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Black Lake Association
2024 Fall Newsletter
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Highlights from
Jay Carter, President
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This was a difficult year for the Black Lake Association. We lost two important people our friends and dedicated board members Ronni Baldini (Treasurer) and Scott Roof (Vice President) all in a matter of weeks. They always worked hard to keep everyone involved and updated on our progress.
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Ronni was the glue that held us together for all these years with her dedication to the Facebook page, newsletters and being the treasurer. Scott worked hard building communication with the Towns, DEC, attended meetings, working with Brad Baldwin collecting data, and evaluating the water on the lake. We will miss them.
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The Black Lake Association is now working to pick up the pieces. We are in the process of updating the website, Facebook and our MailChimp account that was hacked this year. Mailchimp is the way we send mass emails with templates built in. Please be patient as we work to correct all these issues.
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This year the Lake has had its challenges with the large amount of rainfall that led to flooding, docks underwater and the floating Rice Islands. These islands ruined docks, blocked covert pipes at the bridge and took out one of the buoys. It put a financial strain on the businesses with damaged docks, docks underwater and other conditions beyond their control. These issues affected everyone.
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The Black Lake Association hired the Weed harvester to help some of the residents and businesses with the Rice Islands that took over their docks and shores. The total cost for this was $5,160 for 44 hours of clean up. The Association is here to help where we can all we ask for is you to help us join as a member and work with us to fight to preserve what we have.
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As Jay has discussed in all our meetings, one of our biggest problems facing the lake is the spread of the water chestnuts from the Oswegatchie River and Heuvelton area into Black Lake. Brad Baldwins article below with go into more depth on the efforts taking place. We want to thank everyone involved with this project.
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Below are pictures of these floating islands and an article published in August. Click on the link to watch the interview.
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Here is an article published August 20 by Thomas Cafarella of Channel 7 News:
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TOWN OF MORRISTOWN, New York (WWNY) - Carol Adamczyk is the owner of the Never-Inn on Black Lake in St. Lawrence County.
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Her dock is submerged. Her beach is gone, and she’s not the only one. On the shores of Black Lake, land has disappeared, and docks are ruined by high waters. Adamczyk says the high waters haven’t just been an inconvenience. They’ve also been a financial burden. “I lost people that had a two-week rental, and they couldn’t come because they said there’s no sense in coming if they can’t put their boats in the water and fish,” she said.
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Black Lake Chamber of Commerce President Richard Rupert says water levels have risen 3 feet due to recent rain from hurricane remnants. “We’ve dealt with high water. We’ve dealt with some floating debris but nothing similar to this. This is the worst it’s been in, I hear, over 70 years,” he said. Adding to the damage from water are land bogs. That’s a large landmass separated from the shoreline due to rising waters. Strong winds push them around. The heavy masses run into and damage docks.
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These islands that are getting to us, these rice islands — this is what’s hurting us,” said Adamczyk. Rupert says that it is important to remove the bogs before water levels recede because they can reroot themselves, becoming permanent land in new places.
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Updates from Brad Baldwin
Brad Baldwin, PhD is a Biology Professor at St. Lawrence University, who has studied Black Lake alongside the Black Lake Association for 25 years. We have partnered with Brad to conduct our own water sampling in addition to CSLAP. Thank you, Brad, for all your help. If you have questions or want to let Brad know of any issues you see on the lake, email him at bbaldwin@stlawu.edu
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Hopeful efforts at suppressing a major invasion of water chestnuts in waters of Northern New York
Are we about to turn the corner and finally rein in a major infestation of water chestnuts, one that has seriously impacted the Oswegatchie River, near Heuvelton, NY? Thanks to significant multiyear funding from the NYS DEC, as well as a grant from NYPA’s SLRREF program, scientists, and community partners in 2024 removed ~90% of a nearly 40-acre water chestnut population and discovered a promising control approach to initiate in 2025.
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Using mechanical harvesting and hand-pulling techniques in 2024 we estimate the mid-summer removal of perhaps 30 million chestnut plants (before their new nuts had matured and dropped), leaving about 30 million nuts in the remaining benthic seedbank.
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Over the next few years, we will harvest younger, smaller plants in late spring when a newly purchased harvester should be able to remove entire, unrooted plants along with their nuts, thereby reducing the competitive dominance (e.g. shading) of water chestnuts on the remaining native vegetation.
