Paul Szmal: Let's hook up with Dr. Adam Effler from the Oasco Lake Watershed Management Council. Hi Adam, how are you this morning?
Guest: Good morning, Paul. Doing well, thank you. How are you?
Paul Szmal: I am good. I am good. We talked to your sister organization, the folks over at Seneca Lake Pure Waters, a couple of weeks ago. Lake Friendly Living Month, they had some activities and events surrounding that, including taking the Lake Friendly Living Pledge. And you had a public event back on May 9th to mark Lake Friendly Living.
Guest: That's correct. Yes, the Lake Friendly Living Coalition of the Finger Lakes, as you mentioned, garners a pledge program. It's really a regional program that each organization for their respective Finger Lakes manages. And we also, we, the directors of these various organizations across the region, have banded together to leverage unified messaging, of course through the pledge, and also to promote an annual series of events during the month of May. And so for the Oasco Lake Friendly Living public event held on May 9th, that was a Saturday, that involved litter pickup from roadside ditches and the lake shore at the northern end of the lake. And also in previous years, the Management Council played a role in coordinating with our New York State officials for New York State's annual proclamation of support for the Lake Friendly Living Coalition's programmatic efforts. So we're excited that we're getting some bona fide endorsements from New York State for our efforts, and looking forward for that continued support as we continue to promote this messaging and public events moving forward.
Paul Szmal: And for people that may not be familiar with the Lake Friendly Living Pledge, can you give us the info on that?
Guest: Right, so there's some consistency around the pledge regionally for the various organizations that manage their pledge, and they have to do with recommended conservation efforts. Most of them, within their pledge language, target reducing the use of unnecessary fertilizers, otherwise known as nutrients, that can cause issues and problems that manifest harmful algal blooms within our water bodies, as well as proper usage and maintenance of equipment to reduce petroleum spills, also having to do with the care and maintenance of septic systems, routine clean-outs of septics, and those are just to list a few examples.
Paul Szmal: You were also working with the folks from Moravia High School on their public service day.
Guest: Correct. On Monday of this week, Moravia High School's Moravia Gives Back Day accommodated student engagement and stewardship activities at the Awasco Lake Watershed Management Council's Fillmore Nature Preserve. That's the first of two nature preserves that we now manage and steward. And the students hiked with Management Council and Cayuga County Planning Department staff. They learned about invasive species, and they helped us clear trails there. And the students were very impressive with their work ethic and efforts for moving even the heaviest of branches off the trails. Some students were particularly interested in the vernal pools at the preserve, where they observed tadpoles and frogs and other wildlife. So it was really fun to engage with the students out there and through their eyes get to experience the enjoyment of nature.
Paul Szmal: And getting them started at a young age like that and appreciating nature and understanding the value of things like cleanup and conservation, that will carry on into adulthood.
Guest: I believe so. Yes, I do. The education is an important facet of our work for the Management Council. We have several programs throughout the year whereby we engage particularly with students, both elementary age students and high school students. And we do see them as the stewards of the future. These are natural resources, particularly Awasco Lake as a drinking water supply, that need constant diligence with regards to protection efforts.
Paul Szmal: We're talking with Dr. Adam Effler from the Awasco Lake Watershed Management Council here on FLX Morning on Finger Lakes News Radio. Adam, I wanted to ask you about a legislative bill that is making its way through the houses of state government that targets the reduction of plastics used in packaging. How does that reference to what your organization does?
Guest: Yes, Paul. Based on our recent litter pickup event, I can attest to the prevalence of plastic packaging waste that accumulates around the watershed and shoreline areas. So here's a relevant bill update for you. It's a revised version of what's called the Packaging Reduction and Recycling Infrastructure Act. It's currently underway and lawmakers are working to get it passed before the end of the session. This legislation develops a packaging reduction and recycling infrastructure program and shifts the financial burden of managing packaging waste from taxpayers to the producers of packaging, while reducing the amount of packaging and plastic waste produced in New York State by 30 percent. So if you might agree with the products that we buy, there is often seemingly excessive and unnecessary packaging, and we would like to see the reduction of that packaging and also in the context of what we see accumulating as litter waste around New York State watersheds.
Paul Szmal: So the idea behind this then is not only to increase the amount of potential recycling of some of these plastic products that can be recycled, but also getting the people that are doing the packaging, the manufacturers that are doing the packaging, to kind of put those benchmark programs in place.
Guest: Correct. Unfortunately, many of the plastics that we would like to see as recyclable in New York State are not indeed recycled. There's not a great program in place to recycle those plastics, and so many of them end up getting discarded in landfills. So I think as we are aware of just the scale of the plastic that is produced with packaging, it's important both to curb the ultimate production itself while also improving and advancing programs for recycling the plastic that is produced.
Paul Szmal: Now, some people may look at this and go, well, okay, we understand that there's a lot of litter about the place, and that's not necessarily a good thing, but what effect do these unrecycled plastics have in terms of the watershed itself?
Guest: Right. So what happens is many of the plastics that tend to accumulate in the roadside ditches and along the shoreline, they decompose very, very slowly. As they decompose, they can lead to issues with what are called microplastics that can become ubiquitous throughout the water supply. And one of the great challenges with plastics is that there really is no treatment mechanism for their removal. When they're still in a large sort of bodied form, they can be removed within the primary process for wastewater treatment, where just the solids are removed. But as they break down, those microplastics become, again, ubiquitous in the water, and there really is no treatment process to remove them. There's also some evidence, too, that the plastics that accumulate can be harmful to wildlife that may ingest the plastics, that can also inhibit their reproductive processes. So there are potential negative impacts with regards to ecosystem health as well.
Paul Szmal: And whenever you introduce something like this into an ecosystem, it's kind of like when you drop a stone in the water and you get those ripples because the effects reverberate out and out throughout the entire system.
Guest: That's correct. Yes. For some of the newer contaminants in the environment, they bioaccumulate, which means that when organisms ingest them, they can tend to remain in the tissue. And then during reproduction, some of that chemical ends up getting passed on to the organism's offspring. Another challenge we have with some of the newer, what we call emerging contaminants, is that they're not yet well understood. They're emerging. We don't yet know the long term consequences of some of these environmental contaminants. And again, many of which we have no process for their removal as part of wastewater treatment.
Paul Szmal: As always, Adam, I appreciate having you on board. If people want to find out more information about some of the stuff that we've talked about, or they want to just learn a little bit more about what the Management Council does and how it works, how do they do that?
Guest: The best avenue for learning more about our efforts would be to visit our website. That's olwmc.org. We have monthly public board meetings. We welcome anyone from the public to join and to engage with us. Information about those meetings is also on the website. And we certainly welcome and offer gratitude to our stewards throughout the watershed that keep us informed and engage with us.
Paul Szmal: Yeah, there's a lot of volunteer work that goes on behind the scenes for an organization like Adams. And you can participate in that if you so desire. You can do as little or as much as you like. Again, olwmc.org is the website. Adam, as always, I appreciate having you on board, sir.
Guest: Thank you so much. It's always my pleasure, Paul. Thank you.
