Dan Smith with the Chautauqua Lake Property Owners Association speaks at the Chautauqua County Legislature meeting. P-J photo by Gregory Bacon

MAYVILLE – The latest plan to address the weeds in Chautauqua Lake has created tension among some of the lake groups.

During the Chautauqua County Legislature meeting, Dan Smith with the Chautauqua Lake Property Owners Association discussed a new Long Term Management Plan for Submersed Aquatic Vegetation at Chautauqua Lake.

The plan was developed by the aquatic ecosystem team at North Carolina State University. The CLPOA has visited nine local municipalities with the Ellery Town Board the only one that has adopted it so far.

The CLPOA sent copies of the plan directly to county lawmakers. Smith said he was disappointed they were not voting on the plan at their December meeting, but hopes they will consider adopting it “without modification” in January.

After Smith spoke, Jane Conroe with the Chautauqua Conewango Consortium took to the microphone and urged county lawmakers to take no action on the plan. “This document does not appear to offer anything new,” she said.

After Mrs. Conroe, Jim Wehrfritz with the CLPOA spoke.

Earlier this year the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers agreed to do a lake study, which is expected to take up to three years.

Wehrfritz said at the legislature meeting that apparently the Army Corps is going to be releasing its early work over a two-day period in January to select lake groups. “Oddly, the CLPOA – the only lake organization specifically representing property and business owners, and lake users – has not been included in the invite list,” he said.

Wehrfritz also was critical about how much authority the county has given the Chautauqua Lake and Watershed Management Alliance, and Chautauqua Institution. “This is of great concern to us since business and property owners and lake users’ interests are not directly represented by these surrogate organizations,” he said.

Wehrfritz argued that the Alliance and the Institution and private organizations with boards elected only by their members, not taxpayers, and their deliberations and actions are not subject to open meeting laws or Freedom Of Information Laws. “Taxpayers have no say in replacing or selecting board members. Conditions of the lake have not improved after tens of millions of dollars have been spent in just this past decade,” he said.

After Wehrfritz’s comments, Douglas Conroe, the executive director of the Chautauqua Lake Association, spoke during the legislature meeting.

He said that he was not planning on speaking, but felt the need to respond after listening to Wehrfritz’s allegations about the quality of the lake. “The suggestion that the lake is worse today is false. It’s inaccurate. It’s wrong. If you were a boater on Chautauqua Lake this summer, you saw water clarity that you hadn’t seen in quite a while. Usually the lake is green by the middle of July. That didn’t happen,” Conroe said.

Conroe said the CLA has not taken a position on the plan being pushed by the CLPOA and won’t “until all the scientific reviews are on the table to review.”

No elected leaders commented at the full legislature meeting regarding the plan proposed by North Carolina State University. During a committee meeting the week before, there had been concerns raised that the plan would likely not be fully embraced by all lake groups and that the county could be financially impacted if they agreed to support the plan.