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CAYUGA LAKE WATERSHED 2011 i4 Network News INSIDE... Toward a Sustainable Energy PAGE 2... Invasive Future in the Finger Lakes Region Species and by Hilary Lambert, Steward Climate Change The “new normal” PAGE 4... Local Over the past several years, we in the Finger Lakes have had to deal with extreme weather events and their consequences to our daily lives. These include unseasonal or extreme cold Environmental or heat, “too much” or “too little” rainfall or snow, previously rare events such as tornados, Group Receives and “100 year floods” that seem to have become annual events. Invasive species originating Award at Cayuga in warmer climates are moving north, exemplified by the sudden Lake Celebration threat of Hydrilla to Cayuga Lake PAGE 6... Sunset (and potentially across the Great Lakes Basin), and the Hemlock 2011 Donors Woolly Adelgid to our steep- 2012 Seeking a banked, cool-water creeks. Readers with more than a few Few Good years behind them will recall Volunteers for growing up in a stable, depend - CLWN able climate when the seasons stayed where they belonged. t h Committes! c Welcome to the “new normal”: e H l l The scientific consensus is that i PAGE 7... Please B these extreme weather events and Renew, Join or The hemlocks at Upper Treman State Park are showing signs of invasive species are our everyday, Hemlock Wooly Adelgid infestation. They anchor steep slopes Donate to the local indicators of the global and keep creeks cool. Will a warming climate lead to their Network warming trend now underway. demise? What can we do? New York State’s climate in 2100 will resemble Georgia’s today These recent heating effects are greatest at the poles: the Arctic and Antarctic are losing ice more rapidly than predicted, leading to loss of cold climate species habitat and economic impacts to human residents due to permafrost melting, shifting seasons, and new sea lanes opening as the ice melts. Here in the Finger Lakes, the weather extremes we have been experiencing are the creaks and groans in the system as the region shifts long-term toward a warmer climate. Research carried out by the Union of Concerned Scientists and others indicates that, by the year 2100, New York State’s climate will closely resemble that of Georgia’s today. Between 2011 and 2100, we will see big changes in human and natural habitats that will affect us all profoundly. Southern species will shift northward, and some of our best-loved continued on page 4 Invasive Species and Climate Change Volunteers sought to form an Invasives Alert team! eld on October 19 at induced looming changes to land Coordinator, Lab Director, City of Ithaca’s Unitarian Church use, water use, and energy choices Ithaca Water Treatment Plant; HAnnex, our autumn – changes that require rapid “Hemlock Woolly Adelgid is Here, community conference, “Invasive advance planning and adaptation Emerald Ash Borer is Coming: Species and Climate Change,” was by communities and individuals. What's Next for Our Forests?” by well attended, providing somber Presentations and expert Mark C. Whitmore, Forest information about climate change speakers were, “Hydrilla and Other Entomologist, Department of already underway, as indicated by Invasive Aquatic Plants,” by Natural Resources, Cornell aquatic and terrestrial invasive Roxanna Johnston, Watershed University; and “Invasive Species species moving north into Cayuga & Climate Change: What Lake and adjacent watersheds. Hydrilla can we expect? How can This free community we adapt?” by Holly L. conference focused on intertwined Menninger, Coordinator & issues already impacting our lives, Senior Extension Associate, with information about invasive NY Invasive Species species in the news locally as Research Institute, indicators of global warming- Department of Natural Resources, Cornell University. Volunteer opportunity! The Network is forming a team of volunteers interested in being trained to help locate emerging invasive pests in the woods, along the creeks and in the lake; to help mitigate invasive impacts where possible; and to educate ourselves and others how we can – must – get involved NOW in adaptations to climate change locally. We’ll get started in early 2012. Contact Hilary Lambert at Damage to the bark of an ash tree killed by the Emerald Ash Borer. Includes two clear [email protected] if examples of the classic D-shaped exit hole. interested! The community conference was co-sponsored by the Cayuga Lake Watershed Network, CL Intermunicipal Organization, City of Ithaca, Sustainable Tompkins Inc., and the Finger Lakes Institute. Thanks to the IO for ravishing refreshments! This event was funded in part by a grant from Freshwater Future, Inc. Cayuga Lake Watershed Network 170 Main St., PO Box 348 OFFICE HOURS: STAFF: The Cayuga Lake Watershed Aurora, NY 13026 Tuesday and Thursday Hilary Lambert, Steward – Network thanks Westhill Graphics www.cayugalake.org 10am - 5pm [email protected] of Ithaca and Pioneer Printing Steward Cell . .859-421-3609 And by Appointment Ashley Benning, Office Staff Office . .315-364-2992 Ryan Huggins, Intern of Lodi for their support and Fax . .315-364-2991 excellence. 