An Oconto County family filed a court appeal Wednesday in an effort to save a personal memorial waterfall they built at a cottage in the Town of Townsend.
The construction, which David and Lori Magnin of Oconto Falls, along with their son, Collin, dubbed Trisha Ruth Falls, pumps water from Reservoir Pond, and flows it back down over a series of rocks along the sloping shoreline into the 409-acre body of water connected to McCaslin Brook.
The family constructed the waterfall, which is about 7 feet wide and extends about 20 feet back from the shoreline, as a remembrance of their daughter and sister, Trisha Magnin-Stolpa of Green Bay, who died unexpectedly on Feb. 3, 2021, following a decade-long battle with alcohol addiction, according to her obituary.
The project at 17559 Mallard Lane was a labor of love in which Collin said he and his dad put in more than 100 hours of lifting and moving heavy rocks to create something that would memorialize his sister for many years to come.
However, this past summer, both the Oconto County Planning, Zoning and Solid Waste Department and the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources said it violates their statutes and needs to be dismantled.