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Healthy Community, 1 Yard At A Time

We all live in a watershed and what we do on our land matters to our waters. The simple acts of enhancing or creating a filtration garden or beneficial plant buffer and reducing water and chemicals used on our lawns are all positive practices that go a long way to keeping our waterways healthy, clean and enjoyable year-round. We have the power to be the most influential component of preserving, protecting and enhancing the health of our watershed!

CWC wants to continue to inspire and connect with homeowners and their communities in our watershed and around the lake. You don’t need to own lakefront property to improve water quality, benefit habitat for local wildlife and beautify your own personal space. Your own yard, no matter the size or location, can act as a beautiful, functional filter, cleaning pollutants and storing nutrients as water flows through your property.

Whether it is a raingarden situated in a wet corner of your yard, a landscaped front entrance or a native flower garden at the edge of your property…all of these are beneficial to the health and beauty of your yard as well as the watershed that surrounds it.

CWC, in partnership with and partially funded by the Lenna Foundation and the Chautauqua Lake & Watershed Management Alliance, is proud to present our new LakeScapes Program — a program created to connect and support homeowners and their communities in a joint effort to protect, enhance and restore the health and water quality of Chautauqua Lake and its watershed. Our unique program motivates homeowners to take pride in their personal space and enjoy improving water quality by taking ownership of their own backyards — and it is now even easier to create a healthy stand of shoreline vegetation or beautiful filtering garden system in your own yard! No matter where you live or what size garden you want to create, these vegetative plantings will absorb and filter nutrient runoff from your yard, beautify your landscape and enhance the quality of life for you, the lake and the wildlife that live and thrive within it.

Yard consultations and technical assistance are free and can include free plant and landscape design recommendations as well. And all of this can be done while still practicing social distancing. After you take advantage of this free program, we invite you to proudly display our beautiful, informative LakeScapes sign (pictured) in your yard or garden, designating your property as one committed to preserving the health of our lake and community. In exchange for the sign, which is completely optional, we ask a suggested donation of $30 to help support this and other CWC programs.

Even in these difficult times, it’s as easy as contacting CWC Conservationist Carol Markham by emailing carol@chautauquawatershed.org or calling 664-2166 to learn more about this unique program today.

Your community involvement will raise awareness, educate your neighbors and motivate action and change as it helps us all understand our importance to our watershed. Your donation supports CWC and its programs, inspires others to make a difference and helps address the issues of declining habitat and water quality in our Chautauqua Lake watershed.

All it takes is a healthy community…one yard at a time.

The Chautauqua Watershed Conservancy is a local not-for-profit organization dedicated to preserving and enhancing the water quality, scenic beauty and ecological health of the lakes, streams, wetlands and watersheds of the Chautauqua region. For more information, call 664-2166 or visit chautauquawatershed.org or facebook.com/chautauquawatershed.

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