The upcoming Chautauqua Lake Symposium is promised to be a time to describe a shift from study to action when it comes to Chautauqua Lake.

It’s exciting news after so many years of study and debate. It is long past time, in our opinion, to begin working on the root causes of what ails Chautauqua Lake. That will mean the expensive job of tackling the internal loading of phosphorus in the lake that is the likely cause of algal blooms on the lake each year. And, action will mean continued maintenance to deal with invasive plants in the lake that make navigation a hassle for boaters – many of whom pay some of the highest property taxes in the county and help balance local and county budgets with the taxes on their highly assessed homes around the lake.

The need for a plan to follow is obvious after a pair of Lakewood Village Board meetings last week. Lakewood Village Board members initially tabled approval of an application for herbicide permits after board members Ben Troche and John Shedd said they needed more time to study them. A special meeting was called on Friday,during which the applications were approved with Troche voting in favor and Shedd arguing against the herbicide applications. Among Shedd’s arguments against the herbicide permits are the lack of visible results for a costly project each year, that the use of herbicides harm the lake when the weeds are killed and the bottom of the lake is exposed and a preference on projects to deal with internal phosphorus loading.

We’d note mechanical harvesting helped lead us to the place where we are now on the lake. Herbicides are, after all, a late addition to lake maintenance efforts. And doing neither mechanical harvesting nor herbicide applications isn’t a real option at this point because there is an expectation among those who pay a ton of property taxes that they will be able to get onto the lake during the summer months.

It seems likely that A.J. Reyes of GEI, the Chautauqua Lake and Watershed Management Alliance’s independent lake consultant, is going to recommend a mix of herbicide use and mechanical harvesting on the lake. Ideally, managing the lake’s symptoms will buy time for longer-term solutions to reduce phosphorus, which addresses one of Shedd’s arguments.

Last week’s meetings also reinforce the thought we’ve had for years – that there needs to be both a yearly plan and a long-term plan that uses all of the tools we have in our arsenal for Chautauqua Lake. That means both harvesting and herbicides, both in targeted areas, as part of a yearly work plan. And we need a coordinated effort to begin dealing with internal loading of phosphorus.

Hopefully, we get a glimpse of that Saturday. For those interested, the symposium is scheduled to begin at 9 a.m. Saturday at the Celoron Harbor Hotel. The symposium will also be available on the county’s YouTube channel.