Syracuse.com - Proponents of new Lake Ontario water regulation plan call it 'once-in-a-generation' opportunity

[HuntingNY-News]

"Many of these wetlands are filling in, becoming congested 'cornfields' of cattails with little or no open water," Howe said.

A new proposal to regulate Lake Ontario's water levels is long overdue and desperately needed, according to environmentalists, outdoor sportsmen and other supporters.

The proposal, Plan 2014, is currently before the International Joint Commission, a panel of U.S. and Canadian officials, and it would change the way the lake's water levels have been regulated since the late 1950s.

The lake's current levels have made the lake's 63,000 acres of surrounding wetlands unhealthy; wildlife, native plants and fish are suffering, supporters of the plan said.

Jim Howe, executive director of the Central and Western Chapters of the Nature Conservancy, stressed that wetlands act as a nature filter for great stretches of the lake's watershed and have other positive impacts on the lake.

"These wetlands needed these exaggerated highs and lows to kill off certain plants. That's not happening now. Many of these wetlands are filling in, becoming congested 'cornfields' of cattails with little or no open water," Howe said.

The current state of affairs, he said, has resulted in the near absence of endangered birds such as the black tern and least bittern, which are "indicators of unhealthy wetlands." Waterfowl hunters, who remember the "good old days' are frustrated by the increasing lack of birds to shoot.

The lack of open water spaces within these areas has drastically lowered the numbers of muskrats, labeled a "keystone" species because they directly affect the environment by eating cattails and helping to clear waterways. That's not happening now, Howe said.

It's also been a sucker punch to fish like the lake's northern pike, a top- of- the- food chain predator, that depend on the wetlands to spawn. One study noted the pike population in the Eastern Basin has declined by as much as 70 percent in recent years, Howe said.

Supporters of Plan 2014 include the Nature Conservancy, N.Y. Audubon, Ducks Unlimited, Trout Unlimited, and the Business Council of New York State. Many in the upper St. Lawrence River area also support the plan because they foresee higher water levels in the river during the fall, which would help the recreational boating and fishing scene there.

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