Sitting at East Shore Park in the summer months, the water splashes on the rocks on a windy day. Yet, visiting the same spot in the winter, the water is nowhere near these same rocks. The seasonal shift in Cayuga Lake’s water levels is a result of a mixture of historical, geographical, and economic factors in the history of the Finger Lakes Region.
In 1912, a three hundred foot-wide lock was built at the north end of Cayuga Lake, near Seneca Falls. This lock allows for the adjustment of the lake’s level depending on rain and snow melt and protects lakeside property from flooding. Before human involvement in the local waterways, European colonizers observed bubbling brooks full of Atlantic salmon and eels. These led to the rushing rapids that eventually turned into Seneca Falls, which was impassable by boat. The Indigenous people of the area, the Cayuga, part of the greater Haudenosaunee Confederacy, referred to this stream as Skoi-Yase, or “place of eel taking.”
In 1828, white settlers connected Cayuga and Seneca Lake by digging a canal to provide a way around the rapids that led into Seneca Lake. Coined the Barge Canal, it allowed for easy transportation between Watkins Glen and Seneca Lake and Seneca Falls and Ithaca on Cayuga Lake. By the mid-nineteenth century, the rapids had been replaced by three locks, connecting the Barge Canal to the greater Erie Canal and in turn to the Great Lakes and the Atlantic Ocean. This led to the rapid industrialization of the town of Seneca Falls, which began producing fire engines, hose carts, and other fire fighting equipment, and pumps and other iron goods including stove parts, bootjacks, corn shellers, meat choppers, flatirons, and bells.
The canal system was originally a way to lift boats as the elevation changed around the area so they could travel out of the valleys of the Finger Lakes and continue through the Erie Canal. Eventually, the lock at the north end of Cayuga Lake began to control the lake level and adjust how much water was flowing out depending on the current rainfall and snowmelt. These adjustments are made with lakefront property protection in mind while also preserving the ebb and flow of the seasonal water changes. In the winter, the water levels are lowered quite a bit as snow melt creates huge flows towards the end of the season. The summer usually sees higher lake levels as a result of water flow from the winter, which helps to support recreational activities.
The question of whether or not to continue adjusting lake levels is currently being discussed nationwide. There are over ninety thousand registered dams over six feet tall in the United States that impede water flow, many of which are no longer in use as boomtowns collapsed or industries disappeared. These dams dramatically decrease the speed of nearby water flow, which has detrimental long-term effects on the surrounding ecosystems and watersheds. Water collects in one place for long periods of time, either until the dam is opened or the water overflows in huge rushes, damaging banks for miles on end. These rushes pick up unwanted sediment and soil from farms and other industries, causing damage as well as leaving chemicals in the water that can lead to algae growth. Today, the Cayuga Lake lock is only used for adjusting the levels of the water as well as the occasional boat, but there have been efforts to create divergent paths for fish and a more sustainable flow of the water we all rely on. Salmon ladders, which have been around for quite some time, were built to give salmon paths over dams that cannot be removed. Currently, researchers are working on manmade mimics, to be installed alongside dams, that use rocks to divert water and allow fish to swim with blockage. Cayuga Lake’s water levels will continue to adjust with the changing seasons and it is up to us to mitigate and problem-solve to create more sustainable options for the future.