League of Women Voters Parks Report Calls for Shoreland Restoration

In 2008 / 2009, the League of Women Voters of Winnebago County conducted an assessment of Oshkosh area parks, including evaluating each city park, neighborhood park needs, storm water implications, and staffing issues.

The end product was a parks report that featured the League's position statement concerning our local parks.  The statement includes the following recommendations that all correlate to a restored shoreland:

1. Ensure environmentally sound maintenance and management practices

2. Support preservation and enhancement of natural systems and open spaces

3. Promote naturalization of shorelines where feasible

4. Encourage use of natural landscaping and prevention and control of invasive species

5. Promote storm water management practices in parks where feasible


The plan continues with its support of natural, restored shorelands by recommending the following:

Plant vegetative buffers along waterways. The city is spending millions on storm water engineering solutions. Let’s show some inexpensive, high visibility restoration projects.   

The League provides a summary of the reasoning concerning their support of the natural shoreland:

Not only cost savings, but state and federal regulations may provide an impetus for environmental improvements. The city is under urban requirements to reduce polluted run-off. Oshkosh solutions have been mainly construction of retention ponds and catch basins through the Stormwater Utility. Public Works and the Stormwater Utility apparently are proceeding with storm water management planning with little or no input from the Parks Department., although Parks is charged for its impervious surfaces. Opportunities exist to incorporate rain gardens, shoreline buffers, fewer mowed areas, native prairie plantings, increased native tree and shrub planting and fewer hard surfaces for parking and play areas. These ideas are on the radar screen. A rain garden may be incorporated in the South Park parking lot and in the new parking lot proposed for the 400 block on Main Street. A consultant’s plan for Millers Bay proposes enhancing the shoreline with native shrubs and trees. The same plan proposes purchase of a weed harvester to control weeds around the boat launches, rather than continued chemical treatment in the water.