― NEWS & ANNOUNCEMENTS ―
Lake Foam Monitoring and Reporting
Finger Lakes Water Quality
Global Aquatic Research LLC (GAR) partners with organizations and communities around the Finger lakes to solve modern water quality challenges. We provide professional scientific advisement and research services focused on harmful algal blooms (HABs), lake foam, and chemical pollution.
Get Involved! - Introducing the Finger Lakes Foam Reporting Tool
Lake foam has increasingly been observed in the Finger Lakes, causing nuisance shoreline accumulations. Our research on Canandaigua Lake has shown foam production is linked to HABs, and that foam can concentrate pollution from the lake. We are expanding our foam research to several other lakes (Keuka, Owasco, Seneca, Skaneateles) as part of a PFAS-in-foam project in collaboration with the Canandaigua Lake Watershed Association, Binghamton University, the NYS Water Resources Institute and the NYSDEC.
Using the tool provided, you can report foam on any of the 11 Finger Lakes when you see it. We need your help to document and sample foam! We are looking for sizeable patches or streaks of mid-lake foam (more than just a few scattered bubbles), or accumulations of shoreline foam that affect one or more properties. You have the option of opening the tool in a browser or using the Survey123 app - The app version will allow you to drop a pin on a map where you saw the foam, but in the browser version you will need the address or GPS coordinates of where foam was observed. For more information, please contact your local lake association.
The Finger Lakes Foam Reporting Tool Is Now Active!
NYSDEC HABs Website
Keuka Lake HABs Monitoring Update
Good news! As of Sunday, August 24th there has not been much new HAB activity to report. The only DEC-confirmed HAB on Keuka Lake this past week was a small bloom in Hammondsport on Friday, August 22nd. This was the first bloom we've seen on this part of the lake. However, we remain in peak HAB season for another month or so. The continuing heat along with still air and warm water temperatures could trigger cyanobacteria blooms. Fortunately so far these blooms have dispersed within a short period of time. Please check back for timely HABs updates.
Annual Meeting - Held Saturday, July 19
The KLA Annual Meeting was held Saturday, July 19 at Keuka College. The meeting was well attended by membership. The meeting featured a roundtable question and answer with the sheriffs from both Yates and Steuben Counties on boat and water safety, a presentation by Dr Dominique Dermino, an Assistant Professor of Biology at Keuka College, focused on cyanobacteria, and a presentation by Alex Koeberle, a PhD Candidate discussing fisheries conservation. Thank you to all members who attended.
Lake Friendly Living Commitment
At the KLA Annual Meeting a comprehensive guide on Lake Friendly Living (LFL) was distributed. It included a pledge members could take committing to the conservation guidelines provided by this initiative. Twenty-six members took the pledge and received a lawn sign to acknowledge their commitment. Thank you to all those taking the LFL pledge!
Thank You to All Our Golf Tournament Players and Sponsors
The Board of Directors of the KLA would like to thank all those players and our business sponsors who participated and donated to a very successful 6th Annual Golf Tournament at Lakeside Country Club on July 14. We appreciate all your support helping to preserve and protect Keuka Lake now and for future generations!
Fish Update
In the past few days the KLA has observed and received numerous reports of dead fish in the lake and
along the shoreline. Most of these reports come from the east arm of the lake. Social media sites
report similar findings. The Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) is hearing reports of dead
fish on Canandaigua and Cayuga Lake also. The DEC is well aware of the issue and the KLA is working
with them to better understand the situation. Early speculation of the cause is related to spawning stress
compounded by recent storms, but other possible causes are being investigated.
Watch this space for further developments.
Lake Level Summary- 6/5-6/12
As a result of tardy postings of some recent gate opening actions, plus the loss of 11 actual lake level updates to the lake level website during a critical time Monday and Tuesday (resulting from an equipment supplier’s remote actions), the following is an attempt to summarize key lake level events from the past week:
Prior to Friday, 6/6, there had been one gate opened full for several days. Following several hours of periodic rainfall, by midnight of Thursday, 6/5, the lake level rose to reach the upper guide at 714.25’.
With rain continuing on Friday, 6/6, another gate was opened around noon, with two more opened by late afternoon, bringing the total to 4 gates full open. By the end of the day on Saturday, 6/7, with more rainfall, the lake level rose to 714.3’, just above the high guide.