2 Local Environmental Group Receives Award at Cayuga Lake Celebration During ’68-’71, CCSCL prevented a nuclear power plant from being built on Cayuga Lake in Lansing On Saturday October 8, the after-dinner crowd at the “Sunset on Cayuga” celebration at Wells College’s Sommer Center cheered when Doris Brown said, “We deserve this!” he was referring to the David Morehouse Award, bestowed on Sher group, Citizens Committee to Save Cayuga Lake (CCSCL), for their work from 1968-’71 in pre - venting the proposed Bell Station nuclear power plant from being built on Cayuga Lake in Lansing. The David Morehouse Award is presented by the Cayuga Lake Watershed Network to individuals and groups who have shown leader - ship and commitment in protecting Doris Brown is pictured here with son Creighton, after receiving the 2011 David Morehouse the health and beauty of the Cayuga Award on behalf of the Citizens Committee to Save Cayuga Lake. Lake watershed. The Morehouse Ms Brown pointed out the simi - history (partial list provided on Award was created in honor of the larities of the CCSCL’s fight against a request). late David Morehouse, a Town of nuclear threat to the lake and today’s Ms Kiefer pointed out that, “This Ledyard resident, who dedicated efforts to prevent gas drilling and all took place at the dawn of the many years of his life to improving hydraulic hydrofracturing from environmental movement (which is water quality in the Cayuga Lake impacting our region. She said that often said to have started with the watershed. Morehouse was a then, there was no good answer to battle over pumped storage at Storm founding member of the Cayuga the question, “Where do you store King Mountain in the Hudson Lake Watershed Network and the depleted nuclear fuel rods?”; and Valley); but we were happening at the Cayuga Lake Watershed today there is no good answer to the same time!” Intermunicipal Organization. question, “Where will the polluted It is amazing and impressive that In her acceptance remarks, Ithaca water go?” from gas drilling activities. CCSCL was able to stop this project, and Caroline resident Doris Brown Another founding member of proposed by NY State Electric & Gas stated that this dedicated group of CCSCL in the “Sunset on Cayuga” (NYSEG). There were few avenues of local residents and scientific experts audience was Dooley Kiefer, Ithaca appeal for citizens at that time – no worked endless hours to keep Cayuga resident and Tompkins County environmental review processes, and Lake safe from the proposed siting of a legislator. She had dug through her few hearings for public input beyond nuclear power plant on the lakeshore records to locate copies of CCSL’s those required by the federal Atomic by attending meetings, researching original newsletters and pamphlets, Regulatory Commission and the state and writing scholarly papers, pub - which were displayed at the dinner Board of Health. Much skilled lishing newsletters, holding public along with a number of other docu - politicking and backbreaking behind- events and communicating with ments that describe the group’s the-scenes efforts were needed to stop elected and appointed officials. efforts and place in environmental continued on back cover 3 Toward a Sustainable Energy Future in the Finger Lakes Region continued from cover species (such as sugar maple) will be much more restricted. now retrievable via new, “miracle” technological Only the northerly parts of New York State will have breakthroughs. extended periods of snow cover (graphs, maps, data: The unlikely bedfellows in this loose alliance state that, www.ucusa.org/global_warming/ ). to move beyond coal, we must embrace natural gas as the Farming, gardening, energy use and water use for “cleaner” fossil fuel, and that residents of shale gas regions recreational, domestic, municipal and industrial uses will must be willing to permanently sacrifice their land, air and have to adapt to an emerging climate characterized by less water for the greater good of reduced fossil fuel use over frequent, more intense rain and snow events, and drier, the long term. Around 2040, they argue, thanks to natural warmer summers. Growing seasons are gas, our nation and the world will have already shifting by a few days, and reliable Growing seasons are “transitioned” to renewable energy water sources are becoming less so. sources and will be able to say goodbye Until recently, it was hoped by many already shifting by forever to all fossil fuels, leading people in the USA and world-wide that a few days, and eventually to a stable global climate. the extremes of climate change might be To say that this argument is self- ameliorated if we could slow our use of reliable water sources serving and specious would be to widen fossil fuels (principally coal, oil and are becoming less so.

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