BY Jason Emerson

Editor

There was no chemical herbicide treatment of Cazenovia Lake in 2018 and, unsurprisingly, the presence of the invasive weed Eurasian water milfoil returned to the water body in high volumes this year. On the other hand, the summer work of hand-removing another invasive species, European Frogbit, was very successful, and the program will continue for two more years.

These were two of the multiple facts and presentations about 50 local residents heard at the Nov. 3 Cazenovia Lake Summit, the annual event in which the latest news on the ecological health and maintenance of Cazenovia Lake is discussed by numerous municipalities, organizations and experts.

Bob Johnson, of Racine-Johnson Aquatic Ecologists, said the annual rake toss survey of aquatic plants in Caz Lake this year, done by his company, showed that the presence of milfoil was up to 93 percent in the testing samples after being reduced to 55 percent in 2017 (when chemical treatment was done in the lake). This is in-line with the results for the last time there was no chemical treatment in 2016, when the weed was present in 95 percent of all testing samples, he said.

Johnson said the survey results also showed no presence of the invasive weed hydrilla in the lake, but it did find European Frogbit and starry stonewort.

Town Councilor Jimmy Golub said the town’s weed harvesting program had some personnel snags this year, but the program still removed 394 tons of milfoil from the lake in 52 loads using the harvester. He said the total cost for weed harvesting this year was $85,000 in personnel and machinery.

Joseph Beck, a Cazenovia College senior, said the college’s Frogbit removal work this past summer, funded through a state grant obtained by the town, was successful with “quite a bit” of the floating weed with small, heart-shaped leaves being removed from the lake, mainly from the north end.

Scott Kishbaugh, chief of the lake monitoring and assessment section of the state Department of Environmental Conservation, talked mainly about the presence of harmful blue-green algae blooms on Cazenovia Lake and lakes around the state, and how and why they occur.

Kishbaugh said the amount of HABs being reported increases every year, with 168 blooms reported in 2017, including three in Cazenovia Lake.

The state DEC continues to monitor the HAB problem, which is “the topic right now,” he said.