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MAYVILLE – A new agreement that aims to further cooperation in the cleanup of Chautauqua Lake was unveiled on Wednesday night.
Chautauqua County Executive PJ Wendel says the Chautauqua Lake Memorandum of Understanding will bring together local governments and other agencies that are involved in the lake’s management.
Specifically, Wendel hopes to break through politics surrounding the body of water, focusing just on the science in the process of combating harmful algal blooms.
“Whether we have different letters after our name politically, that shouldn’t play into this,” said Wendel. “We need to just look at science, and what is the lake telling us, really that’s what it is, we are talking about other people but that lake if you wanna look at it as a body it speaks, it talks, it shows us things, and we need to listen to it and then we need to plan accordingly.”
The new document comes with updated language that encourages cooperation among more than 20 Chautauqua Lake Stakeholders. Each entity, many of whom are municipal governments, have until the end of May to sign the agreement.
Work to combat algae on the lake is already underway, with use of herbicide products and harvesters to fight weed growth.
Additionally, Wendel says several scientific groups have been studying the lake over the past year to identify the true source of the harmful algal bloom problem.
A copy of the full Chautauqua Lake Memorandum of Understanding is posted online at chqgov.com.
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