WAUPUN — It’s a historic time for Waupun’s Mill Pond and this branch of the Rock River.
For the better part of this month, the Waupun Mill Pond has been draining of water. The Waupun Department of Public Works had announced that the low water level was due to a malfunction with the bypass valve to the Mill Pond dam, which has been stuck open since before Monday, September 9.
Due to this, the river has completely drained from the Mill Pond to the point the pond has almost entirely receded into mud—exposing many lost or discarded items to air for the first time in years.
At the City Council meeting held Tuesday, September 24, Public Works Director Jeff Daane gave an update to the Council regarding the situation with the Mill Pond dam. The DPW spoke to the dam contractor Tuesday before the meeting and reviewed options for how to repair the dam.
A complete new valve gateway would cost $5,000—which Daane said wasn’t a bad price, but it comes with a lead time of one to two months. The DPW is still looking at suppliers for the parts but no timeframe was given.
Also according to Daane, the DNR is not concerned about how long the dam remains open, but that they have procedures for when it will be closed that the City will need to follow when they can fix the bypass valve.
In the meantime, many scrappers and residents who have interest in the lowered water level have found a considerable amount of items that would otherwise be completely submerged.
One of the first locals to search the river was Brian Wilderman, who primarily focused on the bend of the river near the end of N. State St. and Reinhardt St. He found mostly scrap metal and broken glass and pottery, but notably found several intact glass bottles including one that was embossed with “Herman Engel, Fond du Lac.” His first collection of finds are pictured below.
Of the things not pictured, he also found 1/2 of 5gal pail of hockey pucks, eight 5gal pails of plastic bottles and bags, two 5gal pails of shoes, shirts, and socks, three 5gal pails of broken glass, various pieces to seven or eight crockpots, various other broken glassware, a kids scooter, and a full pickup truck of scrap metal.
Prompted by Wilderman’s finds, Dana Munro, a local scrapper, began collecting along the river herself. She mostly focused on the area of the railroad bridge where she found a lot of scrap and more.
This included broken and whole bottles, bikes, railroad plates and ties, construction materials including rebar, manhole cover, and street sign poles, airsoft gun parts, old shovels and other tools, grinding wheels, a piece of a table saw, pieces of ceramic jars, and—most interestingly—an empty safe.
Munro also had magnet fishing Youtube channel The Rusty Magnets come and film opening the safe, which was found to only have river muck inside. They also did some magnet fishing around the railroad bridge into the river and the Mill Pond.
She also found several intact bottles, including an interesting blue bottle and a mason jar, pictured below.
Waupun was fortunate to have had this issue with the dam at this time, as it made the job of the annual Waterway Cleanup much easier and more thorough.
The Waupun Waterway Cleanup is an annual event promoted by Protect Wisconsin Waterways in collaboration with the City of Waupun, typically held in mid-September. Public Works Director Jeff Daane gave a few words at the event, which was held on Saturday, September 21 starting at 8AM.
Some things that were found during the Waterway Cleanup included four tires, large metal pieces, a wheelbarrow, and lots of various trash, including discarded soda cans and water bottles.
“We personally didn’t find anything tremendously interesting, cans, plastic bottles, pieces of metal, clay tiles,” said Charles Lehman, who was helping with the Waterway Cleanup around the railroad bridge. “But the volume of collected debris was greater than years past in combination to a large turnout of volunteers and the low water.”
Lehman is also the vice president of the Waupun Fine Arts Committee.
Despite all the efforts of scrappers and the cleanup crew, some items are still inaccessible due to the mud in the pond. A plastic lawn chair can be seen in the center of the Mill Pond, along with another bike that became visible last week not far from the railroad bridge.
Also in the middle of the Mill Pond is the fountain, currently tipped on its side in the mud.
Two items that were found over the last few weeks required police presence, which included a handgun recovered from under the railroad and another where three canister-shaped items were found near the end of N. State St. that resembled old ordnance.
The canister-shaped items were found by Brian Wilderman on Setepmber 14 around 3PM, buried in the mud at the river’s bend near N. State St. and Reinhardt St. along with many other items. He called the Waupun Police Department, who after looking at them requested the assistance of the Dane County bomb squad, who took them to a safe location along with other items found in the same location to assist in identifying their age.
Police Chief Jeremy Rasch gave an update on these at Tuesday’s City Council meeting, indicating they were probably, thankfully, not explosive devices.
“The commander from the bomb squad was recently at a training within the last week and he was showing images of these items to other members of bomb squads from throughout the country,” said Chief Rasch. “None of them were able to identify what these items were. Dane County is still going to investigate that to see what they are. They don’t believe that they were ordinance. He said he was about 99% sure that they were not explosives just due to his experience and the other people’s experience that he spoke to about these items.”
If the bomb squad is able to determine for a fact they are not any kind of explosive device, they will likely be returned to Waupun. If they cannot identify what the canisters are, they will attempt to safely destroy them in a detonation bunker as is policy for this sort of situation.
Regardless of whether they are not actually explosives, Chief Rasch emphasized it was the right thing to do to call them in.
As for the handgun, it was found on September 17 under the railroad bridge. According to Chief Rasch, when the gun had been found it was unable to be made safe on-scene due to the condition of the slide mechanism. Upon investigation the gun was found to have been stolen in 2013 and was turned over to the Fond du Lac Sheriff’s Department to assist in their own investigation on the matter.
There were rumors that other firearms had been found, but no other reports had been made to the Waupun Police Department.
Another interesting find that was reported to the City Council was a 6-inch water main valve, which Waupun Utilities was called in to take a look at.
“We received a call from someone in the community that found something in the Mill Pond near the railroad trestles which they believed was utility related,” said Utilities director Steve Brooks. “So, our staff went out and looked at the item and found it to be a water main valve. It didn’t look all that old—something similar to what we still install—so they retrieved the valve and brought it back to our shop.”
“We were able to disassemble it and clean it up, and we realized it’s a six inch water main valve, something similar to what we would put in today,” he said. “They replaced a few of the seals and looped everything up and it’ll be part of our inventory and we’ll end up out on the system somewhere so it’s a pretty good find actually.”
The valve had been found by Brian Wilderman under the old rail bridge, closer to the south side of the river and under three feet of water.
According to Brooks, the valve has left-handed close valves, which are relatively unique to the City of Waupun. This led him to speculate it had been lost or taken off a construction site in the area and ended up in the river. Brooks speculated that the most likely time would have been during the reconstruction of N. Madison St.
“They’re not cheap, so we’re happy that somebody pointed it out to us,” Brooks added.
The Mill Pond and upstream Rock River are expected to remain low until the dam can be repaired.
Updated 10:17PM 9/25/24. Added paragraph about where the valve was found.
