A one-acre pond might not be a big deal to most people, but that’s not the case in one Shawano County village.
Eland is doing what it can to preserve Eland Mill Pond, an impoundment of Railroad Creek.
The dam that forms the pond is in need of repair, and the village just started a fundraising effort to come up with $100,000 for the project.
Village Clerk Denise Larson said village officials have been aware of potential problems with the dam for years.
“Probably about 10 years ago, they knew that the dam was failing,” she said. “They contacted the DNR and (the DNR) allowed them to dig it up and put in some cement barriers. The dam is just boards put in between slots. The water was going on either side of the border. The town dug it up with the DNR’s approval and put down rip-rap and rock.”
Howard Graves, a village board member, grew up in Eland and said the pond dates back to the 1960s.
“It was put in when my dad was village president in the early 1960s,” he said. “When I was a kid, there was the creek running through with cattails and willows. In the early ’60s, they dredged it all out, created the banks and put the dam in.”
The pond is located on the site of a former sawmill. It’s just under an acre in size and has a maximum depth of 6 feet.
The pond is now the main attraction of Mill Pond Park and is the site of a fisheree started by Eland residents Roberta Marble and her late husband, Bill.
“Bill was the maintenance man in Eland for a long time,” Larson said.
Although the dam needs repairs, the fisheree will be held this year. It’s held the day before Father’s Day and this year’s date is June 20.
“The Eland Fisheree Club sponsors it,” Larson said. “We’ve grown from 50 kids to last year, we had 275 kids, seniors and disabled.”
The fisheree has been held for more than 30 years, and the club took the event over a few years ago, Larson said.
The club foots the bill for brook trout that are planted in the pond twice a year, just before the annual inland fishing opener the first Saturday in May and again just before the fisheree.
“It’s a trout stream, and the DNR only allows us to plant brook trout,” Larson said. “This year, we will plant $400 worth of fish – about 100 8-to-9-inch fish – just for opening day. Before the fisheree, we put in $3,000 worth of fish.”
“It draws a lot of people in from all over the place,” Graves said. “They must give away a couple dozen bicycles to kids.”
The club also stocks three tagged fish that are 12-15 inches long.
“The local taxidermist mounts the largest fish, and we give $100 from the concession stand for the second prize,” Larson said. “That excites the kids, because they all want to get the big fish.”
Although most of the trout are caught shortly after the inland opener and during the fisheree, some remain in the pond and creek, Graves said.
“Some of them will go upstream and some will go downstream,” he said. “During the fisheree, we’ll put a screen across (the dam). Do they all get caught? No.”
Fishing in the pond is restricted to ages 14 and younger, ages 65 and older and handicapped anglers.
The village recently completed a five-year plan for the dam, Graves said.
“We just redid our five-year plan with the DNR to keep the dam functioning for five years,” he said. “At the end of the last one, we were pretty concerned that they were going to basically pull the plug on us, but it seems like the DNR’s posture the last few years is to not be so adversarial.”
“We have to get the permits for the fish from the DNR and they’ve been good about that,” Larson said. “We’ve been working with Ryan Pichler (on the dam issue) the last couple years and he’s been very strong on ‘These are the rules, but let’s try to see if we can make something work within the rules.’”
The village completed its most recent plan with assistance from Art Bahr, a community development specialist with MSA Professional Services Inc.
“When we did the last five-year plan, Art had estimated that the cost of engineering, permitting and rebuilding it would be about $60,000,” Graves said. “Now, he’s estimating that it’s $100,000.
“What Art’s engineering firm is proposing is to have a concrete or steel structure that’s basically flat on the bottom. Instead of boards, there would be gates that could be raised up and instead of having this wooden bridge going across (the dam), you’d just cover it with soil.”
The village recently kicked off a fundraising effort to deal with the dam, and Larson said anyone interested in donating can send a check to Eland Village Hall, P.O. Box 65, Eland, WI 54427.
Neither Larson nor Graves want to see the pond disappear if the dam isn’t repaired.
“It turns into just a little creek going through town,” Larson said. “We would no longer be able to have our fisheree.”
Eland Village Board Trustee Howard Graves and Village Clerk Denise Larson stand on a bridge that’s part of a dam that forms Eland Mill Pond. The dam is in need of repairs and the village recently started a fundraising effort for the project. (Greg Seubert)
