The 'Why' and the 'When'

 

June 29, 2021

The “Why?” and the “When?”

In a couple of weeks I’ll push off from Cleverdale to row to Hammondsport on the south end of Keuka Lake. And the more I read about what the Keuka Lake community has done to advance the protection of their natural resource, specifically as it relates to septic and holding tanks, the more I ask, “Why?” or, more ominously, “When?”

The “Why?” is essentially “Why can’t we do this, too, and sooner rather than later?”

The “When?” is a curmudgeonly premonition that if we are to keep our lake sustainably clean, the “when” may not happen until a succession of HAB’s and other unfortunate man-made “events” convince us that we have to act, united and in unison, if we are to save and then recover what we have.

Oh, I hope I’m wrong.

I apologize in advance for all the cutting and pasting, but here in a nutshell is what I’ve learned…..

In the 90’s, Keuka Lake was facing severe water quality issues. (From here on out I’ll provide (bolded) excerpts from the Keuka Lake Association (KLA) website (Keukalakeassociation.org ) to help me tell the story….)

“The KWIC or Keuka Watershed Improvement Cooperative was formed by inter-municipal agreement in 1993 after more than a decade of discussion and debate by the eight Keuka Lake towns and villages to ensure uniform regulations and enforcement  (my emphasis) of wastewater systems to protect the purity of the lake.”  (Keukalakeassociatoin.org)

Every Keuka lakeside municipality signed on because they recognized that if they weren’t all in, the Lake would suffer. This unity was essential, and when I get to Keuka I’ll want to learn more about how it was accomplished. The early conversations with my new friends out west suggest that things were going downhill fast in the 90’s but, still, this kind of municipal collaboration is a beautiful thing, right? (My own Big Question for later, and yours, too, perhaps, is whether we’ll be able to do the same thing before things get out of hand?)

Folks, I can’t help but opine here that a) Happily, we already have a lake-wide agency – The Lake George Park Commission- established to do some heavy lifting here if we’ll let her and push her and enable her, and b) Is our latest HAB a harbinger of more severe events to come, the evidence of overstress of the kind that Keuka Lake saw coming in the 90’s?)

As a retired English teacher (Walden, Common Sense, Silent Spring…you get it, right?), I’d like to think that it was simply good stewardship and their love and respect for nature that moved the Keuka Lake community to act, but the KLA is candid in recounting their motivation in the 90’s:

“The municipalities formed the KWIC because they recognized that a major responsibility of the towns and villages is the protection of clean water, both groundwater and lake water. Local tourism generates nearly $50 million dollars a year, and real property tax base represents an estimated $1 billion along the lake (up to 70% of all assessed value in many towns). Tourism and tax base depend on a clean and healthy lake, and since septic systems are a primary potential source of contamination, they must be managed properly. The municipalities also recognized that there was no uniformity in regulations and enforcement…” (Keukalakeassociation.org)

Yeah, it had to do with money. Sounds familiar, right? Yet very good things can come from this kind of pressure, and it certainly did in this story.

I’m not a scientist and I’ve never held a public office, and I confess here that what I’ll write in the following weeks may come from a place of naiveté and boyish enthusiasm, but as I read the Keuka Lake history, I come back to, “Why not us, too?”

Here’s what happened at Keuka Lake…again, from the KLA website:  

“In the early 1990's, each municipality formed local study committees and recommended a "watershed-wide" approach to address septic systems. The common themes of agreement were:

Pollution does not abide by political boundaries: if one town pollutes, all suffer! 

Therefore, a watershed approach is needed:

·            Uniform regulations and enforcement

·            Local control, maintaining "home-rule" power

·            Control costs 

Keuka’s subsequent success has hinged on their unity and uniformity of commitment to standards, monitoring, and enforcement. It can’t have been pretty, especially in the early going. Again, from the KLA website:

“The first step was to develop and pass local uniform septic system regulations. After nearly a year and 7 drafts, a model wastewater law was passed in each town and village. The law provides local authority for both new and replacement construction of septic systems, as well as the Zone 1 and Real Property Transfer Inspection Program. It defines required permits as well as penalties should a violation occur. The law uses the DOH/Building Code known as Part 75a as the basis for design and construction of wastewater systems. It is important to note that this state code applies to the construction of all septic systems and is not dependent on the existence of KWIC or the passage of local laws by towns or villages. The purpose of the local codes is to enhance the management of septic systems (inspection program) and ensure that Part 75a is followed uniformly in each town.” (Keukalakeassociation.org)

We’ve made some progress on the “property transfer inspections” here at Lake George and important progress it is, but it’s not yet lake-wide. Maybe this is the low-hanging fruit? Maybe this is our first big step?

But wait. For those of us who root for our lake, this story about their lake gets better. Way better. Here’s the Big Step, the Real Commitment…here’s what the Keuka Lake community committed to do that has made all the difference:

“…..routinely scheduled inspections are required of all holding tanks, aerobic treatment systems, and all sites within 200 feet of the lake or its tributaries. These inspections are intended to assure that those systems with the greatest potential to impact the lake through failure or mismanagement are upgraded or improved as necessary, and managed in an effective manner. Oversight and policy for the program is carried out by a board of directors consisting of one elected official from the municipalities of Barrington, Jerusalem, Hammondsport, Milo, Penn Yan, Pulteney, Urbana and Wayne. Staff for the program consists of the Watershed Manager, responsible for the approval of onsite wastewater treatment systems, and coordination of the inspection program, and the Watershed Inspectors, responsible for the various forms of system inspection required by local law.” (Keukalakeassociation.org)

Isn’t this where Lake George ought to to go? Honestly, if we are to preserve and protect Lake George, it’s where we’ll have to go. I’ve learned that within 200 feet of the shore of Keuka Lake, all septic systems are inspected once every five years, whether they are “failing” or not. Holding tanks are inspected annually. Failures are “upgraded or improved as necessary,” and the funding for those measures takes up a lot of the time and effort in the surrounding communities. But they’re doing it, because “pollution does not abide by political boundaries.”

The Keuka Lake community recognized their responsibility to their lake and legacy by uniting, codifying, establishing, and then, to their credit, doing the hard work of monitoring and enforcing waste water measures – the regular, periodic inspection of all septic systems and holding tanks- for the protection of their lake.

It’s a fantastic story. And by all accounts and evidence as tough as it has been to sustain the effort, it has worked.

Like I say, I’m not a scientist, and I’ve never held public office, but as I read what our neighbors to the west have achieved to protect their beautiful lake, I’m filled with admiration….and hope.

I admire the way they put aside parochial interests for the protection of their common resource which is, at the end of the day, their larger parochial treasure. I admire the patience and perseverance they showed in sustaining the march to an effective policy and an actionable program. I admire the breadth of shared responsibility that it all represents, from property owners to service providers to administrators to sustained scientific monitoring and fact-based decision making. I admire that they now have a data base born from decades of periodic testing of all systems around their lake from which to continue to monitor, adapt, and improve.

And back here at home, I so greatly admire those organizations and individuals in our Lake George community who have been doing this work for decades as well, albeit without and even despite the benefit of the lake-wide unity. You are the ones who have put us in a position to win before we begin to lose, to prevent before we have to undertake a major recovery.

I hope we can do it, too. We certainly have the people, the experience, the underlying resources, and a presently healthy lake to work with

As they say out in Hammondsport, “Listen to the lake.” And our beautiful Lake George…she’s starting to tell us what we need to do, yes?

More later…thanks for reading so far!

Now…I’d better row a bit. Calluses need forming. J

Al