What is Making our Watershed Sick?
Lissa Ray, Southern CayugaCentral School
Cayuga Lake is a watershed that most of the communities surrounding
it hold
dear to their hearts. They depend on the lake for a refreshing swim
on a hot day, or even just to keep the scenery beautiful. Some of
the communities take for granted Cayuga Lake being so close and
do not realize that it soon could be unusable if we do not do something.
There are many factors that are making our watershed unwell, they
are: invasive species, pollution, and erosion control.
An invasive species in Cayuga Lake is a species which did not originally
belong there, and now is slowly taking it over because of the lack
of a natural predator to destroy it. One of these predators is the
sea lamprey, believed to have swum its way through the
St. Lawrence, into the Great Lakes, then through the Barge Canal
which leads it straight to Cayuga Lake. The sea lamprey (petromyzon
marinus) is a small parasite with a round
mouth full of teeth. It uses this to grasp onto fish making a hole
and sucking out blood and other bodily fluids. Older fish will most
likely survive this attack with just a small circular scar, but
younger fish die almost immediately. It is estimated that in its
lifetime a
sea lamprey will eat up to 40 pounds of fish: if we multiply that
by the thousands of sea lamprey that could potentially be living
in the lake, that adds up to a lot of damage! We must protect our
waters from these invasive species. (ref. - Protect your waters).
Luckily, there have been two successful lampricides in Cayuga
Lake to get rid of these parasites which have revived the trout
and salmon populations in the area.
When you think of water pollution, you normally think of people
throwing their trash in the lake, however one form of pollution
which not a lot of people know about is phosphorus. Phosphorus is
found in human and animal waste, lawn fertilizers, soaps
and detergents. The Phosphorus in fertilizers, when put on plants,
help them grow, so when poorly maintained septic systems leak human
waste containing phosphorus into a lake it helps algae and weeds
grow faster. This creates a green tint to the lake and a bad
smell. Also, this takes a lot of the oxygen out of the lake making
it harder to breath for the fish and many will suffocate. Phosphorus
is a major problem not only to the animals in the lake, but it will
also diminish the appeal of the entire watershed down by losing
to people.
Erosion control is a major factor along the edge of any source
of water. In Cayuga Lake it is a problem that we can easily see
affecting the lives of the inhabitants of the lake. Although it
is a natural process that has been happening for millions of years,
human existence has sped up this process causing damage to plants
and lakes. Erosion is created by wind and rain. People have sped
this process up by removing plants to build buildings. By removing
these plants it’s like removing the earths shield; now rain
can easily penetrate the surface and create runoff. Erosion mainly
happens when it rains and there is runoff into the lake making it
“dirty” looking. Eventually the soil fills the lake
up with silt. This is very harmful to the fish and other aquatic
life. This process also brings nutrients that help with the excessive
growth of algae. This slowly will fill the entire lake up, and we
can see that “Cayuga Lake has aged more in the last two centuries
than in the previous ten thousand years.” (ref. - News Article)
Whether we see the lake everyday on our drive to work, or barely
see it at all, Cayuga Lake is in need of some help. As I have just
explained to you, Cayuga Lake is slowly going downhill for many
reasons. We need to help make known to more people what is hurting
the lake, because knowledge about the subject will slowly help citizens
become involved to make the lake cleaner and healthier.
Work Cited
Protect your waters, Harmful Aquatic Hitchhikers. Feb 20, 2005
http://www.protectyourwaters.net/hitchhikers/fish_sea_lamprey.php
News Article. Handed out in class
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