The Clean Lakes Alliance, a Madison based non-profit organization that works to protect the water quality of lakes, streams, and wetlands in the Yahara River Watershed, hosted its 12th annual Frozen Assets Festival Feb. 3-4.
The Clean Lake Alliance Marketing and Communications Director Adam Sodersten said the festival typically takes place over nine days, with a fundraiser, educational seminars, and several gatherings early in the first part of the festival, capped off by two days of lake-centric activities on the first Saturday and Sunday of the month. Those activities traditionally include ice skating, a 5K run, kite flying, and skydiving, all on Lake Mendota.
This year, warm weather and unsafe ice-conditions forced the organizers of the Frozen Assets Festival to pivot away from many of the festival’s hallmark activities.
Sodersten said in the 12 year history of the Frozen Assets Festival, they have always held activities on the ice, until this year.
Of course, festival organizers did not want to forgo the event’s hallmark activities, Sodersten said, but worsening ice conditions left them no choice.
“We’ve been drilling holes obsessively for the last two weeks,” Sodersten said. “As it got closer to the date, the ice thickness wasn’t terrible, it was about seven inches, but the quality wasn’t great. And we just knew that it wasn’t worth the risk.”
Nevertheless, organizers of the festival found ways to celebrate the lake and raise awareness. The 5K was replaced with “Madison’s Largest Winter Workout,” and, according to Sodersten, experts from University of Wisconsin Limnology and Physics Departments were still able hold demonstrations and educational activities, at times using a large ice cube that had been brought to the Edgewater Plaza.
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Not only has the warmer weather forced festivals like the Frozen Assets Festival to change, but it has had an impact on the lake itself — where the median freeze date is traditional Dec. 20 for Lake Mendota, and more often than not the freeze has occurred after that date in recent years, according to Sodersten.
Sodersten elaborated that a lack of snow cover on the ice also disturbs aquatic plant life — where less snow and ice means more sun penetration into the lake during the winter and disruption of the plants’ photosynthetic cycles.
In the face of all these challenges, Sodersten said that the willingness of Madison residents to do what they can for the health of the lakes — like supporting The Clean Lakes Alliance — is nonetheless encouraging.
“They have a civic minded mindfulness, no matter what political affiliation they are, they are definitely respectful to the lakes,” Sodersten said. “Everybody is willing to do what they can to help which is very rewarding.”
The Clean Lakes Alliance’s next event will be their twelfth annual Loop the Lake Bike Ride June 15.
