WHITEWATER LAKE, Wis. — Walworth County is known for its sparkling lakes, including Whitewater Lake. Whitewater-Rice Lakes Management District crews are doing a dirty job to keep the lake clean.
A flotilla of heavy machinery started bog harvesting on Whitewater Lake this week. Workers are excavating bogs and weeds, then using specialized boats to haul the muck out of the lake.
"We'd do five to ten dumps a day, which is quite a bit considering the size of the dump truck," said Dakota Woldanski, one of the boat operators. "On the south end of the lake, we basically pulled a parking lot full of weeds."
Woldanski, a Whitewater native, said there is a sense of pride in cleaning up Whitewater Lake.
"It's our main lake. Seeing how bad it really was and making an impact on it was a big change for me," Woldanski said.
The lake was still actively used while bog harvesters were on the job. Nathan Bise decided to take his family on a trip to Whitewater Lake from Minnesota.
"We just happened to end up on the Wisconsin side," said Bise, who had never been to Whitewater Lake before this trip. "It's God's Country. He's done some miraculous work with the water, the land, and the terrain."
The Whitewater-Rice Lakes Management District crew will remain hard at work to clean what Mother Nature can not.
"We're trying to control our spray and stop spraying the lake as much, so the weeds have gotten a little out of hand, but we're trying to tame it as best as we can," Woldanski said.
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