Oneida Lake

Northeastern Crayfish: Tiny Predators, Big Impact

May 29, 2026 by Guest Contributor Leave a Comment

Crayfish fill my childhood memories. I spent summers playing in streams, flipping over rocks, and, if I was lucky, catching glimpses of these mysterious little creatures. Most crayfish are nocturnal and dart backwards to escape danger.

An early summer morning last year at Crystal Lake State Park, near Barton, Vermont, brought me back to these moments when I saw a crayfish along the shore in the gently lapping waves. As I knelt for a closer look, I realized I knew so little about crayfish in my backyard. [Read more…] about Northeastern Crayfish: Tiny Predators, Big Impact

Recently Upgraded Public Water Access Sites

May 26, 2026 by Editorial Staff Leave a Comment

The New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) has expanded and enhanced several fishing and paddling access sites across the state, including those with universally accessible features.

Check out the list below for your next adventure: [Read more…] about Recently Upgraded Public Water Access Sites

Help Document New York Weather Impacts

April 30, 2026 by Editorial Staff Leave a Comment

MyCoast NY is a public web tool which offers an opportunity to contribute and access photos of flooding, shoreline change, and storm damage from anywhere in the state.

When you submit a photo, it is automatically linked to real-time weather, river, and tidal gauge data to help provide context for the photo. [Read more…] about Help Document New York Weather Impacts

The Erie Canal’s Impacts on Indigenous People

November 19, 2025 by Guest Contributor 3 Comments

New York’s canal building boom and the urban explosion that it triggered dramatically accelerated the dispossession and disruption of traditional life ways of the region’s Native American inhabitants that had been initiated by the introduction of European trade, diseases, colonial wars, the American Revolution, and encroaching settlement by non-natives. [Read more…] about The Erie Canal’s Impacts on Indigenous People

New York State’s Canal Heritage: An Engineering Family Tree

October 16, 2025 by Bill Orzell Leave a Comment

The canal system of New York State is a complex network of natural and man-made waterways that connect two of the Great Lakes that border the state with the Atlantic Ocean. The canals also incorporate Lake Champlain and the Finger Lakes. The development of this system bridges several generations and gives the canal system a genealogy of its own. [Read more…] about New York State’s Canal Heritage: An Engineering Family Tree

Fort Rickey: On The Edge of Empires at Oneida Carry

August 28, 2025 by Editorial Staff 1 Comment

Fort Rickey was a small palisaded fortification that was initially constructed in ca. 1759 to support the British occupation of the Oneida Carry.

This strategic location at the confluence of the Mohawk River and Wood Creek was an important British military outpost that guarded the western end of the carry to Oneida Lake. It was the northern point of the Fort Stanwix Treaty Line of 1768. [Read more…] about Fort Rickey: On The Edge of Empires at Oneida Carry

How Winter is Changing in the Tug Hill Region

March 31, 2025 by Guest Contributor Leave a Comment

Tug Hill receives the greatest average snowfall totals in New York State. In Harold Samson’s book Tug Hill Country; Tales from the Big Woods (1971) he wrote “Tug Hill is, and always has been, noted for its winter snows… In winter, the Tug Hill plateau becomes a vast wilderness of white; favorite playground of snowmobilers and other winter sports enthusiasts.”

An economic study in 2021 estimated that 34,254 unique snowmobile users ride Tug Hill’s trails each year, bringing in nearly $81.6 million in sales from snowmobile activity. A new study by the Tug Hill Commission hopes to better understand how our warming climate will affect the region and its winter sports industry in the years to come. [Read more…] about How Winter is Changing in the Tug Hill Region

32 Tickets Issued in Oneida Lake Ice Fishing Raid

February 28, 2025 by Editorial Staff 11 Comments

On February 8, 2025, nine NYS Environmental Conservation Officers (ECOs) conducting ice fishing compliance checks on Oneida Lake in Oneida and Oswego counties issued 32 tickets for a variety of crimes. [Read more…] about 32 Tickets Issued in Oneida Lake Ice Fishing Raid

Early Settlers Near Rome, NY

December 30, 2024 by Richard Williams Leave a Comment

Johannis Rueff (later anglicized as John Roof) was born in Durlach, a district in what is now Karlsruhe, in the German state of Baden-Württemberg, on January 9, 1730. He married Annie Mira Leonardo of Heildelberg on January 13, 1759. They migrated to the American colonies and landed in Philadelphia in October 1759 and moved north to Fort Stanwix on the New York frontier.

There he traded with Indigenous People, most likely the Oneida and other Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) he encountered, and the few traders moving over the portage known as the Great Carry or Carrying Place, which connected Wood Creek with Oneida Lake, at what is now Rome, NY. [Read more…] about Early Settlers Near Rome, NY

Clarkson Researchers Field Test Harmful Algal Bloom Mitigation System

October 14, 2024 by Editorial Staff Leave a Comment

A team of researchers at Clarkson University has conducted a successful field test of its innovative process to combat Harmful Algal Blooms (HABs).

