UW-Platteville students to help with Scotch Creek project

A group of engineering students from UW-Platteville will be helping the village of Edgar with its Scotch Creek restoration efforts as part of a senior class project that will eventually produce a plan that can be used to reshape the waterway.

Edgar native Gordon Krall, who now lives in California and has been coordinating the restoration project remotely, told the village board Monday that he spoke to the faculty chairman of UW-Platteville’s Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, who agreed to accept the design engineering task as a class project.

“So, that’s a senior project that three to five kids do every time they get to the end of their semester, and it’s an actual deliverable that they produce,” he said.

Krall said the students would like to meet with village officials, either in person or over Zoom, to discuss the scope of the project, which he said would be “mutually beneficial” for the village and the students. He said the preliminary plans written by the students could be used to obtain grants and necessary permits from the DNR.

To verify the university’s previous work, Krall said he spoke to someone at EOR, Inc., which has been hired by the village to work on Scotch Creek and previously worked with UW-Platteville.

“He said they did very good work and he’d be happy to work them,” he said.

The project itself would be done during the spring semester next year, but Krall said the students will start their outreach efforts this fall with three or four presentations, an on-site walk-through and discussions about the scope of the project. Krall said the board would ideally select one of its members to serve as an intermediary between the village and the university.

The work would be done at no cost to the village, he noted.

“I like that,” said village president Terry Lepak.

Once the students’ preliminary plans are developed, Krall said there would be a “seamless handoff” to a private engineering firm to complete the work.

In other project-related news, Krall said he has gotten an overwhelming response so far from donors who have contributed items for a silent auction fundraiser. Prizes range from gift baskets to a pair of round-trip tickets to anywhere in the world donated by WestJet airline, he said.

Krall said he would make a full presentation to the board next month about the silent auction idea.

“You’ve got real donors now that see merit in this activity,” he told trustees. “You could take this silent auction as a concept and weave it into another event that you have going on or it could be a standalone event.”

For over a year now, Krall has been applying for grants and seeking other funding services and volunteers to help rehabilitate Scotch Creek and its shoreline to a more natural state that supports a healthier fishery and other wildlife.

Other business

■ Both the planning commission and the village board reviewed and approved an update to the village’s comprehensive plan, with the last-minute addition of Marathon County’s All-Hazards Mitigation Plan and an appendix that looks at the fiscal impacts of different growth scenarios.

■ The board approved the closure of Oak Street, from Third to First Avenue, on Saturday, Oct. 4, from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m., for the rescheduled Chalk Fest and Car Show.

■ The board renewed the village’s health insurance plan for employees, with a roughly $4,200 annual increase (13 percent) in premiums for 2026, with single employees paying $13 more per paycheck and those with family plans paying $33 more.

■ The board approved a change order for the village’s USDA-funded wastewater treatment plant project, adding a total of $322,179 in costs for a new ultraviolet disinfection system and a new hatch for the lift station on Redwood Street. The village had originally hoped to do more extensive updates to the lift station, but with components not expected to arrive until later next year, the USDA’s Rural Development representatives refused to sign off on the longer extension. Instead, the substantial completion date was pushed back to Jan. 31, 2026.

■ The board voted to set trick-or-treating hours from 3 to 5 p.m. on Sunday, Oct. 26. Lepak voted no, preferring to have trick-ortreating done on Halloween itself.