RUI: Implementing the Otsego Lake Watershed Plan - Enhancement of Lake Access, Laboratory and Field Instrumentation and Associated Research

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The State University of New York (SUNY) College at Oneonta is awarded a grant to support infrastructure improvements at its Biological Field Station (BFS) for a range of coordinated interdisciplinary research projects and research training/education conducted by faculty and staff from SUNY Oneonta, the SUNY College of Agriculture and Technology at Cobleskill (SUNY Cobleskill), and the NYS College of Agriculture and Life Sciences at Cornell University. The construction and acquisition of the instrumentation will enable initiation and refinement of research undertaken in coordination with implementation of the Otsego Lake Watershed Management Plan. Construction entails a series of weirs in tributaries to Otsego Lake, the headwaters of the Susquehanna watershed in the Chesapeake Bay drainage basin, to facilitate long-term stream hydrologic, sediment and nutrient mass balance monitoring and analysis; the purchase of four boats to replace those acquired with NSF funding in 1970; acquisition of instrumentation to refine acoustic evaluation off Otsego Lake fish populations, to collect fish characterizing tributary water quality, and for analysis of the aquatic biota in both the lake and its tributaries. These improvements will directly enhance BFS faculty, staff and student research involving impacts of land use practices and introduced species on water quality; nutrient availability and cycling; the evaluation inputs by onsite wastewater treatment systems and the mitigation thereof; population dynamics of zoo- and phytoplankton, macrobenthic invertebrates and fish parasites; fisheries biology and management; and biocontrol of exotic forage fish and nuisance aquatic plants. The SUNY Oneonta BFS has a strong tradition of training students (college-bound high school, undergraduate, and graduate) in ecological and environmental studies. The improvements will help expand summer internship and academic year undergraduate research programs, enabling more students to master the skills needed to pursue graduate study or professional training, or to obtain related entry-level positions. It will also enhance resources available to a newly-proposed graduate program, a Master of Science in Lake Management, now close to final SUNY Administration approval. Additionally, the proposed construction and instrumentation will improve our ability to attract quality researchers and form new collaborations. As a model involving academia with local, State and Federal partners, and applying ecological theory directly to water quality management, the impact of BFS research extends beyond the local to regional and national levels.