Hits and Misses

HIT: To the Cayuga County Soil and Water District's project to reduce erosion along the Owasco Inlet, which is nearing completion after more than two years of work.

The stabilization of stream banks is important for lake quality, and it allows property owners to keep their land instead of seeing it washed away in huge chunks every year. But the real genius of this project is its use of fluvial geomorphology, which uses information on the shape and flow of the water body to determine how to best incorporate erosion prevention measures.

The result is a more effective project, and one that allows for the integration of vegetation on the newly stabilized banks. In a few years, the banks will be stable, but we will never know that people and machines had made it possible.