The 2021 Lake Warner Virtual Summit 1.0 For Watershed Management Knowledge-Sharing and Innovation Contest
This past September, the Friends of Lake Warner developed and hosted an online watershed summit to discuss the current state of Lake Warner and future projects which might serve to enhance the health of the lake. The objective was to collaborate and learn from great minds within the environmental fields, namely ecology as well as best practices within agriculture and watershed management. We created a critical mass for idea formation, through education, demonstration and contemplation on recent academic and commercial advancements. The advancements lean toward identification and development of low oxygen levels, high bacteria levels, cyanobacteria blossoms, and overgrowth of invasive plant species solutions. Experts from various, related fields presented their research and findings.
Melissa Frydlo, a Friends of Lake Warner member since in May 2021, brought this idea to the FoLW Board of Directors. The Board wholeheartedly approved and immediately began working on the
event. The project intent was to build community and bring intrinsic value to the Friends of Lake Warner membership. Event highlights include sixteen highly, scientific presentations, which are posted on the FoLW website, three thousand two hundred dollars was raised, the Hadley Town Administrator, Carolyn Brennan attended, the program received publicity through Hadley Media and scholarship was provided to Sarah Traore, a Fulbright Scholar from the University of Massachusetts Natural Resource Program.
As the watershed summit and innovation contest program and community grows it will improve exponentially. This will be achieved through the attraction of more presenters, presenter retention, attraction
of more innovation contest participants and event registrants to listen, learn, join and generate thought-provoking questions. This program was supported through donations from local businesses, individual sponsors (perhaps you were approached), volunteers and greatly appreciated by all those who were involved.
In conclusion, the Friends of Lake Warner were able to build community by bringing people and organizations together throughout the Pioneer Valley. Namely, UMass, Smith College, Mount Holyoke, The Conway School of Landscape Design the Connecticut River Conservancy, Kestrel Land Trust, and others to share this important work through water quality testing research, weed pulling, fundraising, and planning to continue to maintain and prevent eutrophication of this prized, local, natural resources in safer, cleaner ways. The event and the work we do through the year was truly inspiring. You can watch the summit presentations, proudly brought to you on our website at https://friendsoflakewarner.org/the-2021-watershed-summit/. We will see you at the next event!
by Kevin Skelly and Melissa Frydlo 12-28-21