Paul Szmal: I'd like to welcome in my guest at this time, that would be Dr. Adam Effler from the Awasco Lake Watershed Management Council. Adam, as always, it's good to have you on board. How are you today, sir?
Adam Effler: Thanks, Paul. It's good to be here. Doing well, thank you.
Paul Szmal: We often talk about how you get a lot of data and bring that in and use that to kind of figure out, implement plans for the organization, things of that nature. Just how important is it to have that data-driven approach? I take it that this kind of work, there's really not a lot of room for guesswork.
Adam Effler: Correct. A data-driven approach to lake and watershed management is crucial. Water quality monitoring is similar to medical diagnostics, and it's important for water managers to understand baseline conditions and influencing factors to make recommendations for projects, programming, and policy. For example, the management council recently partnered with our friends from the Lake Association, that's the Awasco Watershed Lake Association, to capture a storm event sampling of Awasco Lake tributaries, the watershed streams, on the 1st of April. That was following a major storm that led to flooding in certain parts of the watershed. Of course, based on today's conditions and the storms coming through, we may be at it again, but as you and I have discussed previously, runoff from these storms tends to increase this time of year. That runoff carries constituents of interest, including suspended sediment and nutrients that feed algal blooms. We're interested in how these constituents increase under high flow conditions and whether we can identify hotspots for nutrient loading, in particular, within the watershed.
Paul Szmal: By pulling all that data together, you're able to draw a picture of what's going on, and then you're able to make an informed decision on how things can be adjusted, water flows can be diverted, maybe in some cases, to prevent that nutrient from getting into the lake and into the drinking water.
Adam Effler: Correct. So, for our recently state-approved clean water plan, that's our nine-element plan for phosphorus reduction, and phosphorus being the nutrient of interest for limiting the growth of algae, in particular toxic algae, within the lake, the model that was used identified priority sub-watersheds within the overarching watershed with regards to their potential to load phosphorus to the lake. And so our tributary monitoring program, and especially capturing monitoring of tributaries during high flow and storm events, really helps us better understand the efficacy of our model and helps better inform the direction, as you say, of the various practices that may be implemented to sort of curb the potential for nutrient discharges to the lake.
Paul Szmal: We're talking with Dr. Adam Effler from the Wasco Lake Watershed Management Association here on FLX Morning. A lot of eyes have been on Albany and the annual budget process included in that, of course, is the state environmental fund budget. As it relates to your organization, Adam, that environmental budget, do you see any of that money, or is this more of a watchful eye to see what the state is spending money on and how much they're spending?
Adam Effler: It's a little bit of both, Paul. So we have a couple of grant categories within the environmental protection fund that is a line item within the New York State budget that we can leverage for projects and programs that we're involved with. For instance, the tributary monitoring program that I spoke of earlier, the lab analytics that can be costly is covered under a sub-line item within that environmental protection fund called the Finger Lakes Lake Ontario Watershed Protection Alliance. I know that's a mouthful. So the deal is there is that particular fund is allocated to the various counties, and some of it is discretionary, which is unique among the dollars that go through the environmental protection fund. Of course, there still is oversight by the state, but it is a little less onerous with regards to managing the competitive grant funds that really occupy most of the funds within that overall environmental protection fund. So that's been important. FLOPA has been important for us for funding that tributary monitoring program. We also can leverage the water quality improvement program, and that's been important for some of the land acquisitions that have taken place within the watershed that have now led to the council's role in stewarding land preserves within the Owasco Lake watershed.
What's interesting this year, Paul, is that the Senate and Assembly each proposed budgets that exceeded the governor's proposal for $425,000 in funding for the environmental protection fund. They each proposed an allocation of well beyond that. And so there was an addition specifically of a new budget line item as well that was targeted for the Finger Lakes Watershed Grants program specifically. So we have Senator Rachel May of the 48th District to thank for that. She really led the charge for that watershed grants request. And hopefully that stays intact in the budget. The negotiations are still happening, and hopefully we'll get that budget adopted here sooner rather than later.
