After storms and dredging, Lake Ontario’s name is mud

Complaints about Lake Ontario water quality have piled up this summer like waves on a stormy shore. People jaw about debris on the beach and tree branches in the water, but mostly about mud — discolored, chocolatey, muddy water.

The latest episode this weekend, which left near-shore areas of the lake an unusual brownish green, prompted some to blame dredging in the Genesee River, which began in May and ended July 12. But officials say the dredging is only one factor.

Fingers also are being pointed at the sky: Heavy rainstorms that hit the Rochester area over the last month and a half, especially to the city’s south, have washed huge amounts of soil and debris into creeks and rivers.

That muddy, rubbish-laden water winds up in Lake Ontario.

“In over 20 years, I’ve never seen it this bad,” said Sam Zucco, a fishing-boat captain who operates Dream Catcher Charters in Rochester. “It’s usually muddy. But I haven’t seen it that muddy.”

Fishing has still been good; Zucco just has to take clients farther out in the lake than normal to find that crystal-clear water. And at present, a rain-free period has helped near-shore conditions improve.

But we’re just another downpour away from another burst of turbid water, and lots of people are talking about the problem.

“This strange green water descended on the shoreline in Greece, apparently from the Genesee River. I’ve never seen anything quite like this. It looked like an apparition at times,” said local photographer James Montanus, who lives on the lake in Greece.

He was describing the scene near his home this weekend, and said there seems to be a belief among many shoreline residents that northerly winds have been pushing sediment released during dredging back toward the shore.

“I hope the dredging project in the river doesn’t have anything to do with this. Whatever is causing this to occur, it seriously affects the near-shore water quality in the Rochester embayment area,” he wrote in a Facebook post.

Shoreline-dwelling friends added comments to Montanus’s post that included phrases like “water quality is worst I’ve seen” and “it’s been pretty disgusting all summer.”

Would-be swimmers at Rochester’s two public beaches also have been grousing. Muddy water and heavy rains have closed them to swimming roughly half the time since the beach season began.

Those commenters and others have raised questions about dredging in the Genesee, but that work had ended well before this weekend, officials say. What likely caused the multi-hued muddiness in the lake Saturday and Sunday was soil and other material that washed into the Genesee River and other local water bodies in a drenching pre-dawn rainstorm Saturday.

About 11/2 inches fell in Rochester in an hour’s time. Lesser amounts fell in areas to the south. Adding to the load in the river were 22 million gallons of stormwater and sewage that overflowed from Monroe County’s combined-sewer tunnel system Saturday morning as a result of the storm.

Finally, strong winds from the northeast forced muddy water that flowed out of the Genesee toward the shore in Charlotte and Greece.

Similar scenarios have played out since the start of June. Another strong nor’easter piled up a layer of cafe au lait water along the Lake Ontario shoreline last Wednesday, for instance.

“Reported conditions are due to rain events combined with strong winds ... which would tend to hold material in close (to shore),” according to a statement from the state Department of Environmental Conservation. “These storms and the accompanying high flows would tend to move a lot of debris, like fallen trees, out of streams, as well as smaller items that would make it through storm sewers.

“This has been evident in lakes throughout the region after some of the recent (rain) events, sometimes resulting in lakes being closed to boating traffic for several days due to the floating debris piles,” the DEC noted.

As was reported previously, Rochester experienced the 10th-rainiest June on record, and communities south of the city had even more rain.

Total rainfall so far in July is far short of June’s numbers, but significantly, both months have brought more than their share of heavy rains — the kind of gullywashers that send waves of muddy water from farm fields and other open areas into creeks and rivers.

In an average June and July combined, Rochester gets just one day with an inch or more of rain. So far, the city’s recorded three. Avon, on the Genesee River in Livingston County, has had four. Portageville, on the river in Wyoming County, had four with two more days that just fell short of that mark.

Nearly all of that rain has wound up in the Genesee, where the flow has been far above average since June 1, according to data compiled by the U.S. Geological Survey.

Last weekend, the depth of the water in the “lake” created by the Mount Morris Dam on the Genesee rose 30 feet in a single day, the result of heavy rainstorms in Allegany County.

“We have had rainstorm after rainstorm. We had more water than usual,” said Steve Winslow, dam manager for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. The extra flow didn’t present major problems, though it required operational maneuvering and delayed the start of work to remove sediment that builds up on the upstream side of the structure, he said.

While the dam does cause some sediment to settle out of the water, the Genesee’s flow has remained “brown and milkshake-colored,” Winslow said. “The river’s got a lot of sediment in there right now. Those heavy storms produce heavy runoff, especially where you have agricultural land right up against the river.”

Other Corps of Engineers officials say they’re having their engineers looking into complaints about dredging-related sediment fouling the lake’s waters.

Corps officials say they’re sure all of the dredged sediment — an estimated 340,000 cubic yards from the river and 27,000 from the Irondequoit Bay outlet — was delivered to the designated dump site, which is about 11/2 miles northeast of the Charlotte pier. The same disposal area has been used for years.

Tracking devices would alert the Corps if the contractor dumped spoils, as the material is known, outside of the dump site. “In Rochester, we haven’t had any of those (alerts),” said Ryan Lenihan, area engineer for the Corps in Buffalo. “There haven’t been any issues in terms of placement or what we normally do with dredging.”

Dredging on the river began May 3 and ended July 12, Lenihan said. A much smaller dredging project was conducted on the bay outlet last week.

Dredging in the river, necessary so that it is passable to large pleasure craft and commercial vessels, does leave some sediment in the water column, and that does find its way into the lake, said John Ricci, a spokesman for the Monroe County Department of Public Health.

“While the dredging is clearly very important, it does have an impact on our two bathing beaches by stirring up sediments, nutrients, and the like,” Ricci said. The department monitors water quality at Ontario and Durand-Eastman beaches.

So far this year, Ontario Beach has been closed about half the time. Durand-Eastman has been open slightly more than that, Ricci said. Swimming at the lifeguarded beaches officially began June 21 at Durand and June 26 at Ontario Beach.

Algae, which often causes beach closures, hasn’t been much of a problem this summer, Ricci said.

Instead, it’s been heavy rain and the resulting turbid water. The beaches will be closed if the water is too cloudy for lifeguards to see people swimming underwater. They also can be closed after heavy rains because the rain washes animal excrement and other sources of potentially harmful bacteria into the water.

Ricci said some people seem to think that the authorities should be able to do something to keep water clear and clean for swimmers, boaters and beach-goers. And there are plenty of government endeavors to reduce stormwater runoff, nutrient loading, erosion and the like.

But those efforts only go so far. “It’s hard to fathom just how large these water bodies are,” Ricci said. “Sometimes they’re just going to have their way.”

SORR@DemocratandChronicle.com