To the Editor:
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has requested that New York state add Owasco Lake to their list of Impaired waterbodies (letter dated Oct. 26, 2022). The city of Auburn (Public Notice of Jan. 5, 2023) and town of Owasco (Public Notice of July 26, 2022) notified their residents of the increased use of trihalomethanes (chemicals) to combat rising amounts of microcystins — toxins from harmful algae blooms, or HABS — in their drinking water. According to a Sept. 20, 2023, Citizen newspaper article, both Auburn and Owasco have requested that New York begin immediate monitoring of Owasco Lake and implement a plan to clean up the lake. This should give us all pause for concern.
Over the past five years, OWLA has been patiently engaged with many organizations in attempting to solve the complex problem of HABS in Owasco Lake. We were involved in the creation of the Owasco Nine Element Plan. We continue to support this plan as an ongoing effort to limit the flow of nutrients into Owasco Lake. We encourage everyone to go online and read this document. We also participated in the efforts to revise and upgrade the Owasco Watershed Rules and Regulations. We felt that the new rules and regulations as proposed, along with the Nine Element plan, would provide a path forward to protect and improve the water quality in Owasco Lake.
Unfortunately, the New York state agencies responsible for reviewing the upgraded watershed rules and regulations may eliminate the most meaningful attempts to regulate the flow of nutrients into our watershed. To make matters worse, they may eliminate certain rules and regulations that existed under the 1984 Plan. We request a look at the data that supports any effort to remove existing safeguards. We are not aware of any significant improvement in water quality in the past decade. If the voluntary requirements under the Nine Element Plan, combined with the new Watershed Rules, are not able to produce meaningful results, then…
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