The process, called electrochemical ozonation, has been scaled up to a pilot-scale boat-mounted reactor with a treatment capacity of approximately 500 m³/day and is capable of inactivating harmful algae and destroying cyanotoxins within minutes. [Read more…] about Clarkson Researchers Field Test Harmful Algal Bloom Mitigation System

EPA Researchers Develop Forecasting for Harmful Cyanobacterial Blooms

July 24, 2024 by Editorial Staff Leave a Comment

Freshwater cyanobacteria are found in all lakes and reservoirs, are naturally occurring, and are important to water ecosystems; however, excessive growth of some cyanobacteria can result in harmful cyanobacterial blooms (HCBs, also called cyanobacterial harmful algal blooms or HABs).

These blooms can cause unsightly scums that smell like rotting eggs or septic. Toxins from HCBs can negatively impact people, animals, and the environment. [Read more…] about EPA Researchers Develop Forecasting for Harmful Cyanobacterial Blooms

Oneida Lake: A Fisheries Profile

March 25, 2024 by Editorial Staff Leave a Comment

Oneida Lake, located northeast of Syracuse, NY, in Madison, Oneida, Onondaga, and Oswego counties, is the largest lake entirely within New York State and is believed to be third only to Lake Ontario and Lake Erie in the total number of anglers who fish its waters. [Read more…] about Oneida Lake: A Fisheries Profile

DEC Fisheries 2023 Year in Review

December 31, 2023 by Editorial Staff Leave a Comment

Here is a list of highlights and noteworthy items from the past year here in the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation’s Bureau of Fisheries. [Read more…] about DEC Fisheries 2023 Year in Review

Tug Hill: A Historical Primer

October 17, 2023 by Editorial Staff 1 Comment

The Tug Hill region is east of Lake Ontario, north of Oneida Lake, and west of the Adirondack Mountains, from which it is separated by the Black River Valley. It encompasses parts of Jefferson, Lewis, Oneida, and Oswego Counties. [Read more…] about Tug Hill: A Historical Primer

The French and Indian War: A New York Perspective

August 31, 2023 by Peter Hess Leave a Comment

In the early 1750s, the French were establishing trading posts and building forts along western the frontiers of the British colonies. In the fall of 1753, in part to protect his own land claims, https://www.newyorkalmanack.com/tags/haudenosaunee/Virginia Lieutenant Governor Robert Dinwiddie had sent 22-year-old George Washington (then a militia leader and surveyor) to deliver a letter to Fort Le Boeuf at what is today Waterford in northwest Pennsylvania, demanding they stop. [Read more…] about The French and Indian War: A New York Perspective

Oneida Lake Walleye Telemetry Study Underway

August 19, 2023 by Editorial Staff Leave a Comment

This fall the Cornell Biological Field Station at Shackelton Point in partnership with the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) will be initiating a three-year telemetry study of adult walleyes in Oneida Lake to identify spawning sites, describe seasonal movement patterns, describe habitat use throughout the year, and determine where post-spawn walleye go after they have been processed at the Oneida Fish Hatchery. [Read more…] about Oneida Lake Walleye Telemetry Study Underway

Early Inhabitants of the Finger Lakes Region

August 14, 2023 by Guest Contributor 2 Comments

According to archeological records, groups of nomadic Paleo-Indians traveled through the Finger Lakes region approximately 8,000 to 9,000 years ago. Small bands of these hunters and gatherers followed large game during the last stages of the Ice Age when the glaciers that formed the area’s notable lakes were receding.

Somewhat more recent early archaic archeological sites scattered across Western New York reflect a culture that was highly mobile and left little in terms of an archeological record. [Read more…] about Early Inhabitants of the Finger Lakes Region

Geologic Formation of the Finger Lakes

July 26, 2023 by Guest Contributor 1 Comment

Approximately 600 million years ago, during the Neoproterozoic Era, the Earth’s supercontinent began to break apart, and an ocean formed between land masses that roughly correlate to Europe and North America today. For the next 100 million years, this ocean continued to widen until the continents changed course and began to move back towards each other.

The eventual collision of these land masses formed a tall mountain range now known as North America’s Appalachians. [Read more…] about Geologic Formation of the Finger Lakes

National Park Service Declares Finger Lakes Eligble For National Heritage Designation

July 19, 2023 by Editorial Staff 2 Comments

On Tuesday, July 18th, the National Park Service delivered the Finger Lakes National Heritage Area Feasibility Study to Congress. The feasibility study determined that the study area in the Finger Lakes region of New York state meets the criteria to be eligible for inclusion as part of the National Heritage Area System. [Read more…] about National Park Service Declares Finger Lakes Eligble For National Heritage Designation

New Barge Canal Boat Launch in Verona, NY

June 24, 2023 by Editorial Staff Leave a Comment

A new boat launch has been completed on the Barge Canal at Cove Road in the town of Verona, Oneida County. The launch, which is expected to enhance fishing and boating opportunities, including for people with disabilities, connects to Oneida Lake’s world-class fishing. [Read more…] about New Barge Canal Boat Launch in Verona, NY

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