How the Cayuga Lake Watershed Affects my Life

Violet Goncarovs, grade 9, Home-schooled, Trumansburg, NY

Summer spreads her warm wings of sunlight over the Finger Lakes region. All the overflowing streams are leveling to their summer capacity and the colossal Cayuga Lake is finally warming its murky depths. There are so many things I love about early summer around Cayuga: the blossoming lilacs, the full canopy of my favorite maple tree, and most of all, swimming in the lake. As long as I can remember, I’ve always excitedly awaited the first swim of the season. Diving into the frigid water makes me think of how deceivingly inviting and warm it looks. I always swim back towards shore chattering, but I couldn’t be happier. I will always remember Cayuga in its first-swim form: chilly, regal, and full of life.
Growing up in this area of bountiful waterfalls, glimmering lakes, and oddly beautiful swamps, I have been spoiled by nature’s grace. I can’t imagine life any place else. It would so dull in comparison. I know why so many people before me have settled and lived their lives out on the shores of Cayuga. Beauty and sublimeness at this immensity is so rare, how could anyone not fall in love with this area?
Behind its beauty, Cayuga holds a vibe of importance. I see and feel that significance every time I walk in a tributary stream or turn on a faucet and let the water run over my hands. Cayuga’s role in human life has changed over the centuries. At first it provided food, enjoyment and cleansing properties for the first inhabitants of its shores, The Cayugas. Then as the white man came it provided means for boat transportation and ice for the white man’s iceboxes. As humans moved their life away from nature, Cayuga Lake moved into the position of water supply and sewage disposal. Although this may seem like a sorry title, it is the most important “job” Cayuga could have. Although many people ignore this glacier lake and its feeding streams as anything but a vital water supply, there are many souls who care for fit in the way I do: as a living thing.
I understand that Cayuga Lake doesn’t live and breathe on a biological standard, but perhaps through all the life that it supports it lives in its own way. As with any living thing, I try to respect this vital variable in my life. I care for Cayuga’s health by picking up litter, educating myself about what I pour down the drain, and learning about the public water systems connected to the lake. I have visited both the Ithaca Sewage Treatment Plant and the Bolton Point Water Plant to further my education on this matter. I want to preserve and restore Cayuga Lake and the surrounding area so that the succeeding generations can have the luxuries that I’ve had: clean water and an enjoyable environment.
A short walk from my house is an important imaginary line. The line separates Seneca Lake’s watershed from the Cayuga Lake’s watershed. Two swamps and two streams make this line. One stream flows out of the western swamp and eventually in to Seneca Lake. The other flows east, into Taughannock Creek, over the highest falls east of the Mississippi, and into Cayuga Lake. As shown by this example of connection, no matter how I look at my life, I am fully and eternally connected to the water that surrounds me. The Cayuga Lake Watershed is a part of me, and I hope that someday it will be as pure, as ecologically balanced, and pollutant free as Cayuga’s potential allows.