SKANEATELES LAKE - Representatives of the Upstate Freshwater Institute spent the day in the middle of Skaneateles Lake. Not a bad place to be when the sun is shining and a gentle breeze is blowing.

But the three individuals on board weren't tanning or out for a joy ride on a Thursday last month. They were hard at work, collecting samples to determine the lake's temperature, phosphorous, chlorophyll and dissolved oxygen, among other variables.

The collection is part of a new project initiated by the town of Skaneateles' Lake Monitoring Committee. It is just the beginning of what is the first long-term monitoring study of the lake's water quality, said Robert Werner, head of the committee and a former professor at the State University of New York College of Environmental Science and Forestry.

The Upstate Freshwater Institute, a nonprofit research organization, began taking samples in April and will do so once a month until October, Werner said. Each year, the institute's researchers will visit the same four spots on the lake - located using the Global Positioning System - and collect data so that Skaneaeteles can ensure that the lake's water quality remains high, Werner said.

“People have studied Skaneateles Lake before, but it's been just a single shot,” Werner said. “(That data) is not really comparable one year to the next.”

Werner expects that the results of this year's study will indicate that the water quality of the lake continues to be quite good. Still, he said, it's important to take this step now, as there aren't many lakes in the nation as clear and clean as Skaneateles, which provides water for the city of Syracuse. “The thinking is let's try to keep it this way,” Werner said. “We've only got a handful of these lakes left.”

The institute's work will cost roughly $20,000 annually and is currently funded by the town. There was one other organization that bid on the project, but the Lake Monitoring Committee recommended Upstate because of the work it does in terms of measuring the lake's optics.

On that day last month, Michael Spada, a research scientist for Upstate; Michael Cole, a field technician and former head of the Syracuse Water Department; and David Kalenak, a graduate student with SUNY ESF, were busy taking water samples. (Spada and Cole are former students of Werner's.) Their boat was filled with ropes and wires, as well as coolers and plastic bottles to collect the samples. These samples will be taken back to a laboratory. At the end of the year, the institute will submit a final report to the Skaneateles Town Board that will highlight water temperature, total phosphorus, chlorophyll, dissolved oxygen, zooplankton, nitrate, various optics measures and specific conductance, or how well water can conduct an electric current.

This will serve as baseline data for the years to come. At the same time, the Lake Monitoring Committee is also trying to synthesize and gather data that has been collected on the lake in scattered studies, Werner said.

Werner said that it's important to monitor the lake's water quality because Skaneateles Lake is an important economic asset to the community and because it's “just the right thing to do.” Additionally, the lake currently has a filtration waiver, and it would be expensive for Syracuse and the village of Skaneateles if a filtration plant had to be built, he added.

“It's sort of like your annual physical in a sense,” Werner said of the monitoring program. “Usually it turns out to be good. If it does, great, see you next year, Doc!”