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CLA Partners With Mobitracs To Tackle Weeds

Cleanup Continues

Chautauqua Lake Association crews and Mobitracs from the town of Chautauqua have coordinated on the cleanup of aquatic plants and debris this summer, including last week’s efforts in Bemus and North Harmony. P-J photos by Jay Young

The cleanup of debris and aquatic plants throughout Chautauqua Lake has been improved this summer thanks to coordination between Mobitracs from the town of Chautauqua and Chautauqua Lake Association crews.

While versatile and very effective at different types of near-shore cleanup, the Mobitrac mobile barges are slow moving and require an efficient means of dropping off collected debris.

In their second year of deployment, the Mobitracs have been paired with harvesters and transport barges from the CLA, allowing for easy drop off of weeds collected near docks and shores.

“Systematically it works so much better,” said Steve Holland, CLA harvester operator. “The coordination with the (Chautauqua Lake and Watershed Management Alliance), CLA, town of Chautauqua–now we are using common sense to make this thing work. So (the Mobitracs) don’t have to travel so far, we can offload this on to another piece of equipment.”

Last week, Holland provided support for Mobitracs working between the bridge and Stow Ferry, using his large harvester to collect weeds that have been raked up from dock sections and in front of homes.

“In 2019 these machines gathered up approximately 450,000 pounds of weeds. So far, year-to-date starting July 1, we are now going to be slightly over 1,000,000 pounds,” Holland said. “These machines can go in under the docks and right up to the shore,and people have been so appreciative of that.”

The weeds collected from Mobitracs enter the chain of CLA crews, where they are transported to collection sites, loaded onto trucks and brought to farms for use as compost.

In years prior, large sections of weeds and debris have been cleaned by CLA shore crews. Now those crews can follow along behind Mobitracs, which excel at labor-intensive work.

“When you get to an area where it is packed in, you have 20 feet of muck and weeds that have accumulated, it is hard for those kids with a pitchfork,” said Heather Nolan-Caskey, CLA administrative and community services manager. “Using the harvester makes it much more efficient, much quicker. As long as we have a transport in the area, or somewhere close, they can offload as well. It just speeds up the whole process. Those machines do great work on the shoreline, it seems like when they go through first, then our shore crews go through. The shore crews are doing the final touches.”

CLA harvesting and collection crews are deployed from Long Point State Park, the CLA shop in Lakewood, and Mayville Park from the first of June until Labor Day.

“Two of the crews, upper and southern, have a skimmer machine that works with the barge crews for shoreline,” Nolan-Caskey said. “It can get a little closer, it is easier to just push the weeds from the water onto the machine, it has no cutting blades on it. Then we have harvesters for each crew, and in addition to that we have a transport machine.”

Each Monday, the CLA posts a work plan to chautauqualakeassociation.org, which outlines where crews will be working the coming week. That is followed by an update on Wednesday and a detailed report on Friday.

Early in the season, large amounts of curlyleaf pondweed growth were the main concern.

“At that time it was curlyleaf, really abundant in the lower end,” Nolan-Casky said. “We focused there and we weren’t seeing weeds in the north. We slowly moved up to Long Point, and then moved all the way to Mayville. We are seeing a lot more growth now in the upper areas. It is just a different year, you can’t anticipate. There are a lot of factors, but I think Mother Nature, that really comes into play. Year-to-year it is never the same. You can never count on it being exactly the same.”

In addition to its work with Mobitracs, the CLA is now using location-tracking on all of its equipment, and is finishing the first year of its Boat Steward Program.

Funded through a state grant, boat stewards are placed at seven public boat launches on Chautauqua, as well as in Cassadaga Lake, Barcelona and the Dunkirk harbor.

Stewards perform voluntary visual inspections of boats being deployed in order to track movement and use of water bodies.

“They saw a huge increase in boat activity this year. Through the roof,” Nolan-Casky said. “There are people that will get blown off of Lake Erie because of the winds, and will stop at Cassadaga and maybe not be catching anything and come here. That’s all in one day, and we have a lot of out-of-towners too. It is a state database that we use to collect (the data), and the state uses that to see the routes and to see where everybody is coming and going.”

Tracking where boaters are visiting is one way for state officials to keep an eye on the transfer of plant and animal species to other bodies of water, in addition to monitoring traffic generally.

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