How the Cayuga Lake Watershed Affects my Life

Morgan Kuryla, grade 8, Romulus Central School

Morgan Kuryla

The Cayuga Lake Watershed affects my life in various ways. I live near the lake and use it everyday without even knowing it.
During the summer, I go to the lake a lot. My friend Kelly rents a cottage that is along the lake. While I am there, we usually go swimming, boating, tubing, jet skiing, and have a lot of fun. We also like to feed the minnows. My favorite animals on the lake are the families of ducks. I like to feed them pieces of bread.

Even though this lake is pretty clean doesn’t mean that there isn’t any pollution. When I go boating in the summer, I see garbage floating in the lake water. This pollution could kill fish and other animals in the lake. The water in this lake is very clean and pure. The water at my house comes from Cayuga Lake and it doesn’t have a weird after-taste after you drink it. This lake provides a lot of people with water each day to shower, wash dishes, drink, and many other things. Without this where would we get our water from.

My favorite thing about the lake is the scenery. Every morning I can see the sunrise from my bedroom deck. It is so pretty to see the fog stand over the lake on cold mornings. At night you can sometimes see the reflection of the moon on the water and it looks really cool. There are so many vineyards along Cayuga Lake. This lake in particular has a really good climate to grow grapes to make wine and grape juice. Living next to a vineyard is really cool. You get to see the grapes grow and see how each step is done to protect the plants from being destroyed or eaten by animals.

Cayuga Lake is very important to my life and me. It is where my family gets our water and where a lot of life in the world begins.