Byline: Dave Tobin Staff writer
The Finger Lake with the worst water quality could soon have one of the best systems for identifying why that is, which might provide the basis for reversing Owasco Lake's deteriorating water quality.
A software system that tracks every building project, every highway ditching and fuel spill, every leaky septic tank, every lumber harvest and farm expansion is being developed for the Owasco Lake watershed by Par Government Systems Corp., a division of New Hartford-based Par Technology.
Par has developed a similar Internet-based system to monitor land use in the New York City watershed. The company is adapting the New York City system for use in the Owasco Watershed, and calling it OWLIS (Owasco Watershed Land Information System). It could be a prototype for other Finger Lake watersheds.
"We have over 100 users of the system daily in the New York City watershed, and they're hitting it all day, every day," said Verne LaClair, project manager of Par Government Systems.
A proposed $800,000, three-year budget would include two years of salary for a watershed steward, who would collect and input data from county, town and village agencies in the watershed.
The steward's position is separate and different from the Owasco Lake watershed inspector position being sought by Cayuga County Water Quality Management Agency. The steward would regularly visit people like highway superintendents, code enforcement officers, staff at the Soil and Water Conservation and county Health Department, collecting data to feed into the database program.
"Right now, one has no idea what the others (towns and villages) are doing," said LaClair. "A lot of that background data already exists. You need someone to sit down and pool it and pull it together."
That's what a watershed steward working with OWLIS would do.
Par is already working with the Institute for the Application of Geo-Spatial Technology at Cayuga Community College on the project. The institute would provide the computer server to
handle all the data, and help with data and mapping.
LaClair gives an example of how the software program might help. Say researchers from the Finger Lakes Institute, based in Geneva, are testing lake water and get unusually high readings of phosphorus in some part of the lake.
They could access the OWLIS system to see what might be affecting water quality, without having to visit each town or village department to see what is on file for nearby sites. All the data would be posted in one spot.
Cayuga County applied to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency for a $600,000 grant to pay for most of the cost. The county has received notice that its grant application was missing a letter of support from former Gov. George Pataki, said Al Kozlowski, president of the Owasco Lake Watershed Association.
The letter has since been sent, and county officials are scheduled to speak to EPA officials this week, asking them to reconsider.
LaClair notes that many people working throughout the watershed - which includes three counties, 12 towns and two villages - are already "doing their piece," say, monitoring storm water discharge into sewer systems or watching over construction sites.
"If you can show them how their little piece fits into the puzzle to make the big picture, hopefully light bulbs come on, behavior and actions change to become more water quality friendly," he said.
Kozlowski said the OWLIS system would be a giant step forward toward improving the quality of Owasco and all the Finger Lakes, putting them on a par with Syracuse's program for protecting the watershed of Skaneateles Lake, the city's source of drinking water.
"We're trying to get the Finger Lakes, like the Adirondacks, inside its blue line," said Kozlowski. "Skaneateles sort of has that already. You get in that watershed and you don't screw around. You get in our watershed and everybody screws around."
Dave Tobin can be reached at dtobin@syracuse.com or 253-7316.
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