The grass comes up to your shins in a meadow uphill from the southeastern shore of Skaneateles Lake. Andy Zepp, executive director of the Finger Lakes Land Trust, said the organization acquired the former hay and corn field that is now the Cora Kampfe Dickinson Preserve to help slow the flow of runoff into the source of Syracuse’s drinking water.
“If it's developed roofs, driveways, we concentrate that water and kind of shoot it into the lake unfiltered,” Zepp said.
To thwart the risk, the Land Trust is developing retention basins, or small ponds to pool the water and trap nutrients before they flow to the lake.
“It is bound by the soil, so it stays on the landscape; It doesn't get carried into the lake,” Zepp said.
Runoff carries nutrients that feed algal blooms, which can be harmful to humans, deadly to dogs and require more water treatment. The rain and thunderstorms that hit the region this week can increase runoff, and predictions indicate a possibility the region will see heavier than normal rainfall later this summer. There's an up to 40% chance the region will experience above average precipitation July through September, according to predictions from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
Zepp said strategies to slow runoff is crucial as climate change may lead to more rainfall.
The warmer the air, the more moisture it can hold, said Stephen Shaw, an associate professor at SUNY ESF. He said small rain events are increasing, which can add more bloom-generating nutrients to the water, particularly in the Finger Lakes region.
“Where you basically have potentially hundreds of small tributaries feeding a Finger Lake — that's the smaller rainfall events that then can increase these flows into the end of the lake,” Shaw said.
The Finger Lakes Land Trust is working on adding another retention basin outside the Cora Kampfe Dickinson Preserve.
This story comes from WAER's Syracuse Speaks episode on the region’s water systems.
