Twan Leenders made his way to Chautauqua County more than a decade ago when he was named executive officer of the Roger Tory Peterson Institute.

While heading RTPI is an important job, Leenders has found an even more important job leading the fight against invasive species in the Chautauqua Lake watershed.

Leenders has made news in the Jamestown area over the past couple of years for his work eradicating a Tree-of-Heaven infestation along the banks of the Chadakoin River. But he is also involved in invasive species detection through his new job with the Chautauqua Watershed Conservancy — and he now finds himself involved in another battle with an invasive plant in Chautauqua Lake, the starry stonewort.

Starry stonewort is an invasive algae with a plantlike structure native to Eurasia. It was likely introduced to the Great Lakes from ballast water and has spread to 14 counties in New York, including Chautauqua County around 2009, according to the state DEC.

Jay Young of the Chautauqua Lake and Watershed Management Alliance noted in Monday’s edition of The Post-Journal that starry stonewort is really an algae even though it looks and acts like a lot of the invasive weeds many Chautauqua Lake users are concerned with. It grows to maturity later in the summer and can form dense stands that choke out native plants and fish populations in addition to causing recreational problems. Leenders of the Chautauqua Watershed Conservancy and the CWC-led Aquatic Invasive Species Early Detection Program identified around seven total acres of this invasive growing in stands at Ashville Bay and Prendergast Point last year while North Carolina State University students working with the Chautauqua Lake Partnership found additional starry stonewort populations in the lake as well.

The alliance is leading an effort it hopes could show the way for other lakes dealing with starry stonewort by using Mobitracs to extract material from the lake bottom and dump it onto support vessels without chopping starry stonewort, because each fragment can begin growing on its own. That’s a problem when the plant comes apart like a wet paper towel.

Much has been made in past years of the fights over lake maintenance. But it’s noteworthy the cooperation that emerges when new invasive species are found in Chautauqua Lake. In the case of starry stonewort, nearly every noteworthy group associated with various aspects of Chautauqua Lake maintenance and research are represented in plans to address the invasive species. The cooperation is important when working with invasive species, and it’s good to see battle lines temporarily erased when cooperation is needed.

In our view, however, it’s important to note the presence of Leenders, the man once charged with preserving the legacy of one of Jamestown’s favorite sons whose charge now involves something much bigger — preserving Chautauqua Lake and its watershed.