CCCWC member and founder of Simply Smoked Catering Brady Nigh shares his perspective on the relationship between economic and environmental resilience at the 2024 State of the Watershed. Photo: Sydney Widell
Sydney Widell | Coon Creek Community Watershed Council
The CCCWC is celebrating our fourth anniversary this fall, as well as the 92nd anniversary of the nation’s first watershed conservation project, which was centered in the Coon Creek Watershed.
We’ll mark the occasion at our our September 3rd meeting, hosted by the Lindahl Family at their farm in Stoddard. The night will include live music, a community dinner, the 2025 State of the Watershed address, remarks from the Lindahl family and Vernon County conservation partners, and a tour of the Lindahl family’s newly completed erosion control structures. Like all CCCWC gatherings, the event is free and all are welcome.
“We are celebrating the wonderful work that is being done by concerned people in this area who want to do the right thing and create a sustainable future,” said our president Nancy Wedwick, who will deliver Wednesday’s State of the Watershed address. “Over the last four years, we’ve drawn on our watershed’s history as we put conservation projects in place, put roots in the ground, and worked to build a culture of watershed literacy.”
The CCCWC understands watershed literacy as an awareness for the complex ways water connects people and places. In her State of the Watershed address, Nancy plans to highlight the ways she sees watershed literacy already rising in the community.
Nancy will also speak to the on-the-ground projects the CCCWC has funded in the last year, and the “million points of mitigation” approach we see as central to our efforts to increase the watershed’s resilience to flooding and improve overall community well-being.
We look to the Lindahl family’s major erosion control and water retention project as an example of how Coon Creek Watershed residents are taking steps to reduce erosion and “make running water walk.” The project was completed this August, in partnership with the Vernon County Land and Water Conservation Department.
“I think a project like this will help manage soil loss and flooding,” said Mike Lindahl, who began making plans for the erosion control structures on his farm in Fall 2024. “It should definitely slow the water down compared to what it was.”
Guests will be able to tour the recently completed project during the meeting, and learn about ways to collaborate with us and other conservation partners to support their own flood mitigation and soil health projects.
The September 3rd gathering will begin with appetizers, drinks, and music at 5:30, followed by the State of the Watershed address and other speakers at 6:00, and will close with dinner at 7:00. Lindahls’ Swiss Hills is located at E2250 Hamburg Ridge Rd, Stoddard Hamburg Ridge Rd. in Stoddard. We encourage guests to bring their own lawnchairs and picnicware.
A recently completed farm pond at Lindahl’s Swiss Hills, the site of our Sept. 3rd Anniversary Celebration. Photo: Mike Lindahl