October 2025 President's Report
Hope this finds you well. Creeks are very low as you know. Hopefully rain will come and steelhead to follow.
Here’s the latest on the Ischua Creek fish kill. NYDEC fined Great Lakes Cheese Factory $475,000 for numerous water and air quality violations. They also required the plant to implement changes and put the necessary equipment and policies in place to prevent this type of incident from occurring again, including installing a USGS gauge Station at the discharge location in the creek. $150,00 of the $475K will go to the local community for the impact and damage the event caused. NYDEC is also in the process of performing a detailed Natural Resource Damage assessment to determine what will be needed to restore the affected areas of the creek back to the condition the creek was before the incident. Once this is completed the DEC will come up with a monetary amount Great Lake Cheese will be required to pay. Go to the link below for the full press release and other info.
Our first General meeting of the year on September 30 unfortunately was canceled due to unforeseen circumstances. The presentation on the State of Lake Erie Steelhead has been rescheduled for this month’s meeting on October 28. Staff from the NYDEC Great Lakes Dunkirk will welcome input at the meeting for the updated Steelhead Management plan. My apologies to anyone that showed up for the September meeting and found the Orvis Store closed. We tried to get the word out as soon as we could on the day of the meeting.
Joe Morgan