Douglas County tackles diminishing environmental fund

Nov. 16—SUPERIOR — Douglas County officials are working to turn around a fund created to help pay for projects to address environmental issues.

The environment reserve fund was created in 2007 using $350,000 of the environment impact fee paid by American Transmission Company when the Arrowhead-Weston transmission line was built between Hermantown and Wausau. The goal was to use interest earned to provide modest amounts of money for Douglas County entities working on environmental projects without spending the original funds.

Low interest rates and overestimating the amount of interest that would be earned has reduced the fund balance to $290,077.

County officials are optimistic that the fund could again be over $300,000 by the end of 2024 with the help of higher interest rates and a change in policy designed to ensure county officials know the amount of interest earned before money is committed to projects.

"At the start of this year, I had the treasurer's office pull our funding out of a CD that it was enrolled into and reenroll it into a new one because interest rates went up so much," said Ashley Strabel, Douglas County conservationist. While the county paid a penalty of $1,528.77, she said those costs were recovered in the first quarter because of the higher interest rate.

The new CD allowed the county's quarterly interest earnings to increase from $781 to more than $2,700 each quarter.

"That's a lot of money," said committee member Kay McKenzie.

"We're making good interest on that now," Strabel said.

In 2023, the county earned $5,346 in interest on the fund; fourth quarter earnings will be reflected in 2024, Strabel said.

In 2021 and 2022, interest earnings were less than $1,600 annually.

"I haven't promoted the fund because I know where we're sitting with the balance," Strabel said. She said while she would typically request funding to send Douglas County youth to conservation camps, she didn't this year because the balance is below $300,000.

Strabel said she expects the balance in the fund to be back to $300,000 by the end of 2024 if the Land Conservation Committee doesn't spend the interest for new environmental projects.

The committee had no applications to consider during its meeting Tuesday, Nov. 14 for the environmental reserve fund, but committee members did approve seven environmental projects that will benefit property owners in Superior, Gordon, Oakland, Solon Springs and Bennett over the next two years. Half of project costs will be covered by funding allocated to Douglas County by the Wisconsin Department of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection.

Projects include soil stabilization near waterways, stopping erosion caused by runoff near a trailhead and shoreline stabilization on Minnesuing Island.