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For More Information On Chautauqua Lake & County Real Estate and Living Visit: www.chautauqualakehomes.com
Saturday, January 09, 2021
ATTENTION SNOW LOVERS
Monday, December 21, 2020
Chautauqua Lake Partnership 2020 Review and 2021 Plans for the Lake
Happy Holidays 2020!
As
2020 comes to an end, the CLP Board reviewed its accomplishments of the
year. So many events in our lives were significantly and negatively
impacted by Covid 19. Some of the CLP efforts were affected too, but we
still managed to do a lot. Please take a look at the summary of all
that we accomplished in 2020 and the plans we have for 2021 in the link
below. We appreciate your support, and ask that if you are able, to
consider donating to the CLP to help us get Lake Chautauqua in the
condition we can all enjoy!
Enjoy the holidays!
CLP Board of Directors
https://mcusercontent.com/e3ca6ee7a2647f4240196dd96/files/d3d02472-2df8-466a-80b7-751b80af82fe/CLP_Summary_2020_rev_1.pdf
For More Information On Chautauqua Lake & County Real Estate and Living Visit: www.chautauqualakehomes.com
Saturday, October 10, 2020
Strong Leadership Needed On Lake; Is That A Pipe Dream?
A lawsuit filed earlier this week by the town of Ellery and the Chautauqua Lake Partnership against the state DEC comes as no surprise.
While Ellery and the CLP take issue with the DEC’s choice to permit herbicides on only seven acres of Chautauqua Lake in Ellery this summer, the blame for the whole mess doesn’t lie with the DEC.
It lies locally in the lack of lake leadership since George Borrello left the County Executive’s office to become the region’s next state Senator.
Lake management has been a free-for-all for the past several years, with big personalities often clashing around boardroom tables, in scientific presentations and courtrooms. There was a brief respite with the Borrello-led Memorandum of Agreement on lake management, but it was pretty obvious this turn of events was coming when two studies of Chautauqua Lake — one by a third party paid by Chautauqua County and one by a Racine-Johnson paid for by the Chautauqua Lake Association — painted vastly different pictures of the 2019 herbicide treatments on the lake. The DEC probably should err on the side of caution in the wake of a report so critical of herbicides’ effect in 2019.
The real question is why the report was done in the first place since the county was paying for an impartial third party study. The answer is that the Memorandum of Agreement by itself couldn’t bring order to the chaotic Chautauqua Lake management structure. Even with the Memorandum of Agreement, there were too many voices speaking about Chautauqua Lake. The memorandum brought an uneasy truce, but never truly quelled the boardroom grumbling between the lake’s warring faction.
The Chautauqua Lake Watershed and Management Alliance is a wonderful tool for gathering grant money, but it functions more as a loose affiliation that brings groups together but lets them go their own way once alliance meetings end. It facilitates teamwork where possible, but groups are free to form their own plans each summer.
Because there is so little leadership regarding in-water lake treatment locally, the decision making is left to the DEC. The DEC’s decision on the Ellery permits actually makes some sense — the agency wanted to let things in Ellery sit for a year and revisit the need for herbicides in 2021, particularly in light of the Racine Johnson report. In our opinion the decision shouldn’t be dumped in the lap of the DEC, particularly when the DEC is receiving permits that may or may not fit into a coordinated plan for Chautauqua Lake.
A true consensus is needed on Chautauqua Lake maintenance. There should be no more surprises, no more competition and no more dueling press releases and studies. One agency needs to speak with a clear voice for the betterment of Chautauqua Lake — and that agency needs to walk the tightrope between herbicide use and ecologic methods of weed management.
Other counties have figured this out. It’s time for Chautauqua County to do the same. Of course, we’ve made this same argument in this space for the last two decades. We don’t have a lot of confidence in those involved that such a pie-in-the-sky idea will actually happen.
For More Information On Chautauqua Lake & County Real Estate and Living Visit: www.chautauqualakehomes.com
Monday, August 31, 2020
Algae programs in full swing on Chautauqua Lake
Submitted Photo An AECOM engineering researcher checks on algae that has been removed from Chautauqua Lake as part of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers pilot program last week.
Scientists from the Engineer Research and Development Center, a laboratory of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, and AECOM engineering, have spent the past week deploying new harmful aglal bloom mitigation technology on Chautauqua Lake.
The program, which runs Aug. 19 to Sept. 4 and is based out of the Chautauqua Lake Association workshop in Lakewood, is part of a pilot program called the Harmful Algal Bloom Interception, Treatment, and Transformation System (HABITATS).
First demonstrated in Florida in 2019, HABITATS is designed to skim algae from the water, where it can be broken down into useful products such as biofuels and fertilizer. The process, known as hydrothermal liquefaction, also destroys algal toxins that can be harmful to humans.
“In 2020, the ERDC and its partners are assessing new technologies to improve the fuel yields, scalability and deployability of the HABITATS process,” according to a ERDC news release. “To make the system more deployable, the ERDC is also developing a mobile shipboard treatment system that will undergo initial testing on Chautauqua Lake for harvesting microalgae while cleaning the water in a contained system.”
Dr. Martin Page, ERDC operational water research team leader, said “Information learned from the Chautauqua Lake demonstration will improve the technology so that one day a full-scale, longer-term deployment may be possible.”
Deployment of the system on the lake will help to test HABITATS during active bloom conditions, validate a upgraded on-shore treatment system, generate data for full-scale designs and deployments, and perform preliminary testing in order to optimize future use.
“Residents and visitors depend on Chautauqua Lake for drinking water, recreation and economic activity, but it is vulnerable to harmful algal blooms that we must mitigate and prevent,” U.S. Sen. Chuck Schumer said. “I am pleased that the Army Corps has heeded my call to tackle the threat of harmful algal blooms with this demonstration study.”
Representatives of the Chautauqua Lake and Watershed Management Alliance and local political representatives have coordinated with Schumer to help bring the resources of the Army Corps to bear on the issue.
The results of the 2020 HABITATS demonstration will be published in a technical report later this year.
VERTICAL
PROFILERS IN WATER
Boaters are advised to be on the lookout for a pair of vertical profilers deployed on Chautauqua Lake by The Jefferson Project.
As part of a collaborative effort to study the effects of HABs, the project has placed one profiler in the north basin between Dewittville Bay and Irwin’s Bay and another in the south basin between Colburns and Cheney’s Point.
The profilers, which are yellow and white platforms, collect data on water conditions from the surface to the bottom every hour, quantify water circulation patters and monitor local weather conditions.
Boaters are advised to use caution around the VP’s as they traverse the lake this summer and fall to avoid contact with the platforms and their mooring lines, which extend beyond the footprint of the barge.
From dusk to dawn the platforms will be illuminated with a white light indicating that the platforms are anchored and not underway.
For More Information On Chautauqua Lake & County Real Estate and Living Visit: www.chautauqualakehomes.com
Wednesday, August 19, 2020
Have Fun in Chautauqua Over Labor Day Weekend
https://myemail.constantcontact.com/Have-Fun-in-Chautauqua-this-Labor-Day.html?soid=1102660329276&aid=E5idIYTFg54
For More Information On Chautauqua Lake & County Real Estate and Living Visit: www.chautauqualakehomes.com
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