CAZENOVIA — At the 17th annual Cazenovia Lake Summit, held late last month, the Cazenovia Lake Association and a variety of other stakeholders provided the community with an update on the health of the lake and a variety of efforts to protect the lake from invasive species and other potential negative impacts. “It’s clearly our top priority,” CLA’s Bob Crichton said of invasive species prevention, adding that $1.25 million has been spent mitigating the impact of milfoil on the lake since 2008. “If we allow things like hydrilla or gobies into the lake, that number will be significantly higher. So, we have to be diligent, otherwise we’re fighting a real uphill battle.” Earlier this year, the new boat cleaning station was installed at Lakeside Park, where four boat stewards are employed to ensure that any boat launched there is clean before entering the lake. The village also put tighter restrictions on contractors who enter the lake by boat, said village Trustee Tom Tait, who serves as the village’s CLA liaison. “Just having the presence of that unit there and having the stewards there shows that we’re serious about invasive weeds,” said town of Cazenovia Councilor Jimmy Golub, who serves as the town’s CLA liaison. “We’re way ahead of most of the lakes around here.” Earlier this year, the lake was treated with ProcellaCOR to temporarily wipe out milfoil, with very good results. “This past year, by any measure, we had a phenomenal year for milfoil control,” Golub said. He added that the effects of treatment should still be reasonably good for 2025, but the weeds will likely become a nuisance again in 2026. “That’s where the harvester will come into play. The next herbicide treatment is planned for 2027. The Fishery Because the lake has limited access and most of the people who fish the lake regularly practice catch and release, the health of the lake’s largemouth bass population is exceptional, said Bill Snyder, of SUNY Morrisville, who conducted three fish samples in the past year. This is the second year Snyder has sampled the lake, and the results of the 2024 sample confirmed what he originally thought might have been an anomaly from the 2023 sample – that the number, size and distribution of largemouths is “phenomenal.” “The technical term for the fish that you have here are ‘chonks,’” he joked. “These are well-fed fish.” In most lakes, he said, once the bass reach 12 inches in length – the legal size to keep a largemouth in New York – most end up being caught and harvested. That’s not the case in Cazenovia. “To see a bass fishery with extremely low or no harvest is exceptionally rare,” he said. “You guys have one heckuva bass fishery out here.” The Mill Street Dam In high flow conditions, water flowing from upper Chittenango Creek backs up into the lake through the outlet at the lake’s southeast corner, bringing with it sediment and nutrients from the 36-square-mile watershed of the creek, said CLA’s Emmet Owens, in a recorded presentation. That backup can be attributed at least in part to the Mill Street Dam, which was built in the middle of the 19th century to help reserve water for use in the Erie Canal, Owens said. By eliminating that backflow issue, Owens said, the CLA could narrow its focus to the 8.7-square-mile lake watershed, rather than the entirety of the creek’s watershed. Currently, the village is awaiting the results of a study commissioned with the Gomez & Sullivan engineering firm to determine whether the removal of the dam would eliminate the backflow issue and have any impact on possible flooding downstream. Pending those results, the CLA is advocating for removal and considering plans for how returning Chittenango Creek to its natural state would open up additional recreational opportunities on the stream while also improving the health of the lake. New wetlands definition In 2022, New York State amended its wetlands definitions in an effort to dramatically expand the acreage of wetlands that would fall under the protection of the state Department of Environmental Conservation. Because the new definitions now include certain species of aquatic vegetation that are common in Cazenovia Lake, the CLA is concerned that large portions of the shoreline could be subjectively labeled wetlands by the DEC, which would create regulatory hardships for lakefront property owners and potentially degrade property values, said CLA President Dave Miller. “It’s about 90 percent of the lake that could potentially be a wetland,” Miller said. “The definition of what a wetland is, in our opinion, is not correct.” The DEC bears regulatory control over anything within 100 feet of a wetland, which would include many of the homes around the lake if the DEC determines that much of the shoreline is a wetland. And while the local DEC regional director has assured the CLA that the new definition won’t have an impact on Cazenovia Lake, Miller said the definition is so broad that future DEC regulators could hold a different opinion. The CLA has advocated for a carve out in the wetlands law for navigable waterways, but that has faced an uphill climb in the state legislature and is unlikely to be signed by the governor, Miller said. In the meantime, Cornell University is in the process of creating wetlands maps using the state’s new criteria. Those maps are expected to be released Dec. 1, but they are advisory, and the DEC is not required to implement them. As they await more information, Miller said he encourages CLA members to continue to pressure legislators to amend the definitions in the wetland regulations to ensure lakes like Cazenovia aren’t negatively affected.