The Problems

• This non-functioning dam creates an impoundment where the water is unnaturally slowed and warmed. Slowing the river causes it to drop much of its sediment load behind the dam - that's why there is about 4 feet of muck and only inches of water - and can lead to harmful levels of contaminants and nutrients in the impoundment. Warming and slowing the water promotes algal blooms and elevated bacteria levels which leads to further reduced levels of dissolved oxygen. Warmer water can hold less dissolved oxygen than cooler water can.
  
  

• With the dam causing the river to drop much of its sediment load in the impoundment, it means it's not being deposited downstream where it's needed. This can cause sediment-starved areas downstream, allowing for the erosion of the river's bed and banks, which further impacts aquatic health.  A river needs to carry its sediment load and deposit it where needed. The dams restrict this important, natural process.
  
  

• The dam negatively affects the water quality of our natural resource to the point that no one wants to enter it. Boy Scout Park could and should be a place where kids can go explore and play in their own river, but misinformation and disinformation prevents it. We cannot count on local officials to obtain and share correct information before a decision is made. They have already said they are not going to do that.
  
  

• Expenses for this dam are a never-ending burden on local taxpayers for as long as it exists, and the harm caused by this dam is a never-ending degradation of our public river for as long as it exists.
  
  

• Incorrect information about this dam, and the others, is common. Many people assume this dam is original and once powered the mill next to it, but neither are true.
  
  

• Some believe the river would become not much more than a trickle. This too is incorrect. Five dams were not built here because the river was just a trickle. Cedar Creek descends over 80 feet through our area - that's about the equivalent of an 8-story building.
  
  

• Sometimes a local official will claim that the few upstream property owners could sue the City if the dam was removed, but it's already been decided in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit that a riverfront property owner "...had no riparian right to the continuation of a particular surface water level along his river frontage; his interest in a higher water level was, at most, a convenience that must yield to the public's paramount interest in maintaining the state's navigable waterways." (Kreuziger v. Milwaukee County, No. 22-2489 (7th Cir. 2023))
  
  

• In 2020, and again in 2025, a small, local group found grant funding for a feasibility study of dam removal scenarios. It would have answered all questions anyone had and many questions we probably wouldn't know to ask. The 2020 Common Council refused to accept it and voted unanimously to prevent any such information from reaching them, and the 2025 Common Council refused it again. 

Some mayors, Common Council members, and some Landmarks Commission members have told us this is beautiful and historic but neither is true. This is not how a river is supposed to look, and there is not a good reason to spend millions of tax dollars to keep it this way. "I'm used to seeing a dam there" isn't good enough.