Plan Overview
The Town of Skaneateles has received funding from the New York State Department of State to develop a Nine Element (9E) Plan for the Skaneateles Lake Watershed.
A 9E Plan is a plan that describes a community’s water quality concerns and provides a strategy to address those concerns. 9E Plans are developed in partnership with people who live, work, visit, and enjoy the watershed and its water resources, with guidance from state and local agencies.
The Town of Skaneateles will complete this plan with support from the Central New York Regional Planning and Development Board (CNY RPDB) and in cooperation with a Watershed Advisory Committee (WAC). Three public meetings will be held throughout the planning process. The plan will identify measures to improve and protect water quality throughout the entire watershed to sustain Skaneateles’ natural resources.
What Are the 9 Elements?
The New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) has adopted the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) nine-element framework for developing watershed-based plans. Plans must include the following elements to be approved by the DEC:
- Identify and quantify sources of pollution in the watershed.
- Identify the water quality target or goal and pollution reductions needed to achieve the goal.
- Identify the best management practices (BMPs) that will help to achieve reductions needed to meet the water quality goal/target.
- Describe the financial and technical assistance needed to implement the BMPs identified in Element 3.
- Describe the stakeholder outreach, explain how their input was incorporated, and include the role of stakeholders in implementing the plan.
- Estimate a schedule to implement the BMPs identified in the plan.
- Describe the milestones and estimated timeframes for BMP implementation.
- Identify the criteria that will be used to assess water quality improvement as the plan is implemented.
- Describe the monitoring plan to collect water quality data that will be used to measure improvements using the criteria described in Element 8.
Draft 9E Plan
Note that this is a draft plan. The New York State Department of State (NYSDOS) and the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (NYSDEC) have not approved this plan. Please review this plan and provide your comments via email to: amckeon@cnyrpdb.org. Comments will be accepted until June 21, 2024.
