2012 Puckaway Flood

After a dry summer, winter and early spring, a deluge hit much of the area May 3rd, pouring water into the Fox River, its marshes, and Lake Puckaway.  Damage to property owners is easily apparent, but habitat loss can be harder to measure unless large portions of marsh are ripped out and float downstream.  At best, plants such as bulrushes and canes (Common Reed, Phragmites australis) are stressed, but they can also be killed by prolonged high water.  Buffalo fish and common carp are taking advantage of the flooded marshes for spawning.  If it is a good year for carp production, it could spell bad years for aquatic vegetation a few years down the road.

Be thankful for wetlands!  Lake Puckaway is blessed with thousands of acres of wetlands adjacent to and upstream of the lake.  As the lake and the Fox River overtake their banks, these wetlands absorb or filter and slowly release billions of gallons of water.  Without the wetlands, flooding would be much worse on Lake Puckaway and many miles downstream.  Suspended solids and nutrients will also be taken up by these wetlands, improving water quality downstream.  

Wetlands doing their job as an old break in the Fox River
dredge bank  provides relief for residents from Lake Puckaway
 to Lake Winnebago.  

Keeping track of the flood waters can be done at a few USGS sites that report real time flow, gauge, and temperatures for the Fox River below Lake Puckaway at Princeton and Berlin.  You can even sign up for water alert, in which the USGS will automatically email or text you water level information based on the parameters you set.  The Lake Puckaway Protection and Rehabilitation District also takes manual readings at staff gauges at the Princeton Dam, Lake Puckaway, and just upstream of the lake on the Fox River.  

To see more photos of the flood click below.

High water over takes the dredge bank at the Fox River inlet.  

Water over topping the Princeton lock.

The mid-lake dredge bank was completely underwater.  

Hundreds of common carp took to the marshes to spawn.

Flooding on the Fox River upstream of Lake Puckaway