Pictured above is a river stabilization project completed on Dutch Hollow Creek. On the left is the bank in 2020 before construction. On the right are members of the project team visiting the site in 2024.

Rivers and lakes exist on different timescales than we do. They were here long before us and will be here long after us. When we think about many things in our daily lives, five or ten years may seem like a very long time, but that is nothing compared to the lifespan of a river. When we look at the scale of human projects to improve watersheds, a decade can be a good starting point.

In 2012, immediately after adopting the lake’s watershed management plan, the county began looking at concrete ways to improve two major streams that feed Chautauqua Lake: Dutch Hollow Creek and Goose Creek. It took two years to produce a document, an erosion, diagnostic and mitigation engineering study for these tributaries. With that study in hand, the county was able to immediately begin implementing projects to improve the lake and watershed. This began in 2015, when the county, through its Department of Planning and Economic Development, received state grants to improve six different stream segments around the lake, including Dutch Hollow and Goose. The state funds were provided by the Environmental Conservation Fund, administered by the state DEC through the Water Quality Improvement Project program.

Fast forward to August 2024, and all six of these river improvement projects were completed after years of funding, planning, management, reporting, and construction. Project partners included County Watershed Coordinator Dave McCoy, the county’s Soil & Water Conservation District, the Chautauqua Watershed Conservancy, the Alliance, and several contractors and engineers. Everything is done, but what does it look like now? Last week, Alliance staff met with some of the original project engineers from Colliers Engineering and Design to get answers to that question. While walking along the Dutch Hollow creekbed, we looked at river stabilizations that had been completed three years earlier. Looking back, that may seem like a long time, but for a natural system, three years is just the blink of an eye.

In the engineers’ eyes, the stabilization measures at Dutch Hollow held up quite well. River banks that had washed away homeowners’ property were still well protected with rock, meaning less sediment and nutrients were carried downstream into the lake. Even within the relatively short period of a few years, rivers can change significantly, often due to storms and tree debris. The water never stands still, after all. This constant change was evident upon our return to Dutch Hollow, when the project team recalled what the site looked like three, four, or five years earlier.

Engineers and project managers can learn a lot by revisiting old sites. They can learn from how materials settle, move, and wear over time, and use that experience to inform new work. Like rivers, our best management practices change and evolve over time. Revisiting these sites after everything is completed gives an important sense of how long these projects will take, and how long they will help the lake and the watershed. A decade of work resulted in this stabilization and five similar projects, but they will work over a much longer period of time to stop erosion and land loss. Ideally, someone could visit these sites many years later and still see the positive impacts.

We all expect certain things from the lake every day, so it’s understandable if we sometimes get lost in the short term. But we can see watershed work much more clearly when we zoom out a little further. The process of planning, designing, financing and building these projects is extensive, whether it’s river restoration, a stormwater management project or a public sewer system. The positive impacts of this work on the lake’s health are felt over even longer time periods.

Currently, the Village of Lakewood is in the final stages of construction on its Grandview Stormwater Management Project. This project was first planned five years ago and, when completed, will help control stormwater and reduce flooding in this area for many decades to come. The Alliance is also participating in engineering studies in Ball Creek and Bemus Creek using state grants. These will likely produce recommendations for additional shovel-ready projects. All of these pieces are working slowly but surely in the background, helping to maintain our watershed and improve the health of the lake. One way to remind ourselves is to look back at what was done in the past, because those efforts continue to help achieve our goals today.