Protecting Water Quality in the First Wilderness
Milfoil in Schroon Lake
Though Warren County is best known for Lake George, the First Wilderness towns in the western part of the county are home to several other large lakes, as well as the Hudson River and numerous streams. One of the goals of the Planning Department is to help ensure high quality water resources countywide, with our streams, rivers, lakes, and ponds free of pollution and invasive species. Clean and clear waterbodies are good for the environment, provide quality of life for our local residents, and attract visitors.
In December 2021, the Planning Department was awarded more than $250,000 in grant funding to support continued efforts to remove invasive species in Schroon Lake, which is bordered by the First Wilderness towns of Chester and Horicon. This funding will be combined with contributions from local municipalities to support both new and existing aquatic invasive species (AIS) eradication efforts.
The funding will:
Support continued efforts of three inspection and decontamination stations on Schroon Lake;
Fund a pilot project to explore the use of mobile decontamination stations;
Fund the implementation of GPS and Geographic Information System (GIS) technology to track milfoil eradication efforts; and
Convene a working group to explore options for improving the impact of AIS elimination spending.
During the summer of 2021, Planning Department staff designed a workflow utilizing GPS and GIS mapping technology to track the harvesting of milfoil -- a submerged invasive aquatic plant -- in real time on Lake George. Divers used a mobile GPS-enabled app to collect harvesting information in the field, which was uploaded to the cloud instantaneously and could be viewed in an online dashboard.
The experiment was highly successful, so grant funding will be used to implement this system on Schroon Lake in the summer of 2022. Also, in order to track the impact of the milfoil harvesting efforts over time, department staff will digitize historic harvesting data and incorporate it into the online dashboard.
The Planning Department will also launch a pilot program to explore the use of a CD3 mobile decontamination station, an easy-to-use, self-serve, waterless cleaning system. These stations use vacuum and blower technology to remove aquatic invasive species, which may be an effective way to prevent AIS spread when boat launches and decontamination stations are not staffed. This element of the grant program will include the hiring of a steward from Paul Smith’s Adirondack Watershed Institute for eight weekends to show people how to use the machine and provide outreach and education.
Staffing inspection and decontamination stations can be a significant cost to a municipality, and relying on competitive grant funding may not be a sustainable model. A working group of representatives of the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation, the Warren County Soil and Water Conservation District, municipal partners, Paul Smith’s watershed institute, and lake associations will evaluate current practices and technologies, and explore options for improving the impact of AIS spending. The Warren County Planning Department will organize this working group. We'll keep you posted about its efforts as we move into the summer season.