In The News – School of Freshwater Sciences

Monitoring change on Wisconsin’s Shipwreck Coast

Bo Charles Bayerl — Mon, 30 Mar 2026 14:49:14 +0000

Research Specialist Jessie Grow was featured in a recent on the development of National Marine Sanctuary’s “Shipwreck Sentinel” buoy. Grow is part of a collaborative effort by 51��-SFS and NOAA working on the Wisconsin Shipwreck Coast Sentinel project in Sheboygan, Wisconsin. It aims to deploy a real-time system to improve forecasting, support public safety decisions, and provide insights for researchers.

Grow explains, “Nearshore conditions in mid-Lake Michigan can change quickly, yet historically there have been few site-specific, continuously operating observing platforms in this region.” In 2023, a grant from the Fund for Lake Michigan helped expand the Wisconsin Shipwreck Coast Sentinel project.

In 2022, WSCNMS started a pilot project that demonstrated the need for real-time lake data. The initial system used during the pilot comprised three small, “smart moorings” deployed within the WSCNMS and equipped to provide real-time wind, wave, and water temperature measurements.

“While these buoy systems have helped improve overall coverage and confirmed strong user engagement,” Grow says, “Their design limits the types of measurements they can support, including water quality and current profiles. Additionally, some parameters are estimated rather than directly measured.”

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Diving deep: high school students compete in 8th annual underwater robot competition

Bo Charles Bayerl — Tue, 17 Mar 2026 19:08:50 +0000

For the eighth year, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee hosted the Southeast Wisconsin Regional SeaPerch Competition. The future of STEM was on display at the Klotsche Center pool on Sunday, March 15. This event brought together 26 teams from across the state to participate in a competition with underwater ROVs (remotely operated vehicles). The top placing three teams will compete in the international tournament held at the University of Maryland in June.

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Center for Water Policy director featured on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel data centers panel

Bo Charles Bayerl — Fri, 27 Feb 2026 16:44:28 +0000

Center for Water Policy Director, Professor, and Lynde B. Uihlein Endowed Chair Melissa Scanlan was a featured expert on the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel’s Town Hall February 23rd panel on water use by AI-data centers at Turner Hall Ballroom. Professor Scanlan highlighted that water demands include the water used to create electricity for the data centers and water used to cool them. She also emphasized the level of governance needed is at the scale where impacts are seen (state and regional).��

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Freshwater Sciences alum featured in New York Times for methane gas in wetlands research

Bo Charles Bayerl — Wed, 18 Feb 2026 22:36:09 +0000

Gage Hunter, a Freshwater Sciences alum, is featured in this article from The New York Times. Gage is now pursuing a PhD at LSU and is doing research on methane gas and how it’s leading to climate warming in wetlands.

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Center for Water Policy quoted in Washington Post story

Bo Charles Bayerl — Mon, 26 Jan 2026 22:00:22 +0000

Center for Water Policy Director, Professor, and Lynde B. Uihlein Endowed Chair Melissa Scanlan was quoted in a Washington Post article examining a recent report from the United Nations University, the U.N.’s research arm, that finds climate change, pollution and decades of overuse have pushed the world into a state of “water bankruptcy,” a state they define as a long-term condition that requires a global reset in approaches.

Fresh water is a finite resource with inputs and outputs that make up a global water budget. People worldwide are starting to experience the impacts of overspending that budget. “The global scope of the report is useful in showing repeat patterns,” Scanlan said. “It’s not just the Southern Hemisphere, it’s not just the Middle East. There is something larger at play in terms of how we’re treating water across the world.” Professor Scanlan’s water law and policy research has included analysis of water budget issues closer to home, highlighting how climate change and population pressures have intensified water management challenges in the relatively water-rich North American Great Lakes.

Read the full article from the Washington Post: .��𲹻��ٳ�� .��

And read the Center’s law review article on climate change and population pressures intensifying water management challenges.

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Center for Water Policy’s work on abandoned boats cited in Bailey’s Harbor tug boat fate

Bo Charles Bayerl — Mon, 22 Dec 2025 20:18:48 +0000

Door County Knock recently published on the Donny S., a 143-foot tug boat that is sitting abandoned in northeast Bailey’s Harbor. It’s fate remains unknown. A current inspection and evaluation of the boat’s environmental condition and contents, by an authorized entity, is crucial for any progress toward removing the Donny S., according to Tressie Kamp, assistant director at the Center for Water Policy. The Center’s policy brief on abandoned boats was also cited in the article.

“Government actors need to go on the boat and understand what the conditions are years after the last Coast Guard inspection,” Kamp said. Anyone who wants to do something about the tug, whether government or private actors, cannot know what efforts will consist of, or how much it will cost, until that happens, she added.

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Uncovering data center water usage

Bo Charles Bayerl — Wed, 17 Dec 2025 20:32:08 +0000

Professor and Director of 51��’s Center for Water Policy, Melissa Scanlan, talks about many ways data centers use great amounts of water with .

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Weighing in on Lake Michigan public beach access

Bo Charles Bayerl — Wed, 17 Dec 2025 20:21:06 +0000

Where can the public walk along Lake Michigan? That’s the question at hand for the recent municipal court trial in Shorewood where a man was accused of trespassing after taking a route north of Atwater Beach. He’s contesting the $313 fine out of principle. Melissa Scanlan, professor and director of the Center for Water Policy, said there hasn’t been a Wisconsin court case or administrative rule relating to walking up below the high water mark on Great Lakes shorelines.

Scanlan was cited in and articles, concerning the fine.

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CWP talks importance of protecting Wisconsin’s wetlands

Bo Charles Bayerl — Wed, 17 Dec 2025 20:03:01 +0000

Tressie Kamp, Assistant Director of 51��’s Center for Water Policy, was recently quoted in a Great Lakes Now article on Wisconsin’s wetlands.

“In southeast Wisconsin in particular, this issue exemplifies how the protection or lack of protection in an area can impact such a wide swath of stakeholders,” said Tressie Kamp, assistant director of the Center for Water Policy at University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.

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Center for Water Policy Director Melissa Scanlan Featured in NPR Story on Data Centers’ Environmental Impact

Bo Charles Bayerl — Thu, 16 Oct 2025 14:42:05 +0000

Center for Water Policy Director, Professor & Lynde B. Uihlein Endowed Chair Melissa Scanlan was featured in a recent NPR article examining the rapid expansion of data centers across the United States and the accompanying environmental challenges. The article highlights increasing public opposition to data center projects, citing worries over electricity demand, climate impacts, and a lack of transparency around water and energy use.��

She commented that the Great Lakes states are seeing the “rollout of what these massive investments in data centers are potentially going to start to look like on the ground.”

Read the full story on NPR:

Check out more of thier work on data centers and water policy on their publications��Ի��news��貹��!��

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