The foundation for the Samers Bay breakwall in Lake Butte des Morts. October 8, 2026. PC: Fox 11 Online
(WTAQ-WLUK) — A new breakwall is being built along the shore of Lake Butte des Morts. The goal is to restore eroding wetlands.
“On this system here, we’ve lost tens of thousands of acres since the dams were installed in the middle 1850’s,” said Winnebago County Land and Water Conservation Director Chad Casper. “The water levels rose by about 3 feet; it’s created a high energy system which creates a lot of erosion along these wetlands and these breakwalls are a way to mitigate some of those losses.”
The Samers Bay Breakwall project is being done in collaboration with numerous local and state agencies.
That includes the Wisconsin DNR. The project is expected to cost around $1 million when all said and done.
“Over time there’s been an estimated around 90 acres of wetland loss in this area, kind of helps dissipate the wind wave action as well as ice energy even,” said Angelo Cozzola with the Wisconsin DNR.
Usually, the work is done during the winter, when dump trucks can just drive over the ice. But Cozzola said in recent years, ice conditions haven’t been solid enough to support the trucks.
This isn’t Winnebago County’s first foray into breakwall construction. The county has installed over 40,000 feet of breakwalls along Lakes Poygan, Winneconne, and Butte des Morts.
“They serve a lot of values as far as flood storage, it’s amazing habitat for a number of different species, for fish, for spawning,” Casper said. “They’re really the kidneys that help filter pollutancy on the systems.”
The county designed the breakwall. It also gathered funding from partners within the DNR, the Great Lakes Restoration Initiative, the Fox River Trustee Council and more.
Work began on the wall in 2020, and officials expect it to be complete by October 16.
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