CAZENOVIA — As part of the continuing effort to protect Cazenovia Lake from invasive species, a new boat cleaning station will be installed at Lakeside Park and new boat launch procedures will be put in place for the upcoming boating season.
At the Feb. 5 village of Cazenovia Board of Trustees meeting, Trustee Tom Tait, who also serves on the board of the Cazenovia Lake Association, provided details of the new protocols.
The cleaning station will be a dry station, as opposed to the spray stations located on many lakes in the Adirondacks. It is the same procedure that is currently being used on Lake George.
“Think of it as a Shop Vac on steroids,” Tait said last Monday night.
The station is approximately the size of two large parking spaces and will be installed immediately to the west of the steward’s station. Last fall, Lauren Lines of CACDA applied for a grant from the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation for the $46,000 station and the town of Cazenovia will provide $10,000 in matching funds.
The cleaning station will be ordered in March with an anticipated delivery later this spring and will be owned and maintained by the town.
When a boat arrives at the park to launch, it will first be evaluated by the stewards on site, who will inspect the boats, trailers, bilge, live wells, anchor and any accessories that have previously been on a body of water other than Cazenovia Lake.
“If it’s deemed to be clean or if the last lake it was on is Cazenovia Lake, they’re allowed to launch,” Tait said. “If it has any evidence of any organic matter or if the bilge has water in it, then they’ll go to the station to be cleaned.”
There will also be a new tag system at the lake to streamline the process.
When a boat is taken out of the water, it will be tagged with a tamper-proof zip tie between the bow of the boat and the trailer. That way, when boats with tags return to the lake, the steward will know that Cazenovia Lake is the last lake the boat was on. Boats that arrive without a tag will go through the evaluation and cleaning process.
“The whole goal is not to make it difficult for people getting on Cazenovia Lake. It’s to make sure we protect Cazenovia Lake from invasive species,” Tait said. “Our objective is simple; do everything we can at the launch to minimize the likelihood of invasives like Hydrilla entering Cazenovia Lake.”
The boat launch and cleaning station will also have new hours of operation this year. From April through June, it will be open from 6:30 a.m. to 8 p.m.; from July to August it will be open 6:30 a.m. to 8:30 p.m. and it September it will be open from 6:30 a.m. to 7:30 p.m. Unlike in years past, the launch gate at the water’s edge will close when the last on-duty steward’s shift ends, with no exceptions.
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