MAYVILLE, N.Y. — More money could soon be going toward programs that make sure Chautauqua Lake is healthy and ready for tourists.
Chautauqua County recently had an updated "bed tax" signed into law and it's slightly changing where money collected from visitors is spent.
When someone vacations along Chautauqua Lake and stays in a hotel or Airbnb a five percent bed or occupancy tax is paid to the county; three percent helps support travel and tourism and two percent gets spent on lake and watershed conservation.
What the new law does is specify what types of projects that two percent will be spent on.
"You know it's a little bit of change in the language but realistically provides more money for the in-lake programs and the in-lake treatments and the things that we've done," Chautauqua County Executive PJ Wendel said.
Over the last five years, Wendel says just over half of that 2 percent has gone toward watershed projects and not solely in-lake investments.
"Managing both invasive and native aquatic plants that present nuisance levels to recreation or esthetics, things like that," said Randall Perry, executive director of the Chautauqua Lake and Watershed Management Alliance.
The law states that money collected will be deposited into a special Lake Management and Enhancement Fund which will be used "solely for the purpose of maintaining and enhancing the usability and attractiveness of the lakes of Chautauqua County for residents and visitors."
As noted, while Chautauqua is the largest lake in the county, other lakes will also be impacted by the change.
While this new focus will help certain projects, Perry and Wendel agreed there is no silver bullet to lake management.
This year because of low ice coverage and reduced herbicide usage, the county thought that weeds on Chautauqua Lake were going to be really bad ... only they weren't.
"Mother nature had a different idea in fact this is one of the best years we've seen in recent history," Wendel said.
If they had been, this updated bed tax could have helped with in-lake weed cutting, and species management, although it is not the Alliance's only source of funding, so their watershed work will continue regardless.
State grants have been discussed as a way to prop up out-of-lake projects, although Perry said they aren't guaranteed and ultimately a healthy watershed contributes to a healthy lake.
So as for the county's updated bed tax?
Wendel concluded: "We're encouraged this verbiage is going to give us you know a stronger foothold going forward and really focus on some in-lake projects."