The September 17, 2025, Post-Journal editorial hit the mark in commenting that the community should “Move cautiously before creating a new lake authority.” The editors noted that improvement may happen by adding more elected officials to the Chautauqua Lake and Watershed Management Alliance Board. Unfortunately, the new board composition structure flies in the face of best management practices. Due diligence demonstrates that best lake management practices occur when there is diversity of knowledge at the table and no single sector controls decision making.

At its October 9, 2025, Workshop Board Meeting Session, the Alliance Board voted to implement the County Executive’s proposal to reconfigure itself to be two-thirds comprised of elected officials and one-third comprised of representations from three lake and watershed organizations. Absent from the table will be academic lake management scientists, professional soil and water experts, other lake related groups, and the general public. Politically elected officials will clearly have control – a group that has traditionally followed in lock-step adherence to the County Executive’s wishes. Thus, decision making control will continue to reside singularly in one person/sector.

Public officials are excellent at establishing and operating water and sewer districts. Recent history here in Chautauqua County has evidenced such to not be the case regarding lake management. Frankly, serving the need to be re-elected along with the need to serve special interests has over-ridden implementing best lake management practices. Voters elect officials for a variety of political reasons. Expertise in lake management is generally not in the voters’ minds. Most elected officials possess little to no lake management expertise, yet the current lake management mode is placing them in decision making roles. This is not a good recipe for qualitative lake management. They certainly need to be at the table, but not in a controlling quantity as is currently the situation.

We will likely be told that the expert advice will come from consultants and thus experts will not be needed at the decision-making table. Unfortunately, the record demonstrates that (a) those at the table have not heeded received advice and instead have gone down their own political road, and (b) those at table have used their authority to get consultants to modify their recommendations to suit the political and special interests’ wishes. Other voices are needed at the table to stop this political dominance.

Examples of how advice has been cast aside/affected include: (1) The former Science Advisory Committee produced a report that included contents that were not aligned with what the political/special interest sectors were advocating. The then elected official that chaired the board buried the report and refused to have it circulated to the board feigning an absurd reason. The board’s actions ended up being contrary to the committee’s recommendations. The committee was subsequently shelved and later reconfigured into a weaker committee that the board has yet allowed to be active.

(2) The firm of Princeton Hydro was retained to provide management recommendations. When its report was presented at a public meeting, a public official interceded to get the presenter to change what was being said to be favorable to political/special interests. The firm has not been invited back to the table.

(3) The Alliance retained a consultant to develop a lake management strategy along with a grant application rating tool. Actions by political and special interests at the board table have overridden strategy intent and tool rankings.

Other examples exist.

Currently the Alliance Board has retained the services of GEI Consultants to advise it on lake matters. Although the firm’s formal report is yet to be received, a mid-summer progress report was presented. From those in attendance, it was reported that the County Executive got the presenter to say what he wanted said which otherwise would not have been said. In its October 4-5 editorial, the Post-Journal expressed optimism that “We may be on a long-awaited new path for Chautauqua Lake” with GEI. Will it be a new path or is it going to be more of the same politically dominated result?

Also, currently there is an on-going Army Corps of Engineers Study in progress. The several groups that were in the scoping session room came away encouraged that good results would be forthcoming. What they did not know is that there were other groups that could have given good input that the county banned from attending. All has since been quiet although there have been smoke signals that the county is affecting the Corps’ focus. The same control happened when the county became involved with the Jefferson Project.

Chautauqua Lake is facing serious management times. Bonafide expertise will be required to assure that we have a healthy lake moving forward. Success is going to require a major collaboration which does not exist currently and which is not on the horizon.

We need to heed the advice of our Seneca neighbors who advocate that “The decisions we make today should result in a sustainable world seven generations into the future.” Unfortunately, regarding Chautauqua Lake the decisions that we have been making today have simply been for today. The Post-Journal’s admonition that cautions movement is needed is certainly appropriate. The Alliance board composition plan needs serious revisiting if the future health and welfare of Chautauqua Lake and its community is to be the priority.

Douglas Conroe is a former multi-term president and subsequent executive director of the Chautauqua Lake Association; former chair of the county Environmental Management Council; founding board member of the state Federation of Lake Associations and a Bemus Point resident.