MMSD Freshwater Resources Monitoring: 2023 Annual Summary

A Closer Examination of Underwood Creek

The main channel of Underwood Creek originates in the City of Brookfield and flows approximately eight miles in a generally eastern direction to its confluence with the Menomonee River. The Underwood Creek Watershed encompasses approximately 19.8 square miles and includes portions of the municipalities of Brookfield, Elm Grove, Milwaukee, Wauwatosa, and West Allis. A high percentage of the creek bed is concrete-lined, has poor habitat for aquatic organisms, and is impaired for water quality.​

A watershed of this size requires large amounts of effort and assets to make a difference in water quality. Even so, MMSD and our partners have embraced multiple improvement projects of varying types. This area has seen both large projects like the  County Grounds and almost two miles of concrete removed, but also smaller projects like a homeowner who plants a rain garden in their yard. It's a holistic approach that incorporates projects of all sizes to tackle the problems facing Underwood Creek and adding their impacts together to affect change.

Watershed restoration can take an extremely long time to realize water quality improvements. Long-term monitoring is critical not only to document these changes after the completion of the project but also to collect adequate data to determine a baseline. MMSD has been actively monitoring Underwood Creek since 2003 and a number of exciting projects have happened in that time. ​View the Underwood Creek timeline starting in 1960 to 2023. 

Adopt-A-River

Looking for something to do as a team? Something that will bring you closer together, make a huge difference in your community, and only needs to be done twice per year? Consider adopting a section of the Milwaukee, Menomonee and Kinnickinnic Rivers.