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Not only will this help restore the native vegetation used by local fishes, but it should also reduce the likelihood of downstream dispersal of chestnuts into 2 economically important waters, Black Lake, and the St. Lawrence River. Thankfully, 2024 surveys in Black Lake uncovered very few rooted chestnut plants, which were hand-pulled. Unfortunately, similar surveys in shoreline embayment’s of the St. Lawrence River uncovered an established but small population of rooted, nut-producing chestnuts in Tibbett's Creek, near Ogdensburg. Efforts to hand-pull these plants are ongoing.
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Future surveys and removals will be crucial in 2025, particularly given potential downstream dispersal due to the unusual summer floods in 2024. Although we found similar amounts of potential fish forage (zooplankton, insects, snails etc.) in nearshore vegetation dominated by water chestnut or native vegetation, water quality measurements were generally worse in chestnut sites, showing lower dissolved oxygen and pH than seen in native sites, especially from midnight to dawn.
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So continued suppression of water chestnut should enhance native biodiversity, fish habitat, and recreational boating in these important NNY waters.
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This is a possible reality of what our lake could become in the future if nothing is done.
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We have many important projects that will continue to face us year after year. We have received funding through our memberships, grants, towns, and other organizations surrounding the Lake.
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Funding will be crucial on a yearly basis to maintain the lake.
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Our Future Projects and Goals
- Continue to cut and widen the channel on the north end of the lake.
- Water testing through CSLAP and on our own with Brad.
- Water chestnut removal and control.
- Water chestnut removal in Heuvelton.
- Continue to push for the changes at the boat launch.
- Coordinate efforts with Black Lake Fish and Game Club, Chamber of Commerce, towns, local businesses, and governmental agencies (DEC, Parks and Recreation, local politicians, St. Lawrence County)
- Work with the towns to secure yearly and future funding.
- Increase our membership.
- Work on other areas of the lake where needed.
- Address and monitor the Fishing Tournaments
- Apply for grants.
Our goals are to continue to address issues on the lake so we can continue to enjoy what the lake has to offer. The lake is a large source of revenue for St. Lawrence County. This is why we need to address all these issues. We need more people to get involved.
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The Black Lake Association has also continued to address the issues with the State Boat Launch. There has been some recent communication that with the help of New York State Representative Scott Gray and Senator Mark Walczyk’s office that some of the changes we have been requesting may take place. We want the dock to be longer, docks positioned in front of the concrete walls for boaters to be able to tie off out of the way, cameras placed for safety and added protection of everyone’s property left in the parking lot while enjoying the lake.
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Financial Update
Although we have funds in the bank the projects that we have will quickly deplete them. It is important that we plan and budget the money to fund the projects for as long as we can. We had 229 of the 259 members from last year renew their dues for 2024. The total membership for the year was $8,015. We will not be able to fund our projects with just our membership.
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Currently there are over 900 property owners on the lake, I am currently getting an accurate count. If all 900 property owners join, we would have over $31,500 in membership dues which would help us fund our projects to protect the lake. We want to thank all the members for their continued support. You can help us by talking to your neighbors about the importance of being a member. Our goal each year has been to increase our membership.
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For our organization to be recognized as an important part of the county, we need to have larger membership numbers (power in numbers). The Lake should be important to every owner. If we do not address and take care of the issues, there may not be a lake for everyone to enjoy.
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This year we have received funds from:
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- Town of Oswegatchie $10,000
- Town of Macomb $7,100
- Town of Rossie $500
- Anonymous Donation $3,000
- St. Lawrence County IDA-ARPA Funds $7,510.11
On behalf of the Black Lake Association, we want to thank each one of you for your donation.
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Annual Board Meeting
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The Black Lake Association held its Annual Board/Public Member’s Meeting on Saturday October 5, 2024, at Mack’s Inn. We were unable to send out a mass mailing through our Mailchimp account due to a virus, our other email account was infected with a virus as well. The only way to notify was through our website. We apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused anyone. We have had many issues to try to clear up and move forward with.
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Results from the election:
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- Steve Roof, Vice President
- Michelle Gallagher, Treasurer
- Craig McLear, re-elected board member
- John VanSchaick, re-elected board member
- Mike Lalonde, newly elected board member
- Roger Wood, newly elected board member
- Paula McDougal, newly elected board member
Welcome to all our new board members and thank you to all our present board members for all their efforts throughout the year.
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Board of Directors
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In an effort to get the newsletter out I apologize if I have left anyone or any information out. We will continue to build working relationships with the residents, towns, businesses, and organizations on the lake. Join us in our fight to protect and take care of the lake.
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