Hemlock, Canadice 'pretty extraordinary'

AIMEE K. WILES Pure waters John Reddington, at left, of Brooklyn and Todd Juhasz of Westchester County visited Canadice Lake last month. Canadice and neighboring Hemlock Lake, owned by Rochester as reservoirs, are undeveloped and open to the public. But activists say the lakes need more permanent protection from private development.

(Sept. 28, 1999) -- Stand at the foot of Hemlock Lake and see a portrait of the Finger Lakes as they used to be, painted in slate gray and a hundred hues of green. Ranks of trees climb from the shore up steep hills, and a long sheet of water curves to the horizon, with not a cottage or dock, not a speed boat or camper-van anywhere in sight.

Situated just two dozen miles south of Rochester, straddling the Livingston-Ontario county line, Hemlock and neighboring Canadice Lake lie between two of the most heavily developed Finger Lakes, Conesus and Honeoye.

Yet of all the Finger Lakes, only Hemlock and Canadice are free of the changes that modern development can bring. Their shoreline, and much of the land around them, is owned by the city of Rochester, which has used Hemlock and Canadice as a source of drinking water for 123 years.

City officials acquired the land and cleared it of nearly all traces of human activity soley to safeguard the lakes' water from pollution. But in so doing, they created the finest lakefront preserve in western New York, home to nearly two-thirds of all the publicly owned shoreline in the Finger Lakes.

''These lakes are pretty extraordinary,'' said David Klein, who heads the Nature Conservancy here. ''Their shorelines are undeveloped, and that's a wonderful feature.''

Each of New York's 11 Finger Lakes is struggling with its own development issues, but the questions that confront Hemlock and Canadice lakes are unique: Can a water supply function as a park? And can the lakes be permanently preserved?

The very thing that has saved the lakes so far -- their use to supply drinking water -- also leaves them vulnerable.

Although Rochester officials clearly value the beauty of the forested shoreline, they say their sole imperative is to protect water quality. Thus, they say, it is not their job to intervene as development inches farther into the privately owned lands bordering city holdings.

Nor is the city committed to retaining the land should the lakes no longer be needed as a water supply -- although city officials hasten to assure that they don't foresee such a time.

New York state leaders have talked for two decades of stepping in to preserve the watershed as public land. But to date, they have done nothing.

At least 40 new homes have gone up over the past decade on the hillsides that surround the lakes. Most are not visible from the water, but even that is beginning to change. From the foot of Hemlock Lake, large swaths of light-green grass, surrounding three new homes, are visible on a far-off hillside.

''Somebody whose role it is to deal with the environment ought to step forward,'' said Edward J. Doherty, the city commissioner who oversees the water supply. ''Officially, it's not our concern. We have no authority.''

Visitors welcome

In the springtime, Don Martz fishes Hemlock Lake. In the fall, he hunts in the thick woods. On this summery day, he is lugging his handmade kayak down to the water.

Martz, who lives in Webster, has been making pilgrimages to the lakes for 10 years.

''It's a great place,'' he says. ''It's very quiet. It's about as close as you can get to the Adirondack experience without driving 3^½ hours.''

As he and a band of friends paddle off, a cloud of mist drifts earthward, then a sudden rainshower. Despite the dreariness of this weekday afternoon, the roads and boat launches around Hemlock and Canadice are crowded.

Don Root, the city's watershed conservationist, chuckles as he pulls on his slicker. ''That's how much people like these lakes,'' he says.

When Hemlock and Canadice first were tapped to supply Rochester with drinking water, the lakes were lined with cottages, train stations and tourist hotels. But the city, seeking to keep out sewage and other pollutants, gradually bought property, demolished structures and re-planted the forest.

Today, the 7,100 city-owned acres that surround the lakes have the appearance of a nature preserve, the forests and fields alive with deer, fox, raccoon and, some say, an occasional bear. Home to what once was the only nesting pair of bald eagles in the state, the watershed is designated by the Audobon Society as an important bird habitat.

The unspoiled beauty draws about 25,000 people each year. These days they're reaping the benefits of a subtle shift in the attitudes of city officials.

While strict rules still exist to protect water quality, officials now acknowledge that making guests welcome can further that goal: People who enjoy a trek to the lake will leave with a stronger commitment to keeping the watersheds protected.

So the city has loosened its permit system -- visitors no longer need to register in advance -- and has built or upgraded a dozen trails in recent years. A logging policy, which some claimed was despoiling parts of the watershed, has been revamped with the stated goal of maintaining a healthy forest, not making money through timber sales.

Fishing, probably the number-one attraction at the lakes, continues to be high-quality, state fisheries experts say.

''They're wonderful places to visit and play,'' Irene Szabo, president of the Finger Lakes Land Trust, said of Hemlock and Canadice. ''At other lakes, it's very hard to get near the water if you don't know someone you can visit who has a place there.''

Not so very long ago, some environmentalists were less sanguine about the two lakes. The cause of concern was an unlikely one: plans by the city to build a water filtration plant at the north end of Hemlock Lake.

Environmental advocates maintained that the plant's ability to cleanse the water of pollutants would encourage the city to become lax about keeping up its lands, or even to sell off parcels.

But Ontario County environmentalist Stephen Lewandowski, who was involved in those debates as a member of a city advisory committee, said those concerns have evaporated.

''I think their stewardship of the land and water has really been very good,'' he said.

Drink, don't swim

A downside of that vigilant stewardship, however, it that swimming is strictly forbidden in both lakes.

That rule underscores the deceiving nature of Hemlock and Canadice lakes. They are neither a park nor a nature preserve -- they are a water supply and owe their rustic nature to that fact alone.

