Alliance Project Manager Taylor West identifies invasive starry stonewort while surveying in Ashville Bay. Submitted file photo

NORTH HARMONY — During their July meeting the town of North Harmony gave State Environmental Quality Review act approved for the Ashville Bay Starry Stonewort Control Project.

Starry stonewort is an invasive species of plants recently found in Chautauqua Lake. According to the Chautauqua Lake and Watershed Management Alliance, the invasive plant has been detected in small amounts in the lake since 2009, but began being detected in larger amounts in two areas in 2022, including Ashville Bay.

Similar to other invasive species, starry stonewort adapts well to new environments and has traits that allow it to out-compete native species. The major issues with the increase of starry stonewort include; it is easily spread through fragmentation, the growing season peaks in the late summer, which causes dense mats of algae that can impair recreation and crowd out native plants and fish, the formation of a reproductive bulbil bank in the lake bottom, which will give the starry stonewort a strong foothold in areas of new growth, making eradication more difficult, and the potential spread to other bodies of water in small fragments that might be transported on boats, because each individual algae is a cell that has the ability to regrow itself.

The town is one of the alliance’s member organizations and the alliance has assisted the town with writing and submitting the grant application to the state, committed local matching funds sourced from the county’s occupancy tax for waterways, and are now performing project and grant management services for the work. Other alliance members involved with the project at this stage are the Chautauqua Watershed Conservancy and town of Chautauqua. State funding for the project is provided by the Environmental Protection Fund administered by the state Department of Environmental Conservation through the Invasive Species Grant Program.

“The town of North Harmony received a grant from the state to carry out management of the invasive macroalgae known as starry stonewort in a portion of Ashville Bay,” said Randall Perry, executive director of the Chautauqua Lake and Watershed Management Alliance. “The project plans to use a technique known as diver assisted suction harvesting, or DASH, which uses a diver operating a vacuum hose under the water to selectively collect and remove the invasive species from the lake. The hose is connected to a support boat, where the material is bagged and then transported to shore for proper disposal.”

Perry said that per the SEQR, or State Environmental Quality Review Act, the town of North Harmony has reviewed the proposed action for the project and evaluated it for potential adverse environmental impacts.

“It was determined to be what is known as an ‘Unlisted Action’ and based on the nature of the work, the various best practices implemented to minimize negative impacts, and other factors, it was assigned a ‘negative declaration,’ which indicates the action will not significantly impact the environment,” Perry said.

Next steps for the project include working with the DASH firm, other project partners, and the state Department of Environmental Conservation to secure the necessary environmental permits and commencing work to remove this aggressive invasive species from the lake.