Thirteen-thousand-acre Chautauqua Lake has been rightly called the “jewel” of Chautauqua County and is an irreplaceable asset for the people of Chautauqua County, Western New York and all of New York State. Chautauqua Lake is also our home and a critical part of our every day life. The Chautauqua Lake Partnership (CLP, a non-profit), representing individual and business Chautauqua Lake property owners and lake users, needs your help in its efforts to make long-overdue water quality improvements and increase enjoyment of the lake and its shores.

Chautauqua Lake has been plagued with invasive weeds for at least the last 50 years.

For the last 25 years we’ve allowed Chautauqua Lake to be turned into a “Weed Farm” by limiting weed management practices to non-selective mowing and pruning, techniques which encourage non-native weed propagation and deposition of dead weeds and cut fragments on the lake bottom and shoreline. It is time to terminate this failed “one size fits all” experiment and add the proven state-of-the art weed management techniques used in other New York water bodies and in the Eastern and Midwestern USA.

Chautauqua Lake weeds, including an increasing proportion of invasive/non-natives, gets cut by boat props and weed cutters all summer long. This “chokes out” desirable native species as more aggressive non-native weeds take over and unrecovered cuttings spread certain invasive species.

Unrecovered cuttings foul the lake surface, near shore, shoreline and lake bottom and contribute to the foul odor experienced hundreds of feet inland from the shore. Each year’s weed “crop” dies off at the end of the summer and falls to the bottom to decompose, “smother” the lake bottom ecosystem and contribute to the black weed-based sludge which we now must walk through in the water and clean off shorelines.

Long time lake dwellers and users will recall much better days on the lake when herbicides were used by the NYS Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) to control nuisance weeds from 1955 to 1959 and by the Chautauqua Lake Association (CLA) from 1960 to 1992. In 1986, as a result of the concerns of a few, the DEC and CLA agreed that an Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) be prepared prior to granting of additional herbicide permits. The EIS was completed in 1990 but the CLA ceased application for herbicide permits after 1992.

In 1992, weed harvesting, unregulated in New York, became the only weed management method regularly used in the lake. It’s obvious to all who live on and use the lake that weed harvesting and the one-of-a-kind requirements preventing use of herbicides have failed to improve the lake.

A comprehensive Bemus Bay Weed Survey contracted by our organization and conducted by a Certified Lake Manager (Solitude Lake Management) May 25-26, 2017, showed native weed species suppressed, “choked out”, by overgrowth of invasive non-native Curly Leaf Pondweed and Eurasian Water Milfoil weed species. Additionally, the survey found an accumulation of several feet of decomposing vegetation on the lake bottom. This decomposition supports unwanted weed and algae growth and alters the Lake bottom ecosystem. Some would say Bemus Bay and, potentially many other areas of the Lake, now require remediation.

Chautauqua County recently completed its Chautauqua Lake Macrophyte Management Strategy (MMS). This effort required 7 years and several hundred thousand taxpayer dollars, including $50,000 from our organization. Extensive site-specific environmental data were developed and analyzed along with the suitability of a variety of weed management methods. Herbicide treatments, DEC-permitted and used successfully in hundreds of applications to New York water bodies each year and extensively across the United States, was determined to be an acceptable weed management method in over 50% of the 250+ zones into which the lake was divided. In fact, herbicides often have significant environmental, social and financial advantages.

Herbicide treatment permit applications for a 2017 Bemus Bay Weed Management Demonstration Project were submitted by the Town of Ellery and Village of Bemus Point on April 9, 2017. In those applications, the Town/Village sought approval of a limited (up to 60 acre) treatment in early-mid May 1, 2017. This application had overwhelming community support, especially from those in the affected area with only 1 of 640 shoreline property owners receiving the required DEC Letter of Notification expressing concern with the treatment. Early-mid May treatment would have eliminated invasive weeds in their early stages of growth adding almost no plant material to the lake bottom. Unfortunately, the onerous Chautauqua Lake-specific requirements precluded timely issuance of a permit and the optimal early treatment.

The DEC then considered and issued a permit for a 30 acre herbicide-based Data Collection Project in Bemus Bay in MMS zones in which herbicides were acceptable. The treatment was made June 26, 2017, with excellent support from the DEC, Chautauqua County Sheriff’s Department and several others. We expect the post-treatment weed survey will confirm the effectiveness of the herbicides in the treated zones, obvious already to those who utilize the near shore areas of the Bay for boating, skiing and other water-based activities.

150 years of human activities have accelerated the natural decline of Chautauqua Lake. 25 years of “one size fits all” weed management has not slowed the decline and has made lake problems worse. Critical initiatives (improved sewage treatment, sewer extension, septic system inspection/upgrade, storm water ordinances, etc.) to facilitate water quality improvement in the long term are valuable and in various stages of development and implementation. Herbicides, an MMS-acceptable, proven and commonly-used technology must be added to the toolkit and used to offset the decline.

Short- and mid- term initiatives, including use of herbicide, are necessary to improve water quality and lake enjoyment until benefits of the long term initiatives are realized.

The Chautauqua Lake Partnership Board of Directors includes Jim Cirbus, CLP president; Jim Wehrfritz, CLP vice president; Mike Latone, CLP treasurer;