Protecting your
Lake for future generations
The Owasco Watershed Lake Association (OWLA) works to protect the lake and its watershed. OWLA educates the community about Owasco Lake and ways to protect that surface freshwater - freshwater we all use everyday.
Everyone should have access to clean freshwater
Declining water quality puts Owasco Lake and our community at risk. Something is happening throughout the Finger Lakes and greater Great Lakes Basin; and it’s not good.
You can help create
a lasting legacy
Membership
OWLA works best with more members to help raise awareness loud and clear. We need your membership and your voice.
Become a Member
Help protect our
lake by becoming
a watershed steward
The Cayuga County Chamber of Commerce is a fantastic local partner to OWLA.
OWLA Volunteers plant and maintain a thriving rain garden at Emerson Park.
Each year, OWLA hosts a Chamber of Commerce Business After 5 event for networking, fun, food, and fellowship on the lake.
OWLA promotes and hosts events raising awareness for Lake Friendly Living practices.
Our volunteers taking water samples from tributaries flowing into Owasco Lake after a big rain event.
About the lake
Owasco Lake is 11.1 miles long, with a maximum width of 1.3 miles. Owasco’s maximum depth is 177 feet and its surface elevation is 712 feet above sea level, controlled by a dam on the lake’s outlet.
6
The Owasco Watershed is six times larger than the lake in square miles.
95
Of the freshwater in the United States is in the Great Lakes Basin
212
The lake has a volume of 212 billion US gallons and refreshes itself about once every 4 years, whereas the rest of the Finger Lakes average an 18 year refresh cycle.
40,000
People receive drinking water from Owasco Lake
More than the lake
Owasco Lake and all of the Finger Lakes are part of the Great Lakes Basin which is the largest watershed in the world covering approximately a 295,200 square-mile area.
You don’t have to live on a lake or a river. If you live in the Great Lakes Basin, whatever you do in your home and on the land ultimately affects the freshwater that you and millions of others use everyday. What happens in the watershed ends up in the lake.
Every drop of falling, flowing water that moves and is used within our watershed flows into the streams, rivers and lakes within the Great Lakes Basin. The Great Lakes Basin holds 21% of all the freshwater in the world and 95% of all the freshwater in the United States. We must protect it.
3 steps to safeguard
owasco lake
1. Learn about lake health
Discover how you can contribute to lake conservation.
2. Become a member
Join our community and stay informed about lake issues.
3. Volunteer for projects
Take part in hands-on initiatives to protect the lake.
Your family deserves a clean lake
OWLA is a group of citizen volunteers who, like you, are deeply concerned about Owasco Lake and its watershed. OWLA Watershed Stewards are a hands-on, boots dirty, take-action group of volunteers who spend thousands of unpaid hours each year working to improve, restore and protect our freshwater.
However, we can’t do all of this work alone. Becoming a member will give you the opportunity to share your thinking and your ideas as we work together to improve, preserve and protect Owasco Lake.
We are currently taking legal actions to compel the state to take action to protect Owasco Lake as a drinking water source.
