the DNR, university partners, and volunteers measured flow and water quality at the inlet and outlet. In 2023, the DNR reviewed the lake's monitoring data to help the District prepare a lake management plan. The University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point sampled the lake in 2024, and the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee completed a new water quality study in 2025. The District has also purchased its own monitoring buoy, so the university partnership can continue on District equipment.

Volunteers carry much of the District's business. Dan Lewison chairs the Management Plan and Grant Team, and Judy Hill has served as Audit Chair, as the District's Annual Meeting minutes record.

Residents have noticed fewer extreme conditions than in the severe bloom years that began around 2016. Blue-green algae remain in the lake, though, and blooms return when conditions favor them. The community has not mistaken improvement for a solution.

Where Things Stand

In June 2026, the District hired consultants to help complete its Lake Management Plan, prepare a financial analysis, and plan how to keep residents informed. A draft of the plan was presented for discussion at the Annual Meeting on August 29, 2026. The 2026 Resident and Property Owner Survey closed October 30, 2026, and its results will help set the plan's priorities.

The District and its antecedents have invested in measurement rather than in intervention, and no in-lake or watershed treatment has been carried out.

For a year-by-year account, see the Tug Lake Timeline.