United States Department of Agriculture Report for the Oswego River Basin, Western New York, Type IV River Basins Study

Excerpts from the report: The Oswego River Basin is located in central New York State. Parts of 17 counties are in the Basin with Seneca County being entirely within the Basin. There are over three million acres of land in the Basin which represents over 4,800 square miles or approximately 10 percent of the total state area and produces about 20 percent of the agricultural products. The United States Department of Agriculture is assisting in the preparation of a comprehensive and coordinated plan for the management and development of the water and related land resources of the Oswego River Basin under the authority of Section 6, Public Law 566, 83rd Congress, as amended. This study was made in cooperation with the Cayuga Lake, Chemung River, Eastern Oswego, and Wa-Ont-Ya Regional Water Resources Planning Boards. To meet the primary objective of facilitating the coordination and orderly conservation, development, utilization, and management of water and related land resources, an inventory of resources was made. This included identifying agriculture and rural water needs, upstream floodwater damages, upstream sediment and erosion problems, potential for developing upstream reservoir sites, areas requiring improved land management and accelerated land treatment needs, and those upstream watershed projects which could be installed in the next 10 to 15 years. The potential for providing drainage and irrigation was defined along with the economic development for agriculture.