Paul Szmal: It's our monthly Zoom with Seneca Lake Pure Waters Association, SenecaLake.org, Association Director, Emily DeBolt joins us. Good morning.
Emily DeBolt: Good morning, Ted. Thanks for having me.
Paul Szmal: I know there's been a lot of difficult news this year with the high season for HABs and everything. So reflect on your first year as Association Director and give us some good news to go into 2025 with.
Emily DeBolt: Oh, yes. Yeah. Well, you're right. It was a really busy first year. I actually joined the Association last December. So it's really been just around a year for me. And, you know, it was already going to be really busy with me being new and having to learn everything and kind of get up to speed. But then, yes, we had just this, you know, crazy summer of HABs, more HABs than we've ever had, you know, more intense, longer into the season, you know, and so that really did kind of make it extra busy for me, you know, keeping up with everything.
But, you know, it was still just a great year. I mean, just, you know, learning so much about our members and our volunteers, you know, there's lots of other stuff going on around the lake besides just the HABs. We try not to just focus on that all the time. And, you know, really now coming into the new year, we ended the year with our annual appeal. Being a small nonprofit, we're really reliant on, you know, the generosity and donations from our members and supporters around the lake. And we met our goal. So we were hoping to raise $50,000 to end the year for our annual appeal. And we are really excited that we actually did meet that goal by New Year's Eve. So now, you know, looking forward into 2025, we're just starting to plan out all of our great projects and programming for the coming year.
Paul Szmal: Met your goal and beat it 106%. That's always great when that happens.
Emily DeBolt: Yes, yes, we are actually continuing the impact. You know, I think some people do, you know, sometimes things trickle in still through January, things that didn't, you know, didn't get out. So a little bit more is coming in. And, you know, we just can't thank people enough for their generosity. We know, you know, all the organizations are, you know, asking for support this time of year. So it is pretty competitive. But really just, you know, people's love for the lake, you know, really comes through and they want to support us. And even if everyone just gives a little bit, you know, together, it really adds up. And of course, all year is giving time. So remind us, just because the campaign wrapped up doesn't mean the giving has to stop. What's the best way to donate and support Seneca Lake Pure Waters Association?
Paul Szmal: Yes, thank you, Ted. You're right. You know, this is just our year-end campaign, but we still have, you know, membership. Hopefully, we'll have a matching campaign later in the season for our SNPR program, which are our sediment nutrient reduction projects. And we're trying to raise money to help be able to implement those projects around the watershed. So the easiest way is just to go online to our website, to senecalake.org slash donate. And there's also, you know, a link right there on the home page. And you can donate, or if you don't want to donate online, there's information right there on just, you know, mailing a check into our office.
Emily DeBolt: One of the things we became aware of in 2024 was the so-called forever chemicals, the PFAs or PFAS. So you've got some money for more testing of those in the streams in the area around the former Seneca Army Depot. That's exciting.
Paul Szmal: Yeah, yeah. So we did some initial testing with some grant funding we had. And, you know, the results were, I guess, maybe not altogether unexpected, but still pretty alarming how high the levels were of the PFAS in streams that were right around the Army Depot. And I should say again, our report is right on our website. It's pretty easy to find right there under our publications. So we want to just do some additional testing, maybe try to test the streams again, and also under different water conditions. So under base flow versus storm flow conditions, and see if we see any changes there that might give us any additional information. So we applied to Freshwater Futures, which is a great organization. And they, you know, we were lucky enough to receive a grant from them. We just heard this December. So we're going to be able to put together our sampling plan and be, you know, ready out of the gate as soon as it works this spring, really, to do some additional sampling there.
Paul Szmal: You've got a meeting coming up with the Finger Lakes Institute at Hobart and William Smith College to talk about what you're going to do in terms of sampling around the lakes, and maybe a few other things as well. What are in the works with the Finger Lakes Institute this year?
Emily DeBolt: Yeah, yeah. January is a really busy month. We are doing a lot of planning. You're right. So, you know, we have our typical stream monitoring program that we've been doing, you know, that we've been doing for 10 years. We have our in-lake sampling program, CSLAP, that's joint with the DEC. You know, but we do other sampling, too, and monitoring, like our HABS monitoring or this PFAS testing we've been doing. So, you know, we're going to get together with the folks over at the Finger Lakes Institute and just talk about ideas for what we might want to add on this summer. You know, obviously, as we already mentioned, with the big HABS year, last year, there's been a lot of discussion about, you know, what additional data might we want to be trying to collect that would be useful. You know, we've already, in the past, collected the toxicity level and things like that, you know, and we know that these HAB events, you know, we know they're very toxic and that you need to stay away. But we might revisit some of that and also kind of discuss, you know, some other ideas for, you know, for possibilities.
Another thing that was, you know, very noticeable this summer was foam. You know, in the past, it's, you know, Cannon Gable Lake has had foam that people have talked about, but we really haven't. So, you know, that's another one that people want to talk about ideas and see if there's something more that we could be doing there that we could plan for this summer. So, volunteer spotters saw an increase in Spirogyra. What is it and what does that mean for the lake?
Paul Szmal: Yeah, so Spirogyra is just a green algae, like a large filamentous green algae that is floating and it oftentimes just kind of covers other things. So, Eurasian watermilfoil, one of our invasive plants that can grow pretty densely in large patches around the lake, a lot of people that were out sampling for plants noticed just this increase in this green algae, just kind of covering everything. So, it's not necessarily an invasive or anything like that. It's a, you know, a natural algae in our lake, but, you know, anytime something is kind of growing, you know, more than usual, you know, it's time, you know, it could be some sort of alarm or just an indication maybe of increased nutrients or something. So, that is definitely one thing that we're interested in looking in, you know, maybe all in relation to HABs, you know, what was happening this year. We had big storms bringing in nutrients early in the season, you know, and so maybe it's just kind of all connected there.
Paul Szmal: Tell us about the hemlock woolly adelgid and the spotted lanternfly and what they mean to water quality.
Emily DeBolt: Yeah. Oh, well, thanks for making that water quality connection. A lot of times we are focused mainly on the lake and thinking about, you know, invasives in the lake, like things coming in on the boats or, you know, plants, and we're worried about hydrilla coming in from Cayuga Lake next door. But, you know, what happens in the watershed all impacts the lake and the water quality as well. So, looking to the land is also really important, and we're doing that more and more as our organization grows. So, hemlock woolly adelgid is this little tiny bug that is attacking hemlock trees, you know, across New York State, and we have them in the Seneca Lake watershed. And hemlocks are, you know, critical species at, you know, stabilizing shorelines and slopes, especially in some of our deep ravines, mainly down on the southern end of our lake. And so, you know, having these trees there holding soil in place, holding the shorelines and the slopes in place is really important. And if we lose all of these hemlocks to this little insect, the hemlock woolly adelgid, you know, that could be a real problem for water quality. So, we're starting to try to do some assessments, figure out where these critical hemlocks are located, and then hopefully we'll be able to then apply for funding to do some treatments in the future to protect these trees. And the whole idea is to have to treat them and protect them until a longer-term biological control can really be, you know, developed enough that it will be able to protect the hemlocks. They have the biological control, it's been released, but there's not, you know, there's not enough of them out there yet to really do the job all on their own at this point.
Paul Szmal: The website is SenecaLake.org. We had a couple of things we didn't get to this time, so we'll take that up next month, including some more educational programming. SenecaLake.org, make sure you make a donation, 106% on the campaign. Let's make it 110 or 120 here in the next month or so. Emily, thanks for the time, and we look forward to continuing the discussion on Seneca Lake throughout the year.
Emily DeBolt: Thanks, Ted.
