From the Skaneateles Lake Association

By Fran Rotunno Fish

Earlier this year when we were sending out membership renewal notices to our 2017 members, the letter started out with the following sentence: “The Harmful Algal Bloom (HAB) of this past fall was the most “in your face” threat that Skaneateles Lake has ever experienced.”  Sadly, here we are in August 2018 dealing with another algal bloom. And like last year, the SLA has been out front dealing with the algal bloom. Our Skaneateles Lake Association Shoreline HAB Monitoring Volunteers, organized by SLA’s project coordinator, Mary Menapace, responded to many calls from community members and collecting samples for possible testing and taking photos for examining suspicious elements on the shore line or in the lake. Our Executive Director Rachael DeWitt, has been getting email blasts out to the 900 plus families in our SLA member database and using social media to advise a wider audience of test results, beach closings and actions to take. Rachael DeWitt, SLA President Paul Torrisi, and many other SLA board members have been fielding questions to get the correct information to those who email or phone in with their observations, concerns and questions.

However, what is more important is all that the SLA has been doing since last year’s algal bloom to put into action a plan to determine the source factors resulting in the bloom and determining what we can do about it. We cannot control most of the major factors that contribute to the bloom including: warm days and water, sunny days and calm waters. We can determine the significant sources of the nutrient load that is the last essential ingredient for an algal bloom. We are a significant part of the team working on that and this is what we our doing.

Our Nutrient Management Committee, which is one of the 4 parts of the SLA’s HAB Action Plan has been working extensively to get the proposal submitted by the Town of Skaneateles with the CNY Community Planning and Development Board to the Department of State for a $300,000 grant to develop a 9E Plan. The submission and approval of this plan is essential to be eligible for millions of dollars in grants for further monitoring and major remediation projects to reduce the nutrient loading of the lake.

It is important to note that award of this $300,000 grant requires a 25 percent match from the organization submitting the request. The Skaneateles Lake Association has already funded the significant portion of this required match. Most importantly, we have funded it in a way that puts us ahead of the game in determining possible major sources of nutrient loading. This has been accomplished because we have contracted with the Upstate Fresh Water Institute to conduct extensive ongoing monitoring of three additional tributaries – Grout Brook, Bear Swamp Creek and Harold Brook. Each stream will be visited on a bi‐weekly basis to maintain the equipment and to collect water samples for laboratory analyses and also during two storm event surveys intended to capture high flow conditions. The following parameters will be measured:  total phosphorus, total dissolved phosphorus, soluble reactive phosphorus, total nitrogen, nitrate+nitriate, total ammonia, particulate organic carbon, dissolved organic carbon, total dissolved solids, turbidity, and silica will be essential in making determinations of possible remediation projects for state funding.

This monitoring has been supported by a few generous donations from community members and the Town of Niles has also provided support. With funding from the Town of Skaneateles this same monitoring has been conducted for several years on Shotwell Brook.  With the addition of the monitoring of three additional tributaries by the SLA we are developing a significant database for future decisions on actions to take.

And there is more. Charles Driscoll, SLA board member and professor at the College of Environmental Science and Forestry, is conducting additional monitoring of six more intermediate tributaries including 5 and 10 mile creeks, Hardscrabble, Glen Cove, Bentley Brook, and Fisher Creek. He has collected two rounds of samples from those tributaries already and will be providing Mary Menapace with sampling bottles to give to SLA volunteers who will be trained to continue the sample collection. Dr. Driscoll has equipment to do additional monitoring in four of the six of the streams and the SLA is anticipating the ability to fund the equipment for monitoring the other two streams.

Finally, as previously reported, the SLA and the Jefferson Projects partnership has established a cooperative relationship and the vertical profiler, Atlantis II was installed in Skaneateles Lake on July 30. We have received our first data report from the profiler, which is extensive, and that data and continuing data from it will be a further component of the data used in helping us to determine potential actions to take including further monitoring and remediation projects to help protect the lake.

The SLA is planning watershed wide community education programs and projects and will be supporting efforts by the DEC and the Cornell Cooperative Extension in their programs and efforts. All of the SLA efforts are focused on working cooperatively with government and private agencies for the protection and remediation of the lake.  The SLA’s efforts are focused on promoting participation by every member of the Skaneateles Lake watershed community in the programs that will be offered and/or actions that reflect the lake protective practices offered by those programs.

Today, you can join in those efforts by supporting us with your SLA membership or SLA membership renewal for 2018 and by encouraging your friends and neighbors to join the SLA.

You can join the SLA at SkaneatelesLake.org or you can call 315-685-0916 and request a member registration form to be mailed.

The past two weeks are membership efforts have been supported by the extensive efforts of Anne Salzhauer and Meredith Torrisi and the assistance of Jean Sardino, Pam Ryan and Eileen Murphy in preparing membership materials and maintaining the member database.

Please thank the following for co-supporting the Milfoil Boar for a day or mulitple days:  Jennie and Stephan Bersani, Elet and John Callahan, Robert Congel, Jen and Bill Mayo, Molly Elliott, Goffe Cottage (Carla and David Goffe), Bob Honold, Dr. Robert Vitkus, Elaine and Mathew Medwid, Noreen and Michael Falcone, Barbara and Kenneth Hearst, Marcia and Robert Hunt, Jolie and Scott Johnston, Mary Marshall, Cynthia and William McCauley, Cate and Sally, Kelly and Gregory Weaver, Louise and Robert Ganley, Celeste Gudas

Please thank the following for sponsoring the Milfoil Boat for a day or multiple days:  Molly and Todd Phillips, Anne Marie and Carl Gerst, Lindsay Groves, Sherill and Dave Ketchum, Helga and Henry Beck, Barbara and Craig Froelich, Joseph, Lynne, Michael, Elena, David and Tracy Romano, Amelia Kaymen and Eric Yopes, and Anonymous Donor.

Please thank the following for sponsoring an Invasive Species Monitoring Steward for a day:  Sandra Loli and Richard Boni, Dorothy Krause, Liz and Bill Sharp, Renee and Joseph Lane, Patti and Marvin Langley, Sieglinde Wikstrom, Melissa and John Henry, Betsy and Bob Madden.

Please thank the following for their contributions to the David Lee Hardy Fund which supports our Invasive Species Monitoring Stewards:  Jen and Bill Mayo, Renee and Jospeh Lane, Lucian Eckles