Clean Water Plans
Clean water plans take a watershed-based approach to protecting and improving water quality in lakes, rivers, and streams. These plans assess sources of pollution, establish targets for reducing pollutants, and outline strategies that communities can implement to achieve cleaner water. Clean Water Plans must meet specific criteria established by the NYS DEC and Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to ensure effectiveness in managing and restoring water quality.
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Canandaigua Lake 9 Element Plan for Enhanced Phosphorus Management
A 9 Element (9E) Plan is a comprehensive watershed management plan designed to improve and protect water quality. A 9E Plan identifies pollutant sources, sets reduction goals, and outlines strategies for achieving improvements, tracking progress, and monitoring results. 9E Plan are developed by local watershed stakeholder groups and must be approved by the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC). These plans can be applied for proactive protection.
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Our community undertook the development of the Canandaigua Lake Watershed 9E Plan for Enhanced Phosphorus Reduction as a multi-year effort to safeguard water quality. This initiative was led by the Canandaigua Lake Watershed Council, and developed with input from key partners, including: Ontario and Yates County Soil and Water Conservation Districts, Canandaigua Lake Watershed Commission, Canandaigua Lake Watershed Association, Cornell University, and Project consultant Ecologic LLC.
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Through collaboration, scientific research, and strategic planning, this effort aims to reduce phosphorus levels, enhance water quality, and ensure the long-term health of Canandaigua Lake for residents, visitors, and future generations.
Amending the 2014 Watershed Management Plan to Meet New
Challenges and Requirements
The 2014 watershed management plan has played an important role in guiding management efforts by documenting lake and watershed conditions, identifying on-going and new risks to the lake, and prioritizing actions. State agencies have often used the success of our watershed plan and ongoing watershed programs as a model across New York State.
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In recent years, the US EPA and the NYS DEC put a new emphasis on 9 Element Watershed Management Plans. Because Canandaigua Lake updated our watershed management plan to meet the requirements of a 9-element plan in 2023, our grant applications are now able to receive higher priority.
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The 2014 Watershed Plan continues to serve as a guiding document for identifying and implementing watershed protection measures using five adaptive management approaches: research, education, restoration/remediation, open space protection, and regulation. The 9E Watershed Plan explores specific strategies that are amenable to quantitative analysis of their effectiveness in reducing phosphorus input to Canandaigua Lake. With this investment in quantitative analysis, the watershed community is now using the 9E plan as another tool to focus their collective resources on areas of the watershed and specific remedial measures that offer greatest potential for long-term water quality benefit
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Both the 2014 Watershed Management Plan and the 9-Element Plan builds on decades of success in securing grants and implementing high-priority projects to protect and enhance the watershed.​
2014 Canandaigua Lake Watershed Management Plan
The Canandaigua Lake Watershed Management Plan was completed and formally adopted by all 14 watershed and water purveying municipalities in 2014. This plan addresses a broad range of pollutants of concern, including nutrients, bacteria, heavy metals, hydrocarbons, sediment, and emerging contaminants.
Non-Point Source Pollution Watershed Modeling for the 9 Element Plan
The 9E Addendum completed a non-point source pollution watershed model to estimate nutrient and sediment loading to the lake. Our watershed area is large and the factors affecting loads are very complex. Therefore, the watershed model provides a very rough estimate of loading. The power of the model is really in assessing relative load reductions from different management practices in the watershed. The modeling work was completed by Dr. Todd Walter, Dr. Scott Steinschneider, and their PhD student Mahnaz Sepehrmanesh of Cornell University. We presented the modeling results for current conditions can be found in the first public presentation (see below).
Public Presentations
Canandaigua 9E Public Presentation #1: February 18, 2022
A public meeting was held to provide an update on the process to incorporate the EPA Nine Elements into the existing watershed plan for Canandaigua Lake. Watershed Council staff and professors and a doctoral student from Cornell University presented at this virtual event. They:
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Reviewed the existing Watershed Plan
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Described the process to update the plan to a 9 Element Plan
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Summarized computer modeling and water quality monitoring helping to estimate pollution loads
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Provided a draft set of Best Management Practices with pollution reduction estimates
Participants provided comments and questions.
Canandaigua 9E Public Presentation #2: April 13, 2023
The second public meeting reviewed the draft 9E Plan. The Watershed Program Manager also presented projects that have been completed in the watershed and serve as examples for future projects that would help achieve 9E targets. Click below to watch a video recording of the Zoom presentation.
The Canandaigua Lake Nine Element Plan Addendum was prepared with funding provided by the New York State Department of State under Title 11 of the Environmental Protection Fund.
