Jefferson Project research on Chautauqua Lake (photo provided by Chautauqua Institution)
Chautauqua Institution is receiving a $4.7 million grant to sustain scientific research and related infrastructure investments on Chautauqua Lake.
Institution President Michael Hill said the New York State Environmental Facilities Corporation grant represents a milestone in the multiyear vision for Chautauqua Lake conservation named in Chautauqua’s Institution’s strategic plan, 150 Forward.
The grant will supports watershed and in-lake research, infrastructure, and mitigation efforts including:
• Confirming the efficacy of streambed stabilization, vegetative buffers and rain gardens and identifying possible design improvements leading to best practices for further projects that can reduce nutrient and pollutant loads that negatively impact water quality.
• Designing and constructing additional integrated tributary monitoring stations to provide insights into the nutrient pollution from each of these “micro watersheds” of Chautauqua Lake.
• Installing weather monitoring stations on the in-lake vertical profilers, tributary stations, and land-based stations to better understand how weather events impact how Harmful Algal Blooms (HABs) form and to better predict future HABs.
• Supporting data development and analysis to inform nutrient and pollutant mitigation.
• Supporting multi-sensor platforms (Vertical Profilers), ancillary buoy and nutrient sensor deployment to measure physical, chemical and biological factors in the lake that are critical for determining effectiveness of capital projects.
Schumer has been allocating money for “studying” CHQ Lake since 2008 and earlier… look it up! Where are all those results and instead of more planning it would make sense to act.