Friend of Water: Christopher Magruder
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| Magruder stands in front of the Menomonee River in Hart Park in Wauwatosa, Wis. As Project Manager of the Regional Flood Management Plan, he helped improve river water quality while protecting the people and homes in the river's flood plains. |
“I am one of the few guys that can say I walked out to the lighthouse in the harbor,” says Christopher Magruder, who braved dangerous ice and open water to reach a weather station operated by the Milwaukee Metropolitan Sewerage District (MMSD) in the early 1980s.
A particularly devastating winter storm had caused the harbor to freeze over—a rare event in Milwaukee—and one-mile journey almost thirty years ago was one of Magruder’s more harrowing experiences since joining the district. “They never would allow us to do it today.”
A particularly devastating winter storm had caused the harbor to freeze over—a rare event in Milwaukee—and one-mile journey almost thirty years ago was one of Magruder’s more harrowing experiences since joining the district. “They never would allow us to do it today.”
Nor would he likely be asked to do so. Today Magruder is the Community Environmental Liaison with MMSD, a position that tasks him with management of the Districts’ numerous research and planning projects aimed at protecting the metro-area’s water resources, as well as communicating the goals of those project and the opportunities they bring to the community.
During his tenure with MMSD—getting his start as the first aquatic biologist at the District, to becoming a Limnology Supervisor and then Project Manager for flood management, to his current role—Magruder has proven a tremendous and influential asset to Southeastern Wisconsin. He has many accomplishments, but the work he is most proud of is the Valley Park Project in Milwaukee and the Hart Park Project in Wauwatosa, Wis., because they help so many people.
Intense work in this region began after floods in 1997 left the area surrounding the Menomonee River and its tributaries under water. Homes flooded throughout the region, and as MMSD began looking into long-term solutions, Magruder was named water course project manager for the region and spent his days working on flood planning and nights at public meetings, informing the public about the direction the project was taking.
“Working with these neighborhoods, working with people in general, trying to get them to understand all of this—why there was flooding, how land use affects flooding, how things could be better—it took a lot of negotiating and a lot of patience and hard work on my part and on their part to do that,” explained Magruder.
The Menomonee River, which flows through the heart of Milwaukee, was degraded. Through the Regional Flood Management Plan, Magruder and the MMSD team developed and looked at ways to restore some of the river’s original functioning in order to reduce the high flows that came through the Wauwatosa area. The team also determined which homes along the river system couldn’t be saved due to the urban conditions and high flooding that came as a result of heavy rain events. Magruder did this type of assessment all along the Menomonee River and for the other five watersheds that MMSD has jurisdictional authority for. His assessments were understandably controversial.
“The ultimate goal is to have a better quality of life, to protect the resources, prevent the homes from flooding or basements backing up and that’s something we are still working on,” says Magruder, who has witnessed progressive infrastructure and water quality improvements over the decades, and especially over the past ten years or so. “Its hundreds of millions of dollars spent on improving the area. The quality of water has been improving dramatically. When I came to this area in 1979 and I would go downtown, any time it rained there was an overflow. Any time it rained.”
For its watershed-based approaches toward water sustainability, MMSD was honored by the Clean Water America Alliance with a 2012 U.S. Water Prize, the second award for a Milwaukee organization in two years. Under the direction of executive director Kevin Shafer, MMSD has implemented progressive policies that include removing the concrete walls that line Milwaukee’s three major rivers and many of their tributaries.
“I think just really seeing how the rivers cleaned up is most memorable for me, especially the Milwaukee River” said Magruder. “People don’t realize that in 30 years, it’s really changed a lot and unless you were around for that, you wouldn’t really know.”
Part of Magruder’ role today is to work with the UWM School of Freshwater Sciences (SFS) and other partners to conduct applied research that can lead to even greater improvements. These include studying the fate and impacts of emerging contaminants and their degradation in wastewater, identifying major phosphorus pathways in the Lake Michigan nearshore zone, determining the contribution of unrecognized sanitary sewage contamination to urban stormwater discharges, and others.
Magruder has been an important SFS partner in establishing the Great Lakes Genomics Center, the nation’s first research center dedicated solely to the application of ground-breaking genomic and molecular tools to issues of freshwater. Data provided by the Genomics Center will be used by MMSD to determine the impact of specific chemicals found in wastewater and provide genomic mapping of inputs to the Lake Michigan ecological system identifying potential waterborne disease agents that could affect human health.
Magruder is excited about the roles that Wisconsin, Milwaukee and UWM are playing in regional, national and international freshwater science issues. “Wisconsin – this is where it’s happening right now. Politics aside, we all want to see better water quality,” he says. “When I was thinking about where to go to college, I didn’t think about UWM, but now, it’s like why would you go anywhere else? You have the Lake here, the resources right here, the scientists, it’s the place to be.”
