Final Canisius Lake watershed plan presented to Livingston County supervisors
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Summary
County staff and watershed partners presented a finalized Canisius Lake Watershed Management Plan after a two-year update, describing 86 recommendations, extensive outreach including high youth survey participation, and past investments totaling about $9.5 million in projects and monitoring.
Presenters from the Canisius Lake watershed team told the Livingston County Board that a two-year update of the Canisius Lake Watershed Management Plan is complete and available for local use.
"I'm excited to kick off what is a final presentation culminating a 2 year process for the updating of the Canisius Lake Watershed Management Plan," said Daniel, introducing the presenters Megan Crow, Heather Barro and Mary Underhill.
Heather summarized the lake's long planning history and scope: "Canisius Lake is an important natural resource and economic driver in the county. And it serves, public water for at least 20,000 water users," she said, and noted the watershed partnership has helped channel about $9,500,000 in federal, state, corporate and municipal funding toward water-quality projects during the past two decades, including roughly $2,000,000 in agricultural projects and longstanding monitoring efforts.
Mary described the outreach and the update's contents: the team used in-person and virtual public meetings, social media, QR-coded surveys and event outreach at village festivals; the update expanded the plan from 34 recommendations to 86, mapped a 20-year target horizon, and includes model local laws and technical tools for municipalities to use in comprehensive-plan updates.
The presenters said the plan is available in print (a large bound volume) and digitally for officials who prefer an online copy; Mary said, in the transcript, "If you don't want to carry 345 pages, you can get it, digitally." The team also noted successes tied to partnership work: monitoring with SUNY Geneseo and other academic partners, 78 educational workshops, and more than 32,000 boat inspections recorded as part of outreach and protection work.
The board granted privileges of the floor to the presenters and heard the plan summary during the meeting; presenters encouraged municipalities in the watershed to adopt model laws and to integrate recommendations into local planning processes.
The presenters said the plan was formally passed yesterday and thanked participating agencies and volunteers for the multi-decade effort.
