The Department has reviewed the 2020-2024 Comprehensive Lake Management Plan for Big Chetac and Birch Lakes and determined that the monitoring and management activities identified in the plan are eligible for Surface Water Grants funding subject to the application requirements of the grants program.

Promote and support a healthy, diverse, and sustainable fishery Big Chetac, Birch, and Little Birch Lakes

In the mid-2000’s Big Chetac, Birch, and Little Birch lakes experienced severe algae blooms such that during the summer of 2005, the Sawyer County Land and Water Conservation Department placed environmental hazard warning signs on the lake due to the high blue-green algae concentrations. Deteriorating water quality conditions in the system drove the Big Chetac and Birch Lakes Association (BCABLA) to pursue a series of Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources (WDNR) Lake Management Planning Grants to complete a comprehensive “Getting Rid of the Green” lake study. The goal of this study, which began in 2007 and was completed in 2010, was to identify the contributing factors to the blue-green algae blooms in Big Chetac Lake. It included a comprehensive look at the nutrient levels in the system, their sources, and the impact they have. It included a whole-lake early season curly-leaf pondweed (CLP) and mid-summer point-intercept (PI) aquatic plant survey, groundwater and watershed assessment, septic system survey, and a paleo-ecological study of the sediments in the lake to determine historical conditions. The end result of this study was a Comprehensive Lake Management Plan (LMP) for the Big Chetac Lake written by Short, Elliot, Hendrickson (SEH) Inc. Recommendations for improving water quality were presented to the BCABLA and the WDNR in June 2010.

As a prerequisite to updating this plan in 2018 and to compare how the lake’s vegetation had changed since the last point-intercept survey in 2014, the BCCLA, Lake Education and Planning Services, LLC, and the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources authorized a full point-intercept survey for all aquatic plants from July 28-29, 2017. During the survey, we found macrophytes growing at 201 sites (20.7% of the entire lake bottom and in 57.1% of the 11.5 littoral zone). This was a moderately significant increase (p=0.002) from the 148 sites with plants in 2014 (15.3% of the lake and 30.0% of the then 14.5ft littoral zone), and a near return to the 269 points with vegetation (27.7% of the lake/68.6% of the then 12.5ft littoral zone) we documented during the original 2008 survey.

Excel file of the PI survey data collected between July 28-29, 2017. Also includes the PI survey data from July 20-22, 2008 and July 15-17, 2014 in other tabs

The Big Chetac and Birch Lakes Association is sponsoring a project to collect baseline water quality and habitat data for Chetac and Birch Lakes, conduct fishing success surveys at resorts, and support stakeholder planning committee meetings. Project deliverables include all monitoring and mapping data, stakeholder committee meeting agendas and minutes, fishing success survey data, and a final report summarizing the results of the project.