Seneca Lake Pure Waters Battles Invasive Species on Land and Water

Jim McGinnis — Seneca Lake Pure Waters Association
Ted Baker 8:51
Logo for Seneca Lake Pure Waters Association, featuring green hills, a winding path, and blue water.
The official logo for the Seneca Lake Pure Waters Association, an organization dedicated to protecting the Finger Lakes region.
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Seneca Lake Pure Waters Association is expanding its fight against invasive species this fall, tackling everything from aquatic threats to land-based insects that could devastate the Finger Lakes wine industry — and they need volunteers to help.

Jim McGinnis, a board member who has served Seneca Lake Pure Waters for five years, joined the FLX Morning Podcast on September 6 to outline the organization’s three-part strategy: promoting a healthy lake ecosystem, addressing land-based invasive threats, and growing the organization. The association recently welcomed a new director, Andie DePote, who brings experience from the Lake George region.

McGinnis, a Watkins Glen resident and sailor, described the group’s macroinvertebrate survey program as one of its largest active efforts. That program is run in partnership with the Finger Lakes Institute at Hobart and William Smith College, which provides training for new volunteers. The team currently includes eight active members, including retired Cornell entomology professor Anthony Shelton.

On the land side, the association has been working closely with the New York State Hemlock Initiative — a Cornell-connected effort — to combat the Hemlock Woolly Adelgid, an invasive insect that has devastated hemlock trees from Georgia to Maine. Beetle populations that prey on the adelgid were introduced in Watkins Glen and at Clonora years ago, and McGinnis says those populations are becoming established, offering hope for future control.

The group is also monitoring for spotted lanternfly, a pest that has caused significant damage to vineyards in Pennsylvania. While no lanternflies have been detected on the western shore of Seneca Lake this season, there was a confirmed sighting on the eastern side. McGinnis warned that climate change is expanding the range of these species northward, making vigilance critical for the region’s wine industry.

McGinnis encouraged anyone interested in helping to visit senecalake.org/volunteer to sign up. The association covers territory across five soil and water conservation districts surrounding the lake, and seasonal and year-round volunteers are both welcome. Memberships, donations, and newsletter sign-ups are available at senecalake.org, and the group can be followed on Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube.

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Paul Szmal: Good morning 816, it's FLX Morning, a Friday extravaganza, our regular check-in with Seneca Lake Pure Waters Association at SenecaLake.org. We're joined today by Jim McGinnis. Good morning, Jim.

Jim McGinnis: Good morning. How are you, Ted?

Paul Szmal: I'm doing well. We're going to get an overview of the Invasive Species Program with Seneca Lake Pure Waters Association, so just give us kind of a broad overview of what you do to protect the lake from these species.

Jim McGinnis: Well, Seneca Lake Pure Waters Association has a long-range strategy that's really in three parts, and the first is to promote a healthy lake ecosystem, and you're familiar with our HABs monitoring, fisheries, looking at lake level, and invasive species is one of those. We also focus on land-based threats, invasive species on land, and we're spending more time on expanding that effort this year. And really, our third area is to grow and strengthen the organization. We have a new association director this year, Emily DeBolt, and she has a lot of experience from the Lake George region, and we're growing the organization and looking to add new members always.

Paul Szmal: So talk about your role leading this program and your team members who help you out.

Jim McGinnis: Yeah, we have a great organization, eight active people, and I'm a past Corning employee, I'm a project manager, and I've worked now on the board of Seneca Lake Pure Waters for five years. I live in Watkins Glen. I'm also a sailor, so I spend a lot of time on the lake. I'll be traversing the lake today to go up to Geneva.

Paul Szmal: Oh, wow.

Jim McGinnis: We have people on our team like Anthony Shelton, who talked about invasive species last year on your show. Ted, he is a professor of entomology, past professor, he's retired now. But we have that kind of expertise on our team. But we also have new members that have just joined the team and are learning. And so, we have a pretty robust team, and we really enjoy getting together, doing the activities that are focused on eliminating the invasive species from Seneca Lake.

