PRESERVE
WATER QUALITY
Preserving the waters and wetlands of the legendary Sodus Bay
Water Quality
Projects & Programs
WEEKLY WATER WELLNESS
Weekly Water Wellness is a real-time water quality checkup on Sodus Bay with a public reporting mechanism. Each week, our volunteers test for dissolved oxygen, pH, temperature and conductivity. These are important indicators for the bay's ability to sustain wildlife, particularly fish.
The data will help fill in gaps that now exist because neither Wayne County nor any of the surrounding municipalities offers this type of testing. In this way, the data can potentially provide the basis to develop future implementation projects to improve Sodus Bay’s water quality, help us track invasive species, and chart the impact of a changing climate.
Photo Credit:
Boat driver, Dennis Chasse & W3 Coordinator, Nell Gardener (upper left)
Ann Ghyzel tests the samples and records data. (lower right)
Wetland Preservation
In 2016, Save Our Sodus contributed $10,000 towards the $362,000 preservation project co-funded with the Nature Conservancy and New York State Department of Environmental Conservation. The goal is to distribute the water throughout the wetlands equally. SOS created this video with help from Brian Bushnell to share the results in 2022.
NAB-A-HAB™
The SOS NAB-A-HAB team responds to reports of possible Harmful Algal Blooms (HAB’s) on the HAB Hotline, provides on-site HAB identification, relays positive HAB discoveries to saveoursodus.com as well as the SOS & Village of Sodus Point Facebook pages. SOS provides this service to the community free of charge, using the ioLight microscope. The device interfaces with a cellphone app to provide rapid identification of the HAB sample on-site. NAB-A-HAB volunteers share the ioLight microscope to respond independently to the HAB hotline for 'on call' weekly shifts throughout the summer season.
Want to report a potential HAB?
Clean. Drain. Dry.
SOS supports and promotes New York’s Clean. Drain. Dry. Program to avoid spreading invasive species from one body of water to the next through watercraft.
To learn more, visit the New York Department of Environmental Conservation.
Weed Harvesting
SOS is responsible for raising the funds for the first weed harvester on Sodus Bay. In 1999, we secured $75,000 in grants from New York State Senator Mike Nozzolio. Today there are two active programs on the bay and at least two other commercial options available to property owners. Wayne County Soil & Water District took over the original harvester and today runs four machines.
Two are scheduled to remain in Sodus Bay for the summer. The other two will rotate between other bodies of water in the county. The Town of Huron also has two harvesters which clear specific areas in the town close to the docks. This program is run by the Sodus Bay Improvement Association (SBIA). SOS technical advisor, Dave Scudder helped make the program operational. It's paid for by a special tax district and could be replicated in other areas of the bay if desired.
Government Harvesting
Sodus Bay Improvement Association (SBIA)
Private Weed Harvesting Contractors
NYSFOLA Water Assessment
SOS volunteers routinely gather water samples on Sodus Bay for the Citizens State-wise Lake Assessment Program (CSLAP). It's a partnership between New York State Federation of Lake Associations (NYSFOLA) and the New York Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) to test water in hundreds of water bodies across the state, through the help of more than 600 volunteers. New York State tests the samples for water temperature, transparency, conductivity, PH, true color, total phosphorus, nitrogen content, cloraphyll A, calcium, and chloride.
The results are published the following spring by DEC.
You can read the most recent reports here: