Every great community initiative starts with a simple recognition that things could be better. For Little Lake Butte Des Morts, that moment came when the City of Neenah received a Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources surface water grant to take a comprehensive look at our lake’s health and potential for improvement.
The Project That Started It All
In October 2023, the Little Lake Butte Des Morts Project launched as a regional partnership among the City of Neenah, City of Menasha, Village of Fox Crossing, Winnebago County Land and Water Conservation Department, Wisconsin DNR, Fox-Wolf Watershed Alliance, Future Neenah, The Community Foundation, The Fund for Lake Michigan, and GEI Consultants.
The project’s mission was clear: address the lack of recent publicly available water quality information, lake maps, aquatic plant surveys, and shoreline condition inventories that had been impeding our ability to take meaningful action to improve water quality.
What We Learned
The comprehensive study revealed what many of us already knew from our daily experiences on the water:
- Algae blooms affecting recreational enjoyment
- Nuisance levels of aquatic plant growth in key areas
- Invasive species requiring ongoing management
- Fluctuating water flow and levels impacting accessibility and contributing to shoreline erosion
- Excess phosphorus and sediment from various sources negatively impacting fish and aquatic life
But perhaps more importantly, the study showed us something we hadn’t fully realized: Little Lake Butte Des Morts had been mostly overlooked at the scale needed to make significant improvements, despite being a 1,200-acre lake with over 12 miles of shoreline serving 64,557 residents across three municipalities.
Community Engagement Reveals Passion
As the Fox-Wolf Watershed Alliance conducted community meetings throughout 2024 and into 2025, something remarkable happened. What began as informational sessions about water quality data became passionate discussions about the future of our lake.
Residents from Neenah, Menasha, Fox Crossing, and beyond didn’t just want to hear about problems—they wanted to be part of the solution. Meeting after meeting, we heard the same message: our community was ready to take ownership of our lake’s future.
From Study to Action
By early 2025, it became clear that the technical work was just the beginning. The real opportunity lay in harnessing the community passion that had emerged from the engagement process. Property owners, recreational users, local business owners, and concerned residents all expressed the same desire: to see coordinated, long-term stewardship of Little Lake Butte Des Morts.
The seed of a lake association was planted in those community conversations. People realized that while the DNR grant provided valuable baseline data and an initial aquatic plant management strategy, sustaining improvements would require ongoing community organization and advocacy.
The Path Forward
As the formal DNR project concluded, a dedicated group of volunteers stepped forward to explore forming a permanent Little Lake Butte Des Morts Lake Association. Their vision: transform the momentum generated by the water quality study into lasting organizational capacity for lake stewardship.
This wasn’t just about continuing the technical work—it was about creating a unified voice for lake advocacy, accessing ongoing grant funding opportunities, and ensuring that the passion demonstrated throughout the community engagement process could be channeled into effective, long-term action.
What started as a water quality study had become something much more powerful: a community movement.
The Little Lake Butte Des Morts Project, led by Fox-Wolf Watershed Alliance under DNR grant funding, provided the foundation for community organizing that continues today through our lake association formation efforts. We’re grateful for this partnership and the technical groundwork that made our current efforts possible.
Want to learn more about the original project? Visit the Fox-Wolf Watershed Alliance project page for complete documentation, meeting materials, and technical reports.