Cleverdale on Lake George

 “From Heaven, Lake George is a local call.” – Buzz Lamb

This is my third day back home but, in my head, I’m still out on the waters of the Finger Lakes. I’m still rowing into and out of people’s lakeside lives and asking myself why I often seemed to be in such a rush to move on. It’s nice to be back home resuming my own lakeside summer routine with loved ones, but I do wish now that I’d pulled up a bit more often during Eleven Laps Around to contemplate the beauty of the here and now, the wonder and privilege of the moment: the grandeur of Seneca Lake, the seemingly endless horizon of Cayuga, and the enchanting quiet of Hemlock and Canadice, for example. What was the rush? 

Seneca Lake

I can see how it could be easy-peasy to slide into the happy communities of Honeyoye, Keuka, or Otisco, all of which vie for the Team Spirit Award. To hang out for very long in these places is to be tempted to put down roots, to sign up for a summer rental, or to try to be adopted by some family. Is 71 too old? I use cutlery well and often a napkin, and there’s no need to put me though any more school. I’d work hard to fit in.   

If I could go back to the last two weeks, I’d pause longer to listen to a few more spirited debates about Canandaigua and Skaneateles, about which one is really “the best” and in what way, exactly, and at what point does a McMansion morph into an Estate and the difference between lovely and laughable.  

And then, on my last day, there was Owasco- the birthplace of Millard Fillmore and home to the Prison City Ramblers- a lake coping well with a huge watershed that bid me goodbye with fair weather but a bit of a headwind. Why did I rush?

If I could wave a Magic Wand and be back in the boat knowing and feeling then what I know and feel now, I might find the self-discipline to slow down, to pause, to take an extra day here and there to watch, to listen, and to learn more. But here I am this morning remembering it all, letting the memories and lessons percolate like my exhausted but capable pot in the kitchen, and wondering what to do with it all.

But if I had that Magic Wand in my hand this morning, I’d like to think that I’d do something more constructive with it than wish for a flashback, a do-over. I’d wave that wand over my own lake and wish for us to take on the experience and lessons of our brothers and sisters to the west. Above all, I’d wish for the urgency that these times and the overuse of a resource like Lake George demands….

When one has stood, as I did last week, in a major lakeside park on a lake larger than Lake George on one of the hottest days of the year - in a lovely town hosting thousands of music fans at a weekend festival- only to see the park virtually empty because of a persistent Harmful Algae Bloom…or when miles of a beautiful shoreline are inaccessible or unusable because of an HAB that sprang up suddenly and shows no sign of abating anytime soon…or when properties, docks, and boats are isolated from a main body of water because of the encroachment of impenetrable vegetation…   

I’d wave my Magic Wand and wish that every person, business, and politician in the Lake George watershed would agree to a specific near-term date for the establishment of an effective lake-wide septic/wastewater system mandate. One doesn’t have to row the eleven Finger Lakes and hear stories of environmental challenge (and success) in order to understand that our lake won’t wait for us to do it. Lake George will do what she’ll do based on how we treat her. She doesn’t know town or county boundaries, building codes, monitoring practices, or the line between private rights and the common good. But over time, she’s telling us whether WE know about these things. She’s giving us a report card every day. My teacherly sense is that she’s preparing a Final Exam of sorts for us, asking us show whether we understand that decisive, effective prevention is more effective than slow-drip remediation, even if remediation is possible. 

Rowing with the Chef

To be sure, and importantly, SOOOOOO much has been done here at Lake George! The Lake George Association, the former Fund for Lake George, The Lake George Land Conservancy, the LG Park Commission, and scores of alliances with others both on and off the lake…from monitoring water quality to dealing with challenges in tributaries and runoff to marshalling awareness and support and action “Bay by Bay.” The people and the work have been breathtaking, really, and awesome, and are cause for optimism. 

I learned how Lake George is blessed not to share so many of the Finger Lakes’ biggest challenges. We don’t have to contend with the astoundingly huge and pervasive runoff created by a politically powerful (and vital) agricultural community. We haven’t opened our waters to invasive species from the Erie Canal, the Hudson River, and the Atlantic itself by building locks to the outside world. We haven’t created an internal conflict by enabling Bit Coin mining to take place along our shores. Instead, we have established long, beautiful tracts of forever-wild shoreline that enable our lake to breathe, to regenerate…or to buy time.

In my typically too-simple way, I’d wave my Magic Wand with boyish enthusiasm  this morning over what my gut tells me is the next and perhaps biggest challenge yet: to enlist every single lakeside and upstream homeowner to tend to his or her wastewater system in the most responsible way possible, and to do so with urgency. To enlist experts to advise us as to what is necessary and effective in repair and remediation of failed or antiquated systems. To fashion a supporting cast of qualified designers, contractors, and agents of finance to enable us to act on what needs to be done. To establish, as has Keuka Lake, for example, the mandatory frequent re-visitation and recertification of systems…because they age, and they need to be watched.

Lake George is a priceless gem. But as I think of what I’ve seen here of late and now in eleven beautiful lakes to the west, I’m convinced that our own HABs are coming. I feel it, and anyone who has lived on our shores for more than half a century and has paid attention and watched the changes and the activity probably feels it, too. I hope I’m wrong.  

Finally, I’d wave my Magic Wand and wish for each and every person living in the Lake George watershed to be informed of, grateful for, and supportive of the hard work that so many volunteers put into protecting and preserving our natural treasure. The Lake George Association, the Lake George Land Conservancy, and NYS agencies themselves are the leaders in all of this, but as I learned during my row, scores of smaller, local, even micro-entities augment the work of the biggies in myriad ways. When I met Polly and Matthew at Bell Station on the east shore of Cayuga Lake, for example (and purely by chance), and listened to them kibbutz with Chris Olney of the Finger Lakes Land Trust about details of trail conditions, erosion vulnerabilities, and access concerns, I was at that moment witnessing citizen activism at its best. These people love where they live, they understand the vulnerability of it all, and they’re on site to preserve and protect it for my granddaughters. 

If I could wave a Magic Wand this morning, everyone would know this…and there would be many, many more of “them”….and “they” would be us.     

With love and appreciation….