The paint has yet to dry on this porch and it already calls us out of the house and into a luscious garden outdoors where the gentlest breeze gathers admirers, conveys the scent of flowering blooms, and passes through effortlessly where no mosquito can follow. As a fruit of the labor of local architects, builders and craftsman, it speaks to the values of folks who first built houses in Tenney-Lapham in styles inspired by the Arts and Crafts movement and by California bungalows. When sitting just so, the windows frame shimmering light, trembling shrubs, splashes of color and flowing trees into paintings that refresh themselves throughout the day and season. And, a glance in the other direction shows just how badly the garage needs work. Oh well, one project at a time. Nonetheless, we think that the porch will gather good neighbors, conversation and laughter for many years to come.

As much as a thunderstorm can be appreciated from the vantage of a porch joining the best of indoors and out, the rains bring a certain disquiet to the porch these days. Frequent visits to the locks and dam on the Yahara at Tenney Park make the costs of our cumulative construction most apparent. City engineers, parks officials and the UW coastal engineering professor all agree that we are doing what we can by heightening the trail along the beach with gravel and plastic, and by installing temporary cement barricades to diminish the action of wind and waves. The fact is, there is no way to take water out of Mendota faster, and no simple way to slow the flow out of the watershed and into the lakes and rivers. The soil is saturated from above and filled up from beneath as water flows both over and through. The level of Lake Mendota, as many residents are all too painfully aware, is not only the highest in recorded history, it is much higher than many basements and even our yards.

My porch should share the blame. It’s longer and wider than the old one that was just a slab, three posts and a roof. If the area of water-absorbing lawn and garden recently covered by concrete was an additional five feet by twenty feet, that is 100 square feet less sponge area to soak up the rain. If it rained six extra inches in a week, then an extra 50 cubic feet of water ran off towards the lakes, rivers and basements. If your basement is 600 square feet, this water would cover it all to a depth of one inch.

A porch is very, very small in comparison to the area of parking lots that surround and expand from the East Towne Mall or in comparison to the acres of soil covered by new buildings at the American Center or whatever that is called out past East Towne on the way to Sun Prairie. Still the cumulative effect of all the new houses and even new additions to old houses in Madison and Dane County is stunning. We can watch it thunder over the Tenney Park Dam and lap at sandbags encircling all the Four Lakes Chain and beyond. We can see the nasty effects of fertilizer runoff and eroding soils that are swept along to fill in the lakes and grow weed and algae that carpet the water. We’re flooding ourselves is the truth of the matter.

So what to do in our neighborhood, at our houses and in our yards? Here ís the entreaty. Little and large we can make a difference. Grow a tree. One tree can transpire 75 to 100 gallons of water into the atmosphere in a day. Divert rain trough outflow from driveways and streets to lawns, gardens and our own little landscaped ponds and wetlands in yards. Let’s make expanding the wetlands along the Yahara and creating a new park in the Central Rail Corridor on the other side of E. Washington happen. All of these efforts can soak up the rain and help to release it more slowly back into the lakes and rivers.

If staring at the rising water is more than enough to inspire you to help change our landscape for the better, that’s great. If you’re not sure where to start, give us a call. We have a cornucopia of people with expertise and opportunities and venues for change. We can meet on the porch and start from there.

-Tim Olson