Chautauqua Lake is just one body of water which will be affected by the adoption of the updated New York state wetlands regulations that went into effect on Jan. 1.

BEMUS POINT – The Chautauqua Lake Property Owners’ Association will host a public meeting Saturday to update the public on freshwater wetlands regulations that have now gone into effect.

Saturday’s meeting will begin at 9:30 a.m. and will be held at the Lawson Center in Bemus Point.

The regulations affect Chautauqua Lake and the rest of the region’s wetlands. At Saturday’s meeting, CLPOA members will discuss how the association has approached the new regulations now that it has had 18 months to research and analyze the regulations as well as speak with the state Department of Environmental Conservation and area elected officials. The meeting will also include discussion of how the DEC is working to implement the new wetlands regulations and potential impacts on local municipalities and property owners.

“DEC officials, by their own admission, on several of their webinars, stated ‘They are building the plane as they’re flying it.’ This tells me everything is lucid and changing all the time. They’re just kind of making up the rules as they go,” said Jim Wehrfritz, CLPOA president.

In 2022 Gov. Kathy Hochul signed into law revisions to the Freshwater Wetlands Act, which was originally enacted in 1975 to regulate activities near larger wetlands, greater than 12.4 acres, and smaller wetlands considered to be of unusual local importance. That means wetlands can be any size, with a wetlands designation in a Class 1 waterway like Chautauqua Lake bringing additional DEC restrictions.

“In the case of properties near Chautauqua Lake and in the lake itself, wetlands can now be of any size, and not the previously stated 12.4 or 7.4 acres,” he said.