Paul Szmal: We've talked about a couple of other organizations that the Owasco Lake Watershed Management Council works with and in conjunction with, and one of those is the Finger Lakes Lake Friendly Living Coalition. Again, a little bit of a mouthful, but what's the partnership between your organization and theirs?
Adam Effler: Right. So what's interesting there is since I've been involved in my role directing the management council, I've been working more actively with our regional partners across the Finger Lakes. And these various partners are watershed stewards for these Finger Lakes. And some of them are directors of intermunicipal organizations like myself, yet more so they are leaders for the lake associations that are highly involved in protecting the Finger Lakes watersheds and lakes themselves. And what we realized is that we wanted to develop common and consistent messaging. Really a slogan or a motto, if you will, that we can use to promote conservation within the watershed. So we went with this lake friendly living language, developed a coalition so that we could synergize our efforts. And what we've been doing for years has been to promote and coordinate public events in May that provide an opportunity for the public to engage. And so the management council has taken the lead in recent years, engaging with New York State officials to request their annual support of this program. So we've had New York State proclamations that are endorsing the coalition.
For our part, our event in May will be held Saturday, May 9th, and that will involve litter pickup from roadside ditches and the lakeshore at the northern end of Awasco Lake. So that's just one example, but some of the other lake associations and partners within this coalition have had workshops for creating rain barrels to capture rain for reuse. They've been involved in other planting exercises and the development of riparian buffers along tributaries to protect streams. So there have been a number of applicable projects that have been a great opportunity to involve the public.
Paul Szmal: And those, what was the name of those again? I would refer to them, I think, as rain barrels, but maybe that's not quite 100% accurate.
Adam Effler: Yes, that's correct. Yeah, rain barrels. So an opportunity for residents to capture rain runoff from structures, save that water and reuse it so that water isn't lost. And that can sort of also help reduce peak flows that lead to flooding issues and additional pollutant discharges within our watershed.
Paul Szmal: Right. I was going to say that those are things that not only can be used by homeowners, but I would imagine even farmers can probably get in on that too.
Adam Effler: That's correct. So farmers do often leverage water catchment systems from their various, their barns and facilities. Those are the sorts of practices we like to see. And some of the more progressive farmers have been adopting those sorts of strategies. You know, what's interesting too is in more recent years, we've been getting some advancement with farmers with covering some of their manure storage facilities. And so that leads to less circumstances where there are lagoon failures. And so there are a number of practices with regards to agriculture that farmers have been advancing to help with conservation efforts, reducing nutrient discharges, and also handling water more appropriately on the farm.
Paul Szmal: The Alaska Lake Watershed Management Council's public board meeting is coming up and you have a guest speaker that is going to be a part of that.
Adam Effler: That's correct. I welcome the public to join our board meeting next Tuesday. That's the 21st, where we will host our close partner, the Cayuga County Soil and Water Conservation District for their update on relevant projects. So they're sort of the implementation lead, if you will. They have a strong presence working with farmers and agriculture. And also we've been working closely with them on a stream stabilization project at the southern end of the watershed. That meeting will take place at Memorial City Hall in the main chambers from 10 to 1130. And those meetings are also recorded and posted on the council's website. So we always encourage engagement with the public and appreciate those who are interested in getting involved.
Paul Szmal: As always, Adam, I appreciate it. Thank you so much. By the way, if you want to find out more information, what's the website again for the organization, Adam?
Adam Effler: That's olwmc.org.
Paul Szmal: Okay. olwmc.org. It's got the rundown of a lot of the stuff that we've talked about and even more information. Also, if you want to become a volunteer to help with some of that data acquisition that we talked about, you can find more information about that on the website too. Adam, as always, I appreciate having you on board. Thank you, sir.
Adam Effler: Paul, I appreciate it. Have a great day.
