During last Wednesday’s Rose Cafe, Andy Zepp, who works for the Finger Lakes Land Trust, described his work and role in protecting the Finger-lake region’s environment and promoting local tourism and recreation in nature. Before attending this cafe, I was not familiar with the work of land trusts as entities which purchase land for conservation purposes. Thus, it was informative to hear him describe his role in the local community.

Specifically,  he pointed out the environmental hazard that salt could pose to the organisms that live in Cayuga Lake. This was after one person from the audience broached the subject of run-off salt entering the water system after being used excessively for melting ice on roadways during the winter. Andy noted, for example, that much of the pollutants from Wegman’s parking lot have easy access to flow into the Cayuga. I remembered that previously, during the Rose Cafe discussion on environmental planning and architecture, the speaker described the future Greenstar Market’s parking lot design which will be configured to minimize its impact of runoff into the surrounding ecosystem.

Although I am not particularly interested in both environmental design nor the nuances of land trust work, seeing the connections between these two presentations increased my appreciation for the work being done to try to mitigate the negative human impact of development on our natural environment, which I believe is important.