Drawing Down Lake Mallalieu Would Have Been Mistake
This letter to the editor, by Celeste Koeberl, JD, MA and John Gostovich, MS Town of Hudson LMA Member and former LMA Director and Officer, appeared in the Hudson Star Observer on July 23, 2026.
The Lake Mallalieu Association (LMA) complains its consultant couldn’t inform local governments about its proposed Lake Mallalieu drawdown because our St. Croix County Board rescinded conditional permission for a Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources (WDNR) drawdown permit application.
But with or without a pending WDNR drawdown permit application, the LMA could share any LMA consultant’s report with anyone, at any time, in any forum.
And anyone may read all LMA consultant reports in public WDNR drawdown permit application files at this link: permits.dnr.wi.gov/water/SitePages/DocSetView.aspx?DocSet=IP-WC-2025-56- 01948&Loc=undefined.
Our County Board was informed by these LMA consultant reports when it voted to rescind conditional permission for the LMA’s WDNR drawdown permit application.
The August 2024 LMA consultant report to WDNR contradicted LMA claims that the Little Falls Dam project deposited soft sediments in upper Lake Mallalieu and greatly reduced water depths. Comparing 2024 measurements of water depths and soft sediment deposits to 1970 WDNR baseline data showed that, over 54 years:
Most upper Lake Mallalieu water depths were unchanged, some areas were 1 inch to 6 inches shallower and few areas were up to 2 feet shallower.
Soft sediment deposits were widely scattered and not very deep.
It was impossible to determine either sediment sources or when sediments were deposited.
The April 2026 LMA consultant letter to WDNR said drawing down Lake Mallalieu would flush thousands of cubic yards of sediment containing from 6,676 to 12,352 pounds of phosphorus into the already phosphorus-impaired Lake St. Croix portion of the St. Croix River.
St. Croix County’s long-standing policy is to reduce phosphorus loads to Lake St. Croix.
Our County Board understood all Wisconsin-permitted point sources discharged a total annual average of 9,456 pounds of phosphorus to Lake St. Croix; while in comparison, the LMA consultant estimated drawing down Lake Mallalieu would flush from 70% more to 130% more pounds phosphorus into Lake St. Croix.
Our County Board considered in its Land & Water Conservation Administrator’s report that drawing down Lake Mallalieu would significantly set back progress toward achieving County phosphorus-reduction goals for Lake St. Croix, made since 2013 through 373 conservation contracts at a cost of $4.4-million taxpayer dollars.
Our County Board had all information necessary, including the LMA consultant’s, to rescind conditional permission for drawing down Lake Mallalieu and to prevent flushing County conservation work and our taxpayer dollars down the river.