Chautauqua Watershed Conservancy Conservation Director Twan Leenders presents to Jamestown City Council (September 18, 2023)
The Chautauqua Watershed Conservancy is requesting funding from the City of Jamestown for Phase 2 of its Chadakoin River restoration project.
The CWC would use $224,500 in American Rescue Plan funding to carry out three projects on the Chadakoin River.
Chautauqua Watershed Conservancy Conservation Director Twan Leenders said the project would include continued tree mitigation and debris removal downstream of the Warner Dam, “We went through the river again. There’s about 130, 120 trees that actually require our attention. They’re still standing right now, but need some pruning, trimming, branches taken off or actually taken out all together in a controlled fashion. And there’s about 13 to 15 trees that are kind of like the one on the right that are already creating issues at the low water levels and will get just exponentially worse as soon as the Dam opens up.”
Leenders said the funding would also go toward a second round of herbicide treatment and removal of dead Tree of Heaven, “The situation we’re in right now is that 90% of Tree of Heaven is gone from the City, but because these trees have been here for several years even though the standing trees that were treated last year are dead now, they’ve been dropping seeds for years, however long they’ve been here. So, the seed banks are coming up all these young plants are coming back up again. And there may be about 20 trees that did not quite completely die that need to be retreated to make sure those are finished off as well.”
Leenders said the third part of the project would be to purchase metal wiring to wrap mature trees along the river to keep them from being harmed by beavers.
He also updated Council on the status of Phase 1 of the river project. Leenders said the remaining work to be done involves the riverbank restoration in the Chadakoin basin, which will be completed this Fall. He said they’re still waiting for a final permit from the Department of Environmental Conservation in addition to a date for when the Warner Dam would be opened, thus allowing work to be done in the Chadakoin basin.
Council member Bill Reynolds said with the $490,000 in grant requests to other funders by the CWC, he thinks the City should be “a little more frugal” with what they approve in additional funding for the Chadakoin River project.
Leenders said in a statement to WRFA that if the request amount was reduced that he could, “..certainly prioritize the greatest potential threats to the river and have those taken care of. That will still be money very well spent. I will continue to look for additional funding, so anything that doesn’t get done now, before the dam opens, will just be on the docket for a future funding opportunity.”
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