The River

Parker Creek is an important spring creek tributary to the Kinnickinnic River a few couple of hundred yards below Steeple Drive. According to USGS documents, it has a base discharge rate of about 10 cubic feet per second, which increases the Kinni by 25%.

Parker creek is known to be an excellent fishery for wild and native brook trout populations. In May of 1998 there was a catastophic fish kill on 4.5 miles of the creek. Due to the application of liquid manure, it is estimated that 3,500-4000 trout were killed. Downstream, at the confluence with the Kinnickinnic, it is estimated that 4,000 browns from the Kinni also perished.

In the Parker Creek case, the guidelines and practices that were acceptable in Wisconsin were not broken. This essentially “legal” application of manure resulted in a fish kill of almost 10,000 trout, not to mention the other aquatic life destroyed. How can a “legal” application in Wisconsin result in such a serious fish and invertebrate kill?

Restoration Work:

Work on Parker Creek during in the past few years included approximately one mile of stream and bank restoration.  Work on Parker in 2009-11 was pretty intensive and included a lot of restoration of steep banks with hand seeding and mulching. for approximately one mile.

During the winter of 2012-2013, volunteers cleared box elders from Parker’s banks upstream of County Hwy J. This was done to prevent re-infestation of the restored stretch. The remaining stumps were removed by the DNR with bulldozers.

Kiap-TU-Wish continues its hard work and efforts to protect and restoring this important resource. To see more info on Parker creek restoration and volunteer opportunities please visit the Parker Creek Restoration page.