Spring 2005

Inside the Finger Lakes Institute

Protecting, Preserving and Promoting the Finger Lakes and Beyond

by Cynthia McVey

It’s a Wednesday morning and Professor Nan Arens’ students are in the Institute’s classroom for an environmental studies class.
On a Thursday evening, 20 area homeowners have gathered for a free mini-course on lowering their energy bills.

On yet another morning, staff members meet with representatives of the Institute for the Application of Geospatial Technology.
Since opening June 8, 2004 in its new home at 601 S. Main St., the Finger Lakes Institute has been abuzz with activities to preserve, protect and promote the Finger Lakes. Hobart and William Smith Colleges’ environmental studies program is a key partner in research and education.

The Institute’s mission is to promote environmental research and education about the Finger Lakes and surrounding environments while collaborating with regional environmental partners and state and local governments. The Institute fosters environmentally sound development practices throughout the region, and shares its accumulated knowledge with the public.

The Finger Lakes are important freshwater resources, providing drinking water to more than 700,000 people. They feed into the Great Lakes, which represent 20 percent of the world’s freshwater.
“The future of the Finger Lakes will be determined by the collective involvement of individuals from many disciplines and viewpoints — scientists, policymakers, economists, engineers and local citizens, to name a few,” says Marion Balyszak, the Institute’s director. Balyszak, who has more than eight years experience in the environmental field, including time as the executive director for Seneca Lake Pure Waters Association, and 25 years as an administrator in the non-profit sector of the Finger Lakes region.

Educating, Inspiring the Next Generation
Balyszak and her colleagues realize collective involvement is a long-term process. Therefore, the Institute is reaching out to the next generation of leaders – offering a variety of educational resources and opportunities at the K-12 level.

In collaboration with local teachers, they have established age-appropriate science projects, day trips and programs. These utilize the Institute’s and Colleges’ resources and facilities, not to mention the amazing outdoors of the Finger Lakes.

The Science on Seneca program enables local science teachers to use Seneca Lake as an outdoor classroom. Teachers are taken aboard HWS’ research vessel, the William Scandling, for an orientation of the ship and to conduct research. They can use their own experiences and the Science on Seneca Web site to create hands-on, standards-based lessons for use aboard the ship. Teachers and students can also access the Seneca Lake database online and add their own information, including them in the ongoing research of the Finger Lakes.

“Students can sometimes be intimidated by science, but this gives them the chance to do it for themselves and see that their work is useful to professionals. They become part of a bigger picture because professional researchers use the same database,” says Kyra Hawn, science instructor with Wayne-Finger Lakes BOCES’ alternative middle school.

The Institute also sponsors Project WET and Project WILD teacher training workshops. Project WET (www.projectwet.org) is a non-profit water education program and publisher for educators. Project WILD (www.projectwild.org) is one of the most widely used conservation and environmental education programs among K-12 teachers.

At the high school level, the Institute encourages juniors and seniors to immerse themselves in research through the Environmental Studies Summer Youth Institute (ESSYI). The two-week residential summer program for talented students provides a hands-on, interdisciplinary introduction to environmental issues. Taught by HWS faculty, students examine natural science, humanities and social science approaches to environmental issues.

They also take a four-day camping trip to explore topics in environmental policy, economics and ethics and to see the natural world through the eyes of artists, historians, philosophers and scientists. Students research at the Colleges’ 108-acre private research station, the Henry W. Hanley Biological Preserve, as well as in laboratories and classrooms with professors.

Recent Hobart graduate Brian Thompson ’04 attended ESSYI because of his love of science. However, once he arrived and worked with philosophy, political science and pre-law professors, he decided to attend HWS and pursue a career in environmental law.

“One of ESSYI’s main goals is to get kids out of the lab and into the world and have them sit back and think about why they care about the environment. Through ESSYI and four years at HWS, I learned not just to preserve the environment, but also how to promote and protect it,” says Thompson, now at the University of Vermont Law School pursuing a degree in law with an environmental law focus.

“The educational outreach programs of the Institute inspire kids to learn more about their region, as well as how the world functions and how they affect it,” explains Doug Wood ’05, who worked for Associate Professor of Geoscience John Halfman mapping the bottom of the Finger Lakes and is subsequently now employed by the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration collecting bathymetric data along the eastern coast of the United States.

Need-to-Know
While research conducted at the K-12 and undergraduate levels is a key component of the Institute’s outreach, it is also crucial in assessing the conditions of the Finger Lakes and predicting the region’s future needs.

HWS faculty and students regularly conduct research projects, both independently and in collaboration with watershed management and environmental protection programs throughout the region.

