Last week the Jefferson Project launched two vertical profilers into Chautauqua Lake to help determine where nutrients are coming and going in the lake as a part of their ongoing research into the health of Chautauqua Lake. Submitted photo courtesy of David Munch, Chautauqua Institution

CHAUTAUQUA — The research that the Jefferson Project has been doing as an ongoing project for the last four or five years to focus on improving the health of Chautauqua Lake continued recently with another launch of vertical profilers into Chautauqua Lake.

Vice President of Campus Planning and Operations with Chautauqua Institution, John Shedd, said that vertical profilers are small pontoon boats that are filled with computerized equipment. This equipment helps to sense things in the lake and includes a device that is lowered into the water at different depths via a remote control. The information from this device is then conveyed back to a Watson computer — and the father of the Watson computer, John Kelly, is also a part of the team, Shedd said — and then goes to Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and IBM Research who review the data, take tests and create models of the water to determine where nutrient particles are coming into the lake and where they are going.

“There are two vertical profilers in place, one just north of Long Point State Park and another near the Bemus Point bridge,” Shedd said. “They are measuring the dynamic between the lower and upper parts of the lake.”

The water in the lake is flowing from the south to north basin, Shedd said, and the vertical profilers are helping see how far the flow goes. In conjunction with the vertical profilers there are also six tributary stations set around the lake that are feeding into Chautauqua Lake from the watershed. There is also computerized equipment inside these stations that work to determine the nutrient flow into the lake.

“Combined with the vertical profilers, they measure the amount of nutrients going into the lake, where they are going and determine the nutrient and phosphorus loads along with the amount of algae in the lake,” Shedd said. “They determine the impact of nutrients on the lake and help us come up with a project to reduce the growth of the amount of nutrients and algae.”

Chautauqua Institution and the Jefferson Project work with the Chautauqua Lake and Watershed Management Alliance, which is a group that works towards securing funds towards lake maintenance. The Jefferson Project’s data also helps to determine the best place for those funds to go towards to help fix the growing problems in the lake.

Shedd said it is believed that a lot of the increasing nutrients, macrophytes and harmful algae blooms in the lake come from runoff, and the groups are working towards isolating where this runoff comes from, and they think that will help reduce the problem. They are also looking for nutrient buds to help find the cause of the increase in nutrients and algae, what causes some of the algae to turn toxic to the lake and why, and working on the overall lake maintenance practices, such as weed harvesting and herbicides. Shedd said all of this comes together to be their main focus for this year.

The next step is calibrating and collecting the data, which will eventually go into a database. This research is something that continues throughout the year, funded by Chautauqua Institution. The Institution is working with the Alliance to help determine pilot programs to help improve the health of Chautauqua Lake, which is the main point of the research being done over the last few years.

“One of the biggest problems is the feeding of the macrophytes and algae,” Shedd said. “The silt and muck collect on the bottom of the lake and when that becomes buoyant, like when weeds die, that bottom becomes barren. That then mixes with the other nutrients and seems to be the places where we find more algae and macrophyte growth.”

The Jefferson Project’s research will allow for all parties involved to help develop ideas for more effective lake maintenance. The research phase is a long one, but one that Shedd said will lead to action and is not just for the sake of research.

“Improvement of the lake will take time,” Shedd said. “The lake as it is today happened over a century. We are working towards a solution, but that solution takes time and effort. People need to have patience with the process and remember it will not happen overnight. It will probably pass through generations.”

Shedd added that they are looking for immediate solutions as much as possible, but that the solutions they want have to be for the long-term. One of the main goals with improving the health of Chautauqua Lake is to make sure it remains a Class A lake, which allows places such as Chautauqua Institution and other surrounding organizations to use the lake as a drinking water source. Shedd said the longer-term solutions they can find the longer that Chautauqua Lake will be sustained, which is important for the whole region.

Additionally, Shedd said that many organizations are involved in the ongoing research process but that people do not necessarily understand how they all work together.

“I think people misunderstand that around the lake there are a lot of organizations all working towards a similar goal,” Shedd said. “There is a misnomer that we do not get along, which is not true. We all work together for the best interests of the community. We might not always agree, but that’s how committees of people work.”

He added that people can be passionate about how they want things to be done, which may seem like loud disagreements, but said that disagreements can be healthy as long as they remain civil.

“We will continue to work together to solve the problem of the health of Chautauqua Lake because it’s not something one person or entity can do on their own,” Shedd said.