Guide is free for shoreline owners

Cottage and home owners occupy 42 percent of the 712-mile-long southern shoreline of Lake Ontario. A Lake Ontario-specific resource guide (from New York Sea Grant) is helping shoreline landowners improve properties for use by the more than 3500 species of plants and animals and 90 species of fish that frequent the Great Lakes shoreline.

The Lake Ontario Stewardship Guide CD is packed with region-specific information in a clean, bright format with vibrant photographs. Sections include:

Six Tips for Creating a Wildlife Friendly Shoreline, Important Regulations and Recommended Plants.

The guide offers information on yard care, landscaping with native plants, attracting birds with species-specific nest boxes and feeders, enhancing shoreline buffer areas and protecting shoreline habitat for fish.

A regulations section outlines restrictions that apply to shoreline property and offers resources for more information. Guide author and project coordinator Molly Thompson, a dune and habitat educator with New York Sea Grant, Oswego, says, 'The goal of the targeted Stewardship Guide is to provide tips and resources specific to Lake Ontario to encourage property owners to use native plants, create shoreline buffers, and to help control non-point source pollution of the water by not over-fertilizing lawns and by properly disposing of pet wastes and other pollutants.'

Sally Sessler of Syracuse says anyone who owns shoreline property should find this CD of interest. Sessler owns a North Rainbow Shores Tract property that borders Lake Ontario and South Pond.

'My family has had Lake Ontario shoreline property since 1947. Many landowners now seem to want a manicured lawn like in the suburbs. I think it's important to leave some of the shoreline property natural,' says Sessler, who already has a natural buffer along her shoreline area and is letting a large section of her property grow naturally.

The Stewardship Guide was made possible by a Environmental Protection Agency grant to New York Sea Grant through the Great Lakes National Program Office in Chicago.

A packet of wildflower seeds accompanies the CD, which is free and can be requested by calling New York Sea Grant, 62B Mackin Hall, SUNY-Oswego, Oswego 13126.

By the end of the year, the Stewardship Guide will also be available online at www.nysgdunes.org

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