March 14, 2026
By TIM HUNDT
VIROQUA Wis. – Vernon County is tapping into the resources of the state university system to solve local infrastructure and conservation challenges. The county recently applied for and secured partnerships through the UniverCity Alliance program connecting local officials with professors and students to research flood mitigation strategies.
Vernon County Geographic Information Systems Coordinator Monique Hassman played a key role in connecting the county with the UniverCity Alliance program with the Vernon County Flood Mitigation Alliance.
UniverCity Alliance is a University of Wisconsin–Madison program that connects Wisconsin local governments with UW–Madison faculty, staff, and students to work on real‑world community challenges. Its mission is to strengthen communities by applying university research, teaching, and service to issues such as sustainability, housing, economic development, health, infrastructure, and equity.
The program’s flagship initiative, UniverCity Year (UCY), creates multi‑year partnerships (typically three years) in which local governments identify priority projects and UW–Madison teams integrate those projects into courses, research, and internships. Communities receive analysis and recommendations, while students gain hands‑on experience addressing public problems.
County Conservationist David Hettenbach detailed how the program operates during a county board meeting where supervisors officially approved the funding.
“The UniverCity Alliance is basically a program that partners with UW Madison,” said Hettenbach. “They would partner our Flood Mitigation Alliance with some faculty there and then those faculty would have their classes do some research for us and deliver some information back that we could use.”
The size and scope of the partnership was a matter of debate through the the Flood Mitgation Alliance and committee process as the application worked its way to the county board. County staff first proposed six areas of partnership. Other partners included the Coon Creek Community Watershed Council advocated for a wider “watershed wide” approach on the scale of the 1930s Coon Creek Demonstration Project.
Fearing that a large expensive multi-year funding request would be rejected entirely by the full board officials decided the only viable path was to start smaller to prove the value of the program. The Conservation and Education Committee worked to trim the proposal and eventually advanced a narrower package.
“We debated a lot about what the project should be and we got it down to things that we think will be good,” said Hettenbach.
The full Vernon County Board of Supervisors officially approved the partnership during their November 2025 meeting. The board passed two resolutions that amended the 2026 budget allocating $15,000 from non lapsing Land and Water funds to cover the county match for the university projects.
UniverCity Alliance Project Areas
Conservation Messaging Campaign Students will research and develop an educational and messaging campaign to examine best practices for encouraging private landowners in the Coon Creek and West Fork Kickapoo watersheds to install conservation practices.
Conservation Policy Development Students will research and develop policy changes that the county can implement to best encourage and incentivize the installation of conservation practices by private landowners.
Highway Infrastructure Placement Tool Engineering students will help the highway department develop a tool to identify the best locations for “on road structures” to manage water flow and mitigate flooding across county roads.
Environmental Monitoring Prototypes An environmental engineering class is tasked with developing affordable edge of field runoff monitors and river gauges using ultrasonic sensors and cameras to track water heights and flow.
As of Spring 2026 the county has successfully secured student matches and is actively implementing the projects. Hettenbach informed the Flood Mitigation Alliance that the highway engineering tool and the policy review projects will take place during the fall semester but the conservation messaging campaign is already underway.
What Is An On-road Structure?
An “on-road structure” or “on-road detention structure” is a flood mitigation design used to manage how water moves across or underneath roadways. These structures typically utilize road embankments or box culverts to temporarily hold back and retain water slowly meter it out over 24 to 48 hours during heavy rain events. Sometimes referred to as “Iowa-style” structures, they act as retention barriers to slow down water runoff, helping to reduce peak flood levels and protect downstream infrastructure and properties.
“The messaging campaign looking at attitudes and how do we get more people to adopt conservation practices is going to move forward this spring,” said Hettenbach. “We have a meeting tomorrow with a professor and the student. It is actually a senior or a masters student at UW and this is their senior project that they have chosen to take on to look at Vernon County.”
Hettenbach currently meets regularly with a university doctoral student named Caleb to outline outreach strategies. Caleb is currently surveying local attitudes and drafting an engagement plan targeting landowners near aging dams and communities seeing heavy development pressure.
The county is also seeing tangible results from the parallel university project involving environmental engineering. Hettenbach has been working closely with a university class to develop affordable edge of field runoff monitors and river gauges.
“They are currently working on a river gage that would have an ultrasonic sensor for river height and then also would be able to mount a camera to at least get some visuals as well too,” said Hettenbach.
Because commercial water monitoring equipment is incredibly expensive the students were tasked with building a functional prototype using alternative metals and sensors. Hettenbach hopes the class will provide the county with a blueprint to eventually manufacture their own devices internally.
“If what we could come out of and walk away with is, here is this prototype, here is what is missing and why it does not work, and here is what that cost would be,” said Hettenbach. “It will give us some idea if it is something that we think we might be able to fabricate these in the Land and Water Department.”
Supervisor Mary Henry strongly supported the engineering effort noting the university students are uniquely equipped to solve these types of specialized problems.
“If they could get a prototype that is so cost effective, which they should be able to do with the three, that we could be putting these all around,” said Henry. “That is their whole purpose is to solve problems so I am very optimistic about this.”
Hettenbach noted that once a working prototype is finalized the county can slowly begin building a network of monitors to track water flow across the region.
“Once we get a plan for what one of these looks like we are not all of a sudden going to have a lot of them built,” said Hettenbach. “Maybe we can find money to build three or four of them and then hopefully the project keeps building on itself.”
Supervisor Wayde Lawler expressed optimism about the long term potential of the partnership now that it is off the ground and encouraged the committee to provide the students with prompt feedback.
“I do think given the timing and if classes are being wrapped up in April it behooves us to have our sketch of going forward together sooner than later,” said Lawler. “I am kind of getting a sense from this that this could potentially be a multi-stage iterative thing. Like this semester we tried this and then we built on it, and did this and not just a one off deal. Which is exciting.”
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