Nothing is Certain but Fish and Taxes: Water Quality Perceptions and Discourse in Chetek

Abstract

We spend a lot of time talking about “the environment.”

We talk a lot about what we can do to protect the environment, to improve it—as if we could somehow take a step back and see the planet as separate from ourselves. Discourse surrounding our natural resources often tends to be from an outside perspective: eager plans to shape and defend and save the world, plans made from a calculated distance. This summer, I had to strive to hit the sweet spot of ethnographic research: become a part of the community I wanted to comprehend while maintaining a clear and focused role in data collection and analysis. I tried to grasp how a society realizes its relationship with the lakes and waterways that surround it.

I spent the last eight weeks researching a small northern portion of the watershed, centered on the city of Chetek. My goal was understanding: an understanding of the relationships within a community, and an understanding of the stakeholders’ views about environmental issues and the impact of water resources on their lives.

In previous years, LAKES REU studies have been heavily focused on Menomonie and Dunn County, so my research was deliberately targeted towards Chetek and the northern portion of the watershed in an effort to expand our data and provide a more holistic image of the watershed’s potential for positive change. As I listened to community members, I started to piece together some common themes. Some of the conversations that came up again and again focused on the viability of establishing a Lake District, the importance of fishing as an economic motivator and its role in building a sense of place, and the dynamics of a rural community with a prevailing tourist population.

Unlike Menomonie, people flood to Chetek to use their waterways, making summer the busy season. Although in some places there might be a resentment between the people who come seasonally to use the water and the people who remain year-round and bear the burden of maintaining it, this isn’t what I heard in Chetek. Over and over again, I saw a respect on both sides. Tourists who return year after year consider this area a kind of home, their summer identity. I also saw local people who understand the tourist ebb and flow and appreciated the social and economic boom for three months of the year—appreciated it enough to get over the increased waiting time at a stop light in July. This respect means there is a greater potential to work together to protect common resources.

Locals and tourists alike also talked about fishing—what was biting, where, and on what. That ethos is already established, and it is a natural stepping stone. There is great potential to go from the care and curation of a healthy fish population to broader efforts to protect water quality. This is the power of anthropological research: by understanding what matters to people, we can build from that to implement relevant and sustainable policy.

Finally, there has been enormous effort put forth to preserve and improve water quality in Barron County, but that energy is often being expended by a small group of dedicated individuals. The prospect of establishing a Lake District in the Chetek area didn’t get a whole lot of traction when it was proposed, which was disheartening for many. But this summer, people talked to me about that debate in bait shops and at bars and on beaches. Overwhelmingly, they were in favor of establishing some sort of special taxation district. They talked about being willing to pay to protect water, but they also voiced their hesitation. They told me they wouldn’t vote for a tax that they didn’t fully understand the potential parameters of, that they couldn’t support it without knowing the logistics of administration or the projects that it would be used for. Identifying these roadblocks is critical, and the divergent narratives in Menomonie and Chetek underline the importance of listening to stakeholders across the watershed in order to work together for meaningful change.

Going into this research project, I was careful. I set up interviews and attended meetings, made list after list of the people I wanted to talk to that I trusted would have valuable insight. I wanted to do justice to this area. I wanted so badly to add something to the ongoing project that mattered, and I thought that I could do that with enough planning and pestering and by asking just the right questions. What I didn’t factor in were the conversations I had by chance. No matter how much I wanted to, I couldn’t simply schedule a window of time and expect people to open up to me on cue. To get a real look into the heart of a community, I had to scrap some of my carefully crafted questions and ask more about the family dog who fell in the lake and came out looking like he was dipped in green paint. I had to fully embrace participant observation and give time for the discrepancies between what people say (and believe) and what happens in real life to come to light. I had to sit at coffee shops and become a familiar face. I had to have my prudent and efficient schedule knocked on its side in order to end up, sweaty and frustrated, at the public beach and realize: I was researching this water and this was the first time I was standing in the green waves.

In order to understand a community, I had to spend time in it.

If I want to see how people feel about their lake…well, I had to get in the lake.