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The Clean Lakes Alliance is a non-profit organization dedicated to the improvement and protection of the lakes, streams and wetlands in the Yahara Watershed for the enjoyment of future generations. We see a future in which everyone realizes that our lakes are the center of our community: Healthy Lakes. Healthy Community. To accomplish this vision, we strive to continue building a community of people, businesses, organizations and government agencies dedicated to enhancing water quality in the Yahara Watershed.

Regular monitoring is important for tracking ever-changing water quality conditions, including the presence and extent of potentially harmful algal blooms. Monitoring and the sharing of water quality information also enhances public awareness of the issues affecting our lakes.

In this program, we bring together governmental monitoring, university research, citizen monitoring, and a new crowdsourcing feature to provide nearly real-time information to interested beachgoers. Click here to learn more.

This program is part of the Clean Lakes Alliance’s Renew the Blue initiative. Volunteers collect near-shore water quality data at various sampling stations around each of the five Yahara lakes. The information is then used to identify potential problem areas, and will assist university researchers in developing predictive models associated with blue-green algae formation and movement. Over the course of the monitoring season, Clean Lakes Alliancestaff, interns and volunteers perform end-of-pier and public beach testing to provide more real-time data on near-shore lake conditions.

To learn more or get involved, email our Watershed Engagement Coordinator, at volunteer@cleanlakesalliance.org.

To learn how you can help, please visit our website.

The Clean Lakes Alliance, a 501(c)(3), was founded in 2010 to bring greater attention, support and coordinated action to cleaning up our five Madison-area lakes: Mendota, Monona, Wingra, Waubesa and Kegonsa, in the Yahara River watershed. We see a future in which everyone realizes that our lakes are the center of our community.

The “Yahara Lakes Monitoring Partnership” was launched in 2013 to increase the public’s understanding and awareness of local water quality issues, and to better inform beachgoers of near-shore lake conditions. Through our Renew the Blue citizen monitoring initiative, data are now being collected to help university researchers model the formation and movement of blue-green algal blooms, and to provide the public with more accurate and timely beach-condition information.

Clean Lakes Alliance is proud to bring together government agencies, UW-Madison researchers, local businesses and water quality advocacy groups as contributors to this broad-scale monitoring effort. In particular, we thank the following contributors: City of Madison, City of Madison Parks, Dane County, Public Health Madison & Dane County, UW-Madison Center for Limnology, UW-Madison Space Science and Engineering Center, Wisconsin State Laboratory of Hygiene, Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources, Thermo Fisher Scientific, 100state and 5NINES.