Thank you for another great year implementing the Lake Monroe Watershed Management Plan and educating our community about the importance of keeping Lake Monroe drinkable, swimmable, and fishable.
One highlight was our Watershed Tour focused on South Fork Salt Creek. We discussed the geology of the watershed, the role of Hoosier National Forest, the addition of a flow monitoring gage on South Fork Salt Creek, and the importance of land management in protecting water quality.
Conservation Program We completed four more projects under our Conservation Cost-Share Program - the alternate watering system and heavy use pad at CYO Camp Rancho Framasa pictured at left, a pollinator planting, a water and sediment control basin (WASCOB), and over 400 acres of cover crops.
Community Outreach We continued to table at events all around the region - farmers’ markets, county fairs, Earth Day celebrations, fall festivals, Green Drinks gatherings, and more. This has been a great way to spread the word about the importance of protecting Lake Monroe.
Forestry Field Day Longtime supporters and watershed residents Mary Madore and Michael May hosted a field day and shared their story of forest stewardship. We learned a ton about their efforts to reduce trail erosion by building water bars with metal guard rails.
Septic Voucher Program With generous funding from the Raymond Foundation, we educated homeowners in Jackson County about the importance of pumping your septic tank every 3-5 years. So far we have assisted 24 households with the cost of pumping and we recently expanded the program into Brown County.
Shoreline Cleanups We continued to hold our monthly shoreline cleanups at Paynetown State Recreation Area. The Indiana Department of Natural Resources honored us for completing our 8th straight year in their Adopt-A-Shoreline program! Thank you Richard Harris for all your work!
Lake Monroe Day We hosted our fourth annual Lake Monroe Day Celebration at the Fields Clubhouse with great music from King Bee and the Stingers. Many thanks to everyone who contributed to making the event successful! We look forward to continuing this tradition in 2026.
Looking Ahead at 2026
Our work continues in 2026 with a new grant from the Indiana Department of Environmental Management. This grant, combined with generous cash matches from City of Bloomington Utilities and Monroe County Stormwater, will fund the Watershed Coordinator position for three more years and provide $180,000 to fund conservation projects in the watershed. We will continue our outreach efforts with strategies like hosting agricultural field days, running septic education workshops, developing a new interactive display encouraging our community to protect the watershed, and using the display at events in Monroe, Brown, and Jackson Counties.
Please help us spread the word to any landowners in the watershed who might be interested in adopting new soil and water conservation techniques like planting trees along streams, addressing trail erosion with water bars, planting cover crops on fields, installing alternate watering sources and heavy use area protection for livestock, or restoring floodplain areas. Questions can be directed to watershed coordinator Maggie Sullivan at 812-558-0217 or watershed@friendsoflakemonroe.org.
Save the Date!
On Thursday February 5th at 5:00pm, IU will host former EPA Administrator and White House Climate Advisor Gina McCarthy. Her talk is titled “Advocating for the Environment as if our Future Depended Upon It.” The event, co-sponsored by Concerned Scientists @IU, Advocates for Science @IU, and the Environmental Law Society, will be held in the IU Maurer School of Law’s Sherman Minton Moot Court Room (Baier Hall, 211 S. Indiana Ave., room 123). Her talk will be followed by informal conversation with IU’s Janet McCabe, former Deputy Administrator of the EPA and Director of the IU Environmental Resilience Institute. The event is free and open to the public.
Thank You FLM Board of Directors
Sherry Mitchell-Bruker, President Dr. Sherry Mitchell-Bruker has worked as a hydrologist to preserve, protect, and manage water resources for over thirty years. Her career in environmental research, consulting, and management has taken her from Indiana to the Everglades, the Sierra Nevada, and back home to Indiana where she founded Friends of Lake Monroe.
Lisa Townsend, Vice President
Lisa Townsend is a retired marketing professional with over 35 years of experience with organizations like Indiana University and the Children’s Museum of Indianapolis. She also holds a master’s degree in organic chemistry from Purdue University and is a former science educator. Lisa is an avid traveler and loves the outdoors including gardening, hiking, camping, and SCUBA diving.
Landon Yoder, Secretary Dr. Landon Yoder is an assistant professor at Indiana University’s O’Neill School of Public and Environmental Affairs. He is a human-environment geographer whose research focuses on social-ecological systems, collaborative governance, and farmer decision-making. He has worked with farmers, watershed coordinator, conservationists, and government officials to find ways to collaboratively tackled water quality challenges.
Joe Ryan, Treasurer Joe Ryan taught university economics and then had a career as a USAID Foreign Service Officer before retiring in 2014 to Bloomington, his native place. He now teaches about international economic issues at IU. His interest in environmental matters was heightened by heading USAID/Peru’s office assisting biodiversity protection in the Peruvian Amazon.
Christy Crandall, Science Chair Christy A. Crandall, PhD, a native Hoosier, grew up in Brown County. She holds a B.S. in Geology from IU, an M.S. in Watershed Sciences from Colorado State University, and a Ph.D. from Florida A&M University. She has worked as a hydrologist and ecological scientist in the Everglades National Park, the front range of Colorado, and throughout Florida and Georgia. She lives with her spouse and their two dogs and cat in her childhood home in Brown County.
Kelly Conway Kelly is the business owner of Drift Botanicals. Drift produces plant based cleaning formulas in refillable containers with the focus being keeping plastics out of our landfill and our watershed. Kelly loves kayaking, hiking and camping with her family. Being an advocate for the Lake Monroe watershed is a role she enjoys greatly and feels a great sense of duty in protecting the natural resources in our community.
Trent Deckard Trent Deckard is an at-large member of the Monroe County Council. He comes from a nine-generation Monroe County family of quarry workers, farmers, factory workers, and public servants – many of which lived in and around Lake Monroe. He is also a faculty member at Indiana University's Kelley School of Business. Trent is married to Kyla, and they have two daughters, Madeline and Lucy, Curry the cat, and a collection of 27,000 comic books he has collected since childhood.
Friends of Lake Monroe depends on members like you to keep our organization strong. Join today to help us keep the lake drinkable, swimmable, and fishable. Individual membership is only $25 annually.