How long will that be the case?

A potential decision date looms -- the end of the year 2008, when the city's current agreement with the Monroe County Water Authority expires.

The authority, which provides water to Monroe County suburbs, gets a portion of its supply from Hemlock Lake. At times of peak demand, the authority buys more than half of the lakes' total daily maximum production of 48 million gallons.

The authority also is paying for slightly more than half the cost of the city's filtration plant -- an obligation it undertook in part so it could avoid a new filtration plant of its own in Webster.

But now the authority has embarked on a complex water project that could well result in construction of a filtration plant in Webster by the time the agreement with the city expires in 2008. It's not clear whether the authority will need Hemlock water then at all.

''What happens in 2008 is subject to whatever agreement we negotiate, and that, in turn, will be significantly dependent on what they decide to do with the Webster facility,'' Doherty said.

Doherty said he believes the city will be able to afford running the Hemlock plant, and maintaining the watershed, without the authority's financial support. ''Whatever happens, I see Hemlock and Canadice remaining the city's primary water supply indefinitely,'' he said.

But there is no guarantee that the city administration will see things the same way in 2008. Demand for water in the city has been declining as population and industry move out, and no one knows whether future leaders will judge the Hemlock operation financially viable.

John Stanwix, executive director of the water authority, said the Webster treatment plant is not a certainty. Regardless of whether it is built, Stanwix said, his agency likely will want to continue buying water from Hemlock Lake.

''It's to their advantage and our advantage to keep the agreement going,'' he said.

Should the authority take over the city water department -- one such proposal has been rebuffed by Rochester Mayor William A. Johnson Jr. -- the fate of the watershed probably would be up to the city, Stanwix said. But he supports keeping the lakes and their watershed as they are.

Wish-listed

Helen Paulsen sags with exhaustion. It is a steamy morning, even under cover of the hardwoods that grow on Canadice's western shore.

This four-mile trail, alive with grasshoppers and butterflies, is the longest of the footpaths through the city watershed.

''We came today because it's shady and pretty. It's really a wonderful place to run,'' says Paulsen, who lives a dozen miles away in Bloomfield.

Even more public land would be better, she avers. ''It would get a lot of use, I think. If it's there, we will come.''

For many years, advocates have pushed New York state, and the city, to expand the public holdings around the lakes to safeguard their wilderness appeal.

While the city's property lines extend a half-mile or more outward from the shoreline in some cases, at other spots the buffer is only 200 feet deep.

City officials say their current holdings are adequate to protect the water supply. Even if the city wanted more land, it has no money to buy it, Doherty said, and has not considered asking for state or federal grants to make acquisitions.

What is more, he said, the city maintains a buffer around the lakes solely to protect water quality -- not esthetics.

The state's role is another matter altogether.

Hemlock and Canadice have long been on the state Department of Environmental Conservation's wish-list -- its Open Space Conservation Plan. Szabo, a member of an advisory panel that helped draw up the first plan in 1990, said it was clear that regional DEC officials put Hemlock and Canadice ''at the very top of their list.''

Interest picked up three years ago, when state officials, lobbying for the 1996 Clean Water/Clean Air Bond Act, cited the lakes as prime candidates for acquisition with bond act money.

About six months ago, DEC officials from Albany visited the lakes, Doherty said.

To date, though, nothing more has happened, and apparently nothing is planned. A DEC spokeswoman in Albany, Jennifer Post, said the state remains interested but ''there are bigger priorities.''

Doherty said the city discussed several scenarios with the state, including having the state buy privately owned parcels in the watershed, to increase the width of the shoreline buffer zone or to protect land that could be threatened by development.

But they also discussed having the state purchase development rights to the city-owned land, or buy the land outright.

The latter maneuvers would not protect additional lands. But the state would assume partial or full responsibility for paying property taxes on watershed land to local governments and schools in Ontario and Livingston counties. The city now pays $600,000 a year in such taxes.

The city, Doherty said, is interested in seeing the state buy the city's existing land and extend the buffer, though he said the city has a ''higher level of interest'' -- an economic interest -- in having DEC take over the city-owned land.

The only legal protection now afforded the watershed came in a 1993 agreement between the city and two Livingston County towns. In return for a tax break on the filtration plant, the city agreed it would not sell the land in those towns for 40 years.

That protection, however, covers only city-owned land on the western shore of Hemlock Lake. The rest of the public holdings are protected only by the city's good intentions.

Valuable, vulnerable

On the privately owned land, meanwhile, residential development is nibbling at the watershed's edges.

Hemlock and Canadice are unlikely to be overrun with development, for in the five rural towns containing the watershed, new homes come not in subdivisons but one at a time.

''I don't think sprawl has affected them a huge amount yet, but it certainly could happen,'' said Klein of the Nature Conservancy.

As city officials note, the watershed contains 1,900 privately owned parcels of land. At least twenty percent of them are big enough to support residential subdivisions, should town officials permit them.

''There's demand for property around both those lakes, but the supply is very, very limited. One of the reasons is that property owners are reluctant to put their properties up for sale unless they're forced to do it,'' said Dick Kraft, a real estate agent who lists several of the properties for sale around the lakes.

Residents' attitudes may be the saving grace, he said.

''Most of the people who live around the lakes want those two lakes to remain the same. They don't want them developed. That's why they bought in that area,'' said Kraft, who lives on a hill above Canadice Lake.

''I've been selling real estate for 20 years. If anybody would benefit by subdivision of those lakes, it would be me. But even I'm opposed to it.''