A Story About a Lake and a Prairie and an Array of Solar Panels

Submitted by Amy Alstad, director of land management & environmental education, presented at the inaugural Spring Solar Tilt on Apr. 17, 2024

I’m here to share a story about a lake and a prairie and an array of solar panels. At first glance, this may seem like an unlikely trio of characters to encounter together in a single story. I hope to weave these three dissimilar threads into a common story that sets the stage for us today.

We’ll start with the lake. The glacial lake that we know today as Lost Lake gets its name from the oral tradition of the Ho-Chunk people, which explains how the local watershed came to be. When the creator was engaged in making the lands and waters of Dee-jope, they created the four larger lakes in the Yahara watershed, known today as Mendota, Monona, Waubesa and Kegonsa. In doing so, the creator misplaced one small fifth lake. It was lost. And it was later found right here on the northwest shore of Lake Mendota, hence the name Lost Lake or, in Ho-Chunk, deyo-ha-waunee. This tale, of how a lake was temporarily lost and then found, would go on to have an uncanny echo centuries later.

To understand that echo, we need to set the scene of our local watershed. Lost Lake is situated within the Yahara watershed, but rather than connecting directly to the four-lake chain, it sits within a small subwatershed, nested within the greater Yahara watershed. Approximately 100 acres of land drain directly to Lost Lake, which has no outlet. We know from historical records that the original size of Lost Lake was approximately 8 acres in area, and 10-15 feet deep.

When the sisters first arrived here in 1953, agriculture was the predominant land use. Decades of cultivation had taken its toll on the topsoil of surrounding fields, which were vulnerable to erosion. Aerial photos clearly depict how, as sediment from the 100 acres made its way into Lost Lake, the size of the lake steadily began to shrink. By the mid-1990s, the amount of open water had dwindled to just an acre in size, with a depth of approximately 18 inches.

Lost Lake was in danger of being lost a second time. Fortunately, the sisters at Holy Wisdom had the vision and courage to intervene. Answering their calling to care for the earth, and guided always by their Benedictine values, the sisters worked alongside many community partners to restore Lost Lake to its original

size and depth. 85,000 cubic yards of sediment were excavated, banks were recontoured and a forebay was created on the west side of the lake to intercept future sediment and runoff.

The restoration of Lost Lake was a remarkable achievement which required considerable investment of resources. Even more remarkable is the way that the sisters and their community used this project as a catalyst for an ever more impactful vision for caring for the land.

So, this is where we meet the second character in our story, which is the prairie.

There were plenty of questions about how to best protect the newly restored lake from sedimentation to avoid any future need to redredge the lake, and the answer that emerged for the sisters was ‘prairie.’

Most prairie plants are deep-rooted and long-lived perennials. They are naturally gifted at holding soil in place, building soil health and allowing water to soak into the ground rather than transporting sediment across the land.

This year, we celebrate the 25th anniversary of completing the Lost Lake restoration and planting the first prairie at Holy Wisdom. The lake restoration project launched a new chapter of land stewardship at Holy Wisdom by catalyzing more than a decade of planting prairies.

Slowly, steadily, the footprint of restored prairie grew at Holy Wisdom. The sisters and their community harvested seeds, sowed seeds and stewarded young prairie plantings. By 2015, more than 130 acres of prairie had been created, with the positive impacts rippling far beyond the shores of Lost Lake.

And here is where we introduce the third and final character in this tale, which is of course the solar panels.

Dredging Lost Lake produced 85,000 cubic yards of sediment. This sediment was relocated to a nearby field, just southwest of the Retreat & Guest House. Newly keen on the many benefits of prairie, the monastery tried to establish a native planting on the dredged spoils. But unlike all the other new prairie plantings, that one never thrived. Despite our best care and efforts, many of the species planted in the seed mix never appeared and the ones that did grow, eventually dwindled, facing stiff competition from the many weeds that thrived in the altered soil.

It turns out that the poor soil, displaced from neighboring fields, then trapped at the bottom of the lake, and then ultimately dredged up and spread out in a new place, didn’t much want to become prairie. For years, we heard this message without truly hearing the possibilities it suggested. No, we didn’t try to plant prairie again. We periodically mowed the area to keep the weeds out of the happier prairie units and focused our care for the earth efforts on other parts of the land.

Meanwhile, another expression of the sisters’ commitment to care for the earth was gaining steam, as they steadily worked towards a long-term goal of a carbon-free energy future. In 2009, they completed construction of the new monastery building, an exemplary model of energy-efficient design and sustainable building practices. In 2014, they added more than 400 roof-top solar panels. In doing so, Holy Wisdom became MG&E’s largest solar customer and was generating approximately 60% of our total energy needs directly from the solar panels. Just recently, the need to replace a failing gas boiler in the Retreat and Guest House prompted the monastery to take the final steps towards net-zero. Working with experts to install additional solar panels, additional geothermal wells and a battery energy storage system, Holy Wisdom will be generating 100% of our energy needs onsite from renewable sources by the end of this year.

With the rooftops of our buildings already covered with panels, discussions began about where we might locate 300 kilowatts of solar panels. The dredge field close to the Retreat and Guest House was a clear and wonderful choice. Installing the ground-mounted panels here, on the spoils of the Lost Lake restoration, didn’t disturb any high-quality prairie communities. It was also located close to key electrical infrastructure, which helped keep project costs down. And by choosing this location for the panels, we are rewriting the narrative of ‘weedy, failed prairie’ to ‘climate-friendly future.’

This is the story of a lake that was lost and then found, and the prairie that protects it. It is the story of displaced soil that refused to grow prairie and lay patiently waiting until we realized that perhaps its true gift was to grow solar power. And it is also a story that involves each of us: let the first annual spring tilt begin!