With rain continuing, another gate was opened on Saturday, 6/7, bringing the total to 5 gates full open.
On Monday morning, with forecasts for late day potential flooding, a 6th gate was opened.
At 3:00 PM on Monday, our lake level page stopped updating (caused by an equipment supplier trying to solve another customer’s problem, and instead, made our equipment incapable of updating.
Multiple inches of rain hammered the entire watershed during a very few hours of Monday early evening, and with the soils being already totally saturated, every gully and stream was soon seeing extreme waterflows rarely seen before. This caused substantial damage to personal property, roads, and resulted in the lake level peaking at around 715’, which was reached in the early morning hours of Tuesday, 6/10. This level is significantly below any previous critical flood levels and below the “mean high water level”. Since the automated lake level system was not functioning, fixed lake level gauges at various locations around the lake were utilized.
Over the next 24 hours, with no rainfall, and 6 gates full open, there was basically no change in lake level (continuing water inflow matched outflow through the gates into the outlet --- approaching 1,000 cu. Ft. per second).
By Thursday, 6/12, with 6 gates still open and no rain since Monday, the lake level had dropped only about 4 inches from the peak level reached late Monday or early Tuesday. Therefore, … we obviously were still experiencing significant water inflow.
As the lake level continues to slowly drop into the objectives area, expect the gates to be closed appropriately.
*Thank you KLOC and the Penn Yan public works staff for keeping the lake level well below critical flood stage during this most recent extreme rain event. Streams and creeks were the flooding and property damage sources, not the lake. And thank you D. Scott Demmin for making our website lake level history reflect what actually happened.
Lake Level Update -- 2:00 PM 6/10 - All Fixed
The data logger problem was found and has been corrected. Today’s 2:00 PM lake level was actually 714.8’. It may take a couple of hours for things to stabilize and the website chart to correct, but it will. We were able to compare the reading to the manual gauge at the outlet, which was just above 715' at 1:00 PM.
Therefore, with 6 gates full open for the past 10 hours, the outflow has matched the inflow, and the level appears to be holding steady at ~ 715'.
Lake Level Update-7:00AM, 6/10
Wow, what a night of rain! Looks like we may be using manual gauges for a while to determine the lake level. The lake level on the website hasn’t updated since 3:00 PM yesterday. Our data logger shows no readings in the past several hours. Unfortunately, the Hammondsport USGS gauge is not showing a reading either.
2 ½ in. of rain was manually measured since 5:00 PM on Monday. If the rest of the watershed saw about the same, even with all 6 gates full open, the lake rose at least 6 in. over the past 8 hrs. As of 5:30 AM today, the estimated lake level, using a fixed seawall gauge, is somewhere around 715 ft.
We are unsure when we will see the lake level equipment at the PYWP back on-line, or the USGS gauge in Hammondsport back functioning. In the meantime, watch your portable dock boards, boats, etc. and make sure they don’t float away. The amount of debris in the lake is huge, so please err on the side of caution.
Lake Temperature
The KLA is aware that the temperature readings are lower than historical readings by ~5-9 degrees and have been this way since July 2024. Last month, the temperature gauge at the Village of Penn Yan was successfully recalibrated. However, we found this did not solve the problem. We are currently looking into the communication between the sensor and our web server to understand if there is an error occurring in the way the information is being processed. We will continue to work on this situation until we have it remediated. Thank you for your understanding."
Boating Safety Classes at Saunders!
Exciting News! Saunders Finger Lakes Museum in Branchport announced they will be hosting in-person Boater Safety Classes on Sundays from March through September. Sign up here!
Waterfowl & Bird Flu
Recently, there have been reports of dead waterfowl found in the Finger Lakes that have been confirmed to have the H5N1 virus or Bird Flu. You may also see these cases referenced with the term Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza (HPAI). While reports indicate that the risk to the public is low, the NYS Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) has established a reporting mechanism and some guidance that describes what to do when dead waterfowl are found. For further information, see:
DEC Launches New Web-Based Form to Report Suspected Cases of Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza in Wild Birds
After checking with the DEC and the Department of Health in Yates County, we can state that as of February 2, 2025 there have been no reported cases of H5N1 in waterfowl on Keuka Lake.
