Photo credit: Erin Bloodgood
River Revitalization Foundation’s Kimberly Gleffe and Joanna Demas
Former Wisconsin Gov. Tommy Thompson created a Milwaukee River Revitalization Council in the 1980s to advise the Department of Natural Resources on the environmental quality of the Milwaukee River basin. The Council published a River Way Plan in 1991. The Rotary and Kiwanis Clubs of Milwaukee responded by creating the RRF in 1994. Most of the work has been on the Milwaukee River. Gleffe was a volunteer on the United Way’s Basic Needs Committee, reviewing grant-funded agencies providing education and social needs, until she took the RRF job in 2001. Now, she’s an activist spreading the message that the environment—healthy soil, clean air and water—is also a basic need, one that funding agencies haven’t prioritized.
Demas’ college studies were in biology and environmental science. After graduation, she volunteered for the Urban Ecology Center, Schlitz Audubon Nature Center “and all the environmental orgs, until RRF had a job opportunity,” she says. Her work includes removing invasive species and planting native ones. The planting of more than 800 trees of several native species stands among her accomplishments.
“Most of our work will definitely benefit the climate,” she says. “But it’s also a struggle deciding what native species should be reintroduced, because the climate we have now is not the climate we’ll have in years to come. There are plants I would love to reintroduce, but the way climate projections are going, they might not be able to survive. But that also leads to some great opportunities to plant species that we’re on the northern range of. We can introduce more diversity. That being said, we might get more invasive species we don’t currently see.”
The women are gratified by the animals that have returned to the riverfront thanks to their work: birds of all sizes, beavers, coyotes, red fox and otters. RRF’s annual Woolly Bear Winter Festival is named for the fuzzy black and brown caterpillars, which are common to arctic regions and proliferating here. They burrow, freeze and hibernate all winter, then emerge alive in spring to turn into tiger moths. “We want to get the community down here to enjoy nature, even if it’s a little cold,” Demas says. “If the river’s frozen, we’ll have ice skating. You have to bring your own skates. There’s a fire and sledding and music and bird feeding. We even did a play one year about woolly bears.”
The free festival takes place Saturday, Feb. 8, at 2134 N. Riverboat Road along the Milwaukee River east of Humboldt Avenue. Visit riverrevitalizationfoundation.org for volunteer opportunities or to donate to RRF.
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