Letter: Answers to Owasco Lake's problems are right in front of us

A recent Facebook post by Ian Phillips caught my attention and while I applaud his concerns, thinking Albany has failed us is incorrect. We are in the midst of a problem we created ourselves. By that I mean the reoccurring HABs on the Finger Lakes; water quality is a hot button topic for elections. No doubt we need farmers for many reasons, besides who doesn't like dairy products? Except for vegans and those who are lactose intolerant. However, take a step back and drive around the watershed of Owasco Lake and look at a good portion of the land around it.

For instance, many farms in production today have removed brush piles and hedgerows to increase available acreage. Hedgerows serve us in many ways: They slow the flow of water, they can prevent topsoil erosion from water or wind, and they provide critical habitat for many animals. Many songbirds in New York are in decline due to farming practices. I remember back in the '70s, '80s and '90s driving in Scipio and Ledyard and you would see meadowlarks and bobolinks nearly every trip, now those are rarely sighted.

A few years ago a drain tile project was performed on Mobbs Road, the resulting drainage that flows into Van Ness Brook also flows into Owasco Lake. After any significant rain event look at that brook and observe the turbidity in the water that flows into the lake. I have seen firsthand the erosion of the streambanks in that brook that are now scoured out and changed following the aforementioned project. It stands to reason that increased flows lead to increased nutrient loads. Drain tiles installed to drain fields to increase production go to ditches, ditches go to brooks, brooks go to streams and streams go to our drinking water in the lakes. I am no hydrologist and no doubt a scientist will come to dispute my letter — so be it. But when I see a large field that was once crisscrossed with hedgerows and is now bald as a pool table, it's a raceway for water. And yes, I know many times stone/rip rap ditches are installed to mitigate the flow, but water flows downhill — correct? We don't need Albany to help us when the answers are quite possibly right in front of us. If we look close enough this may be a classic case of "the emperor has no clothes."

Tom Adessa lives in Auburn.

Aside from minor edits for style and grammar, all letters to the editor are reprinted as submitted. To submit a letter to The Citizen, email , use the form at auburnpub.com or mail it to The Citizen, 25 Seminary St., Suite R1, Auburn, NY 13021. Letters must concern subjects that are local to the Cayuga County area, be 400 words or less, and include a phone number to contact the writer, which will not be published. Letters concerning elections must be received at least a week before election day. For more information, call (315) 282-2245.