MAYILLE – The Chautauqua County Legislature Wednesday night approved a resolution to allocate $50,000 in bed tax money to help prevent excessive runoff into Chautauqua Lake by way of Goose Creek in Ashville.
The money will be used as part of a $438,000 stream-bank stabilization project for the creek. Most of the cost of the project is being covered by a $299,000 federal grant from the United States Department of Agriculture Natural Resource Conservation Service. The remaining $139,000 is being covered by the county and several other agencies. When the project is completed, a total of 3,800 feet of the bank along Goose Creek will be stabilized, meaning less phosphorus will be entering the lake as a result of reducing runoff from local farms and residential properties.
In related news, county legislators also recently received a Total Maximum Daily Load Report, outlining the limits for phosphorus in Chautauqua Lake, as prepared by the Phosphorus Monitoring Committee of the Chautauqua County Water Quality Task Force.
County legislator Pierre Chagnon of Bemus Point provided a summary of the report, which said that progress had been made in phosphorus management strategies by publicly owned wastewater treatment plants, but, he added, that more needs to be done to survey and test residential septic systems that enter the lake. He also said the report has no information regarding road and ditch maintenance and management practices for roadway de-icing.
He requested that the legislature’s environmental subcommittee review the report in detail and bring the findings back to the full legislature in August.
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