In Ledyard, up on the ridge, the snow has nearly melted away, except in areas that do not get sunlight, and downhill, in Aurora, the torrents of coffee colored water carry loads of silt and detritus down the creeks and gullies into the waiting mother, Cayuga Lake. Aurora, being naturally warmer and protected, is clear of snow now, but has been in and out of snow cover two or three times, with the late season snowfalls.

The Falls on Paines Creek, beautiful in summer with diminished waterflow, must look like a pouring coffeepot at this time of year, and the natural rock streambed choked with a new supply of driftwood and all manner of floatable objects from the fields that the system drains.

Really interesting to watch and a testament to the power of fast moving water, are the roadside ditches on the downhill approaches to Aurora. When winter ice blocks small bridges of gravel over large pipes giving access to farmsteads or fields, the run-around is confined to a small area and cuts through everything in its way, like a warm knife through butter.

Paines Creek, on its hegira to Cayuga Lake, flows under Route 90 through a bridge that has been deemed too old. NYS Department of Transportation has communicated plans to replace that bridge over a one- or two-year project. It will be interesting to see the impact of the project, in however DOT handles traffic, on one, local commuter traffic, and two, over-road haulers who come through Ledyard, with garbage destined for our neighbor county.

One has to ask, is one of the reasons for replacing that bridge the heavy impact of thousands of cumulative tons passing over it? Especially since the bridge was not designed for continuous heavy traffic. Will the new bridge be built to heavier standards?

The coffee colored water flowing into the lake has been a repeating seasonal activity dating back 15,000 to 17,000 years, when the last glacier had finished scooping out

the Cayuga Lake Basin and receded.

Eventually, gravity and erosion will fill up the lake basin with silt and detritus, and our descendants will have to wait for another glacier to clean it out so they can swim in and drink the water once more.

But current descendants must be more conscious of the dissolved contents of that runoff water, in addition to silt and solid materials.

The Town of Ledyard was the lead agency in an effort to understand and chart the ecosystem that affects Cayuga Lake. That was and is only the beginning.

Somewhere there are some grade school and high school students who will work, in the future, with science and through communication to reflect the state of our knowledge. Hopefully, some of them will be in government.

William Dugan is former supervisor for the town of Ledyard.