OBSERVER Photo by M.J. Stafford Lake Erie waters at sunset recently near Point Gratiot.

Fredonia’s “Save Our Reservoir” faction has repeated its concerns about contaminants in Lake Erie water.

Former Trustee James Lynden, one of the movement’s leaders, lectured the village Board of Trustees this week about microplastics and sewage in the lake water. Lynden appeared to be the only member of the public to attend the trustees meeting, held on an exceptionally cold and snowy evening last week.

“You’re charged with the health and safety of our community. We don’t have this stuff in our reservoir,” he said to trustees. “Why would you, as a board, put us at risk? There’s many, many studies coming out that will say what the health risks are, and it is devastating what this stuff can do to you.”

Lynden added, “I know there’s millions of people that have to drink that because it’s the only source they have. We have other options. Let’s take those other options.”

Some Fredonia officials have expressed interest in buying water from the city of Dunkirk and closing the village’s reservoir. Lynden was strongly opposed to that course of action as a trustee and has continued to criticize it.

He tossed out some statistics that were evidently meant to alarm Fredonians about Lake Erie, Dunkirk’s water source. Additional “Save Our Reservoir” members have previously raised concerns about contaminants in the lake.

“There’s tens of billions of gallons of combined sewage overflow from municipal sewage treatment plants that enters Lake Erie every year,” Lynden said. A study found Cleveland, Ohio alone puts in 4.5 billion gallons of overflow per year, Lynden added. He didn’t cite where he got those statistics.

He also stated that Dunkirk has had millions of gallons of sewage overflow in recent years, including more than 10 million in 2023 and more than 22 million in 2022.

As for microplastics, Lynden claimed a recent study found that the Great Lakes have 22 billion pounds of them. Lake Erie had the second-highest microplastics count of the five lakes, he said. Lynden did not name that study, either.

The guardian of Dunkirk’s water — city Department of Public Works Director Randy Woodbury — unsurprisingly pushed back against Lynden’s assertions on Lake Erie water, when the OBSERVER queried him about them.

“Many dispassionate scientific experts, such as the county Department of Health, disagree with the former trustee’s conclusions,” Woodbury said. “No surface water should be consumed without proper treatment, and Dunkirk’s Lake Erie water system removes all microparticles and essentially all organic compounds with state-of-the-art filtration with activated carbon.”

Woodbury offered a number of his own in an apparent attempt to put Lynden’s pollution stats in context. The DPW head said Lake Erie has 128 trillion gallons of water. He called the lake “a vibrant and clean natural wonder.”

“City DPW assures all that Dunkirk water is, and will remain, excellent,” Woodbury concluded. “We wish Fredonia well with their water systems.”