Milwaukee Riverkeeper: Making Our Rivers Swimmable & Fishable
To celebrate our waterways and involve local artists in a family-friendly event drawing hundreds to our public shorelines, Milwaukee Riverkeeper sponsors the annual Milwaukee Boat Parade. Featured above is the Milwaukee Manatees float from 2019. Did you know we have an underwater hockey team? (Did you even know underwater hockey is a thing?)
Meet Milwaukee Riverkeeper. With offices in the School of Freshwater Sciences building on E. Greenfield Avenue, this nonprofit organization is dedicated to improving the quality of our rivers and Lake Michigan.
Peopled by passionate advocates with a wide range of scientific, law, policy, and engagement expertise, Milwaukee Riverkeeper’s work supports healthy rivers that we can play in, on, or around. The ultimate goal is fishable, swimmable waters.
The group conducts volunteer-led water quality monitoring that informs an annual report card on the health of our rivers and watersheds, performs research into topics ranging from road salt to freshwater mussels, supports efforts to clean up the Milwaukee Estuary Area of Concern, and rallies the public in its popular river cleanup every April.
Making a splash in helping Milwaukee “turn back to the water” for recreation and other engagement, Riverkeeper has also led the way by recasting our relationship to local waterways through its Urban Water Trail and more recently sponsoring the Boat Parade.
Milwaukee Riverkeeper conducts social paddles on each of Milwaukee’s three rivers every summer. Water expert Cheryl Nenn narrates amazing context and the group stops at a fun waterfront location along the Urban Water Trail.
Much like a map of bike trails over land, the Urban Water Trail identifies safe public access points for small watercraft plus points of attraction and hazards along Milwaukee’s three major rivers: the Milwaukee, the Menomonee, and the Kinnickinnic.
Following the removal of the North Avenue Dam in 1997, there has been a resurgence in kayaking, canoeing, rowing, and other boating on the Milwaukee River.
Enhancements to the Menomonee River and the addition of a canoe/kayak landing in Three Bridges Park made that river more accessible to paddlers and not just fisherpersons.
The 2019 addition of Harbor View Plaza adds even more accessibility to boaters looking to explore the Inner Harbor and Kinnickinnic River.
Along the way, riverfront restaurants and bars like Barnacle Bud’s, Twisted Fisherman, and Lakefront Brewery provide nearby access to paddlers, allowing people to see and experience the city from a fresh perspective—from the water.