Professor Halfman, who is also director of environmental studies, investigates issues that are associated with and can be used to help preserve the lakes. He studies the paleoclimatic record preserved in the sediments of the Finger Lakes; water quality issues; major ion hydrochemistry; watershed and lake limnology, with a focus on long-term monitoring; exotic species impacts from zebra and quagga mussels; bathymetric surveys, hydrology and water resource issues; and human effects on water quality.

“Occasionally my research is funded by citizen groups that want me to focus my attention on a particular stream, or a particular problem — for example, looking for a suspected threat of runoff or for bacterial contamination,” says Halfman, who prefers teaching in waders in a stream to the classroom.

The data he gathers is useful to see how the lake changes over time — and how those changes relate to the introduction of exotics like the zebra and quagga mussels, and their stimulation of the growth of Eurasian milfoil, an invasive plant species.

“Most of my research revolves around the classes I teach, in that my students will collect the data and investigate the same problems that I am researching, and I’ll occasionally get grants or awards to support the cost,” he says.

Wood and Halfman did grant-funded research aboard the Colleges’ research vessel, the J.B. Snow. Wood helped equip the J.B. Snow, a pontoon boat, with a winch to collect core samples and then worked from its deck to map the Owasco Lake bottom.

“The J.B. Snow gives us the ability to work on small lakes that aren’t accessible by large research boats and lets us conduct studies crucial to preserving them,” says Wood.

In addition to generating critical scientific data, undergraduate research helps the Institute educate future leaders about the condition and needs of the Finger Lakes.

“Undergraduate research brings in the interdisciplinary aspect of preserving, protecting and promoting. You can’t understand the key water quality issues without understanding communities — how they develop, how people frame them and how they live in them,” says Balyszak.

Work of Many Neighbors
The Institute maintains a multi-generational approach to foster programs that promote connections among the numerous stakeholders in the region, including homeowners. Outreach efforts include public lectures and workshops, publications, creation of a clearinghouse of information about the Finger Lakes and Institute tours.
During the weeklong dedication last October, there were a number of lectures on the protection, preservation and promotion of the Finger Lakes, a lakeshore cleanup and water quality monitoring events for the community.

“I try to develop workshops on topics of concern to homeowners and other stakeholders, while representing all of our focus areas,” says Sarah Meyer, the Institute’s community outreach coordinator.
Workshops have been held on household environmental risk, constructing and managing a healthy pond, waste management, lowering energy bills and water conservation. Also scheduled are research presentations on Honeoye Lake, Conesus Lake and socioeconomic trends and well-being indicators for Ontario, Yates, Seneca and Schuyler counties, as well as workshops on insect pest management and biofuels.

“People need to realize what they can do and realize their impact on local watersheds. The Institute is working towards providing opportunities for people,” says Meyer. “We are bringing all of the knowledge together and making it more accessible to the public; all of us are working with the same issues, such as zebra mussels, and dealing with these issues together.”

Protecting, Promoting Lake Communities
The Institute helps coordinate the efforts of local governments, lakeshore property owners’ organizations, grassroots watershed protection associations and other environmental research groups in protecting Finger Lakes’ ecology and overseeing lake development. It also works with area tourism agencies to market the region.

“You can’t have a strong protective program for a freshwater area without economic viability,” explains Balyszak. “The partnering and collaborating with local communities is essential because it takes a strong financial community to mesh good, sound, sustainable development, green development and the protection of the lakes while providing the benefit of the lakes to the people coming to the area.”
The Institute has received more than $2 million in state and federal funding and from private organizations such as the Mellon Foundation, Triad Foundation and John Ben Snow Foundation.

And since the Institute opened, researchers have received equipment and research grants exceeding $200,000 from the National Science Foundation and Environmental Protection Agency, among others.
The Institute has already forged relationships with the Finger Lakes-Lake Ontario Watershed Protection Alliance, the Seneca Lake Pure Waters Association, the Finger Lakes Land Trust and the Central/Western New York chapter of the Nature Conservancy. These partnerships have bolstered individual preservation efforts and helped leverage important funding.

“Each of the 11 lakes has watershed protection programs, but what’s missing is the comprehensive approach. Versus looking locally, we need to look regionally at issues affecting these freshwater resources,” says Balyszak, noting the Institute had become involved with projects that support a plan to clean up the Great Lakes because the Finger Lakes form the headwaters to Lake Ontario.

Increasingly, communities are doing comprehensive, long-range
plans and are building environmental considerations into them. The Institute provides planners with information on land use and regional planning; sustainable or low-impact development; green industrial practices and incentives; infrastructure capacity; drinking water quantity and quality; alternative energy sources; and community environmental issues and concerns.

Balyszak said this century will see greater competition for water, and the need for assessment and evaluation to form educated opinions on how policy is developed.

“The interdisciplinary approach we utilize at the Finger Lakes Institute, and that is reinforced by an interdisciplinary program at HWS and in our educational outreach, lays the groundwork for well-informed, insightful policy development in the future,” she says. ?