Paul Szmal: Is there room for volunteer help in the invasive species program and citizen science?

Jim McGinnis: Yeah, absolutely. We are monitoring the lake as a part of the effort that is led by PRISM, and that's the organization at the Finger Lakes Institute at William Hobart and Smith. So they're one of our key partners in the region. And they provide the ongoing expertise and are doing training for our new members. So when we get a new member, we spend considerable effort to educate them on the invasive species that we encounter, and then get them involved with this macrophyte survey program. So that's one of our largest programs that we're active in today.

Paul Szmal: So you mentioned the Finger Lakes Institute. That's one of the great things about the Clean Water Fight is there are so many organizations that work together. There are all the lake organizations, people like the Finger Lakes Institute at HWS. Are there any other partner organizations that you work with on invasive species?

Jim McGinnis: We've just recently started more actively with Cornell. We had, in fact, Tony Shelton connected us to Kerry Marshner, who is one of the principals in the New York State Hemlock Initiative. And as you may know, or your listeners may know, there's a bug called the hemlock woolly adelgid.

Paul Szmal: Yeah.

Jim McGinnis: And those attack our hemlocks. We've attacked them from Georgia to Maine, and this is an invasive species that there's no natural predator for. So now the New York State Hemlock Initiative has been working for years. In fact, 10 years ago, they instituted a program to put beetles that do kill the hemlock woolly adelgid. Those were put in at Glenora and in Watkins Glen years ago, and those populations of beetles are becoming entrenched, and so we see that as an opportunity for the future to combat the hemlock woolly adelgid.

Paul Szmal: What are some of the other species that you're focusing on in the program this year?

Jim McGinnis: Well, we've had for years monitoring of the spotted lanternfly, and again, that's something that has really been devastating down in Pennsylvania, both for tree of heaven and for wineries. And so our region, as we go through climate change and we see a warming of the area, these invasive species are moving north, and their habitat is growing and expanding. So this year, we have put traps out. We haven't gotten any spotted lanternflies here on our side of the lake. There was a contact over on the east side of the lake, and in fact, I was in Manhattan this summer at the Cloisters, and they have had an infestation of the spotted lanternfly.

Paul Szmal: Wow.

Jim McGinnis: Although this was actually a light year for them, but they have had it in the past. So that's another bug that could really cripple the wineries, and so it's an active program to capture and kill any spotted lanternflies, again, no natural predators. And people should know, the spotted lanternfly, you mentioned the tree of heaven, and there's a right way and a wrong way. You can't just rip that out because it sends out runners, and it'll regrow itself. So you have to be careful if you try to remove that tree that they use as their habitat.

Paul Szmal: Yeah, absolutely. And so we have a number of different places around the lake that we're monitoring. And with the New York State Hemlock Initiative, we've just identified landowners, either that are members in Seneca Lake Pure Waters, or other people that have volunteered to let the Hemlock Initiative team come on their property, survey it, and look to treat the trees and monitor the beetle populations.

Jim McGinnis: We've talked about how people can help with things like the Lake Friendly Living Pledge. How can an ordinary citizen help in the invasive species battle?

Paul Szmal: Yeah, what we'd like people to do is go on our website and sign up at SenecaLake.org and join one of the teams of interest. There's people that are seasonal, and they can help. There's people that are year-round, and they can help on different programs. So we ask you to just go on our website and sign up to be a volunteer. We'd love to have contributions. We'd love membership. But we really need volunteers around the lake. We have five soil and water conservation districts around the lake, so there's a lot of territory that we're covering. And we can use more volunteers for that. SenecaLake.org slash volunteer. SenecaLake.org is the main website. Monetary donations are always helpful. Memberships are very helpful. And you can sign up for the newsletter at SenecaLake.org slash Lake Watch. Follow the group on social media at Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube.

Paul Szmal: Thanks for the time, and thanks for the effort against these invasive species. We're hopefully going to turn the corner and win here. We appreciate you telling us about it today.

Jim McGinnis: Super. Thanks, Ted.