ROCHESTER, N.Y. — When Greg Talomie got over COVID-19, his wife told him he had to get busy doing something. So Greg looked out from their Canandaigua Lake home and focused on something that got his feet moving.
"When presented with a challenge like that, aren’t you going to do whatever you feel you can do?" said Talomie, a guy who already canoes along the lake shore reporting harmful algal blooms to local environmental authorities.
Talomie sees the foam each morning rising in the lake in the early Spring; reminding him of the day-to-day battle environmentalists, farmers and property owners face in keeping trouble out of the water.
"I'd like to think that I’m going to make a personal impact on the safety of the lake,” said Talomie. “I’m going to share my desire to do that with all the other lake property owners on all the other lakes.”
And with the wind blowing harder than ever in favor of environmental stewardship, Talomie plans to shed new light on the Ring of Fire, the annual Finger Lakes tradition that highlights the lakes.
Having cleaned up his share of exhausted flares that help to create the red glow along Canandaigua's 36 shoreline miles, Talomie also knows how hard it is to keep the chemical-filled ashes out of the water.
To change that, Talmoie and others are working to change out the chemical flares used for the tradition, to a more environmentally-friendly option: LED, battery-operated flares.
"Because we wanted it to effectively look like a flare and the phosphorus burning flares are really bright and you can see them from across the lake,” said Lindsay McMillan of the Canandaigua Lake Water Authority. “So we are looking for something that mimics that same bright affect.”
Thousands of flares, 10 feet apart, create the scarlet circle of light that frames local lakes, either on the Fourth of July and Labor Day weekend. Their by-products can deliver nitrates that can harm water supplies by creating environments for invasives, like blue-green algae.
Talomie, who once worked at Kodak, also knows how to build business plans and procure materials. He committed to the LED idea by creating an LLC, Flaregate, that would have them made, shipped and delivered to places where they could replace flares.
Flaregate's flares would run on AAA batteries. Talomie said they would cost about a dollar more than a regular roadside flare.
Some of the flares that lit up Rings of Fire the last 40 years have been sold to property owners as fundraisers for regional economic groups. Some of those groups are signing on with Talomie and his campaign to end chemical flares.
Early shipments will include 25,000 LED flares that will be made available in communities near Owasco Lake and the Sodus Bay area. Even outlets near Chautauqua Lake, to the west are seeing the light Talomie's casting.
"The tradition doesn’t have to change," McMillans said. "The benefit of having an LED flare is that we can all do it in a lake friendly manner.
Talomie has connected with Finger Lakes advocates, from Owasco Lake, in Cayuga County to Silver Lake in Wyoming County. A watershed association in Ohio is also inquiring about the LED flare option.
The light Greg is shining is being seen by others. And you can add the kids from Owasco Lake to Silverlake and all the Finger Lakes in between that host a fire or make plans for LED. Even lakes as far west as Chautauqua Lake, and even a lake in Ohio, are ready to see the light.
And Talomie, ever the engineer looking to make something better, is working to innovate the design of the LED flare he's selling so that it costs even less.
"There’s nothing more important in people’s lives who live on the lake other than keeping the lake healthy," Talomie said.
Canandaigua Lake Watershed Association promotes this and other efforts property owners and visitors can take to help keep the lake clean and safe. It’s hosting a week full of programs starting May 2.
To register, click here.