A swale.

Headlines are powerful hooks.  If the reader goes beyond the headline does it really matter?

How about context?   

This next part is particularly interesting.   One of the UW Stout scientists Arthur Kneeland was reportedly "studying" more recently the potential of a floating wild rice platform as a solution to the blue-green algae.    Of course, the subject of solutions and ideas coming from UW Stout is a topic consisting of decades of Menomonie news hype where there is almost never any benefit for Menomonie, so we will leave that subject for another time.

Did you catch that above?   "That bay down there where boats and pontoons are stored was nothing but a swale."     Green said it best.

So, we have elevations on survey maps from the 1900's, Green telling us the northern bay was a swale, and then flash forward to Mayor Randy Knaack and the people behind the dredging who say the "bay is filling in" and must be dredged.

It just boggles the mind that Knaack declares a one-man war on algae and wastes a quarter-million dollars on a stupid dredging project.   And then the mind is blown when the expert engineers totally did not measure the depth of the so-called "muck" and had to stop much shorter in depth because...., well because THAT spot was never that low to begin with.

Do you think Knaack did not include the height he grew since the early '80's and just didn't figure that into his scientific depth calculations?

Someday we might find how he measures "muck."   Meanwhile, no one will care about further wasteful spending from the downtown government leader.

What is a swale? 

Of course it isn't all bad, there is some great potential left.  But like most things in the history of Menomonie, people like us won't have enough money or resources to make a thing happen.   The people with the money will worm their way into the city echelons and spend the city money on destroying longer term Menomonie character.  Yes, character.     That old Lee Building downtown might have indeed outlived its usefulness, but it had character.    The replacement hotel building is about as cookie cutter as any freeway off-ramp hotel.

That's the crowd the downtown Menomonie government likely wants to attract, however.  The out-of-towners, leave your money and get back on the interstate.

It's too bad Menomonie is becoming less of a single family town and more of an investment rental market.