Division of Forestry News

BMPs found to protect water quality

Map of 2015 BMP Monitoring Sites on private, nonindustrial forestland in Wisconsin

The Wisconsin forestland sites monitored by the 2015 BMP teams. Coniferous trees represent sites that were in the Managed Forest Law (MFL) program and deciduous trees represent sites not in the MFL program. Note: Some dots are close together making the total number of sites difficult to determine on this map.

Newly-released results from 2015 monitoring for the application and effectiveness of Wisconsin’s Forestry Best Management Practices (BMPs) for Water Quality show excellent results. The effectiveness of BMPs that were applied correctly was extremely high (99.6%) at protecting water quality, but when BMPs were applied incorrectly or not applied, BMP effectiveness rates woefully dropped (6.3% and 9.4% respectively).  Even with the low water quality protection of BMPs that were applied incorrectly and not applied, no major impacts were reported on any of the monitored sites.   Read more details about the results from the monitoring of 36 non-industrial private forestland (NIPF) sites (26 of the landowners are enrolled in the MFL program) in the 2015 BMP Monitoring Report.

For more information, contact Forest Hydrologist Dave Kafura, david.kafura@wisconsin.gov, (715) 416-4140