Jeanette Schnars has spent her entire career working with water; whether it be with sea turtles on the Gulf Coast, in a classroom in Pennsylvania, or on the shores of Lake Erie, Schnars has worked tirelessly to better water ecosystems across the country.
Schnars, now serving as the executive director of the Lake Erie Research Science Consortium, will be speaking at 9:15 a.m. today at the Hurlbut Church Sanctuary for the Chautauqua Science Group and the Chautauqua Climate Change Initiative. Her lecture, in tune with this week’s Chautauqua Lecture Series theme “Water: Crisis, Beauty and Necessity,” will dive into the work she does at the consortium to protect and preserve bodies of water for both humans and the plants and animals that rely on them.
“Everything that lives is reliant on water,” Schnars said. “Whether we’re drinking the water or eating the fish that come out of there or eating something else that ate a fish that came out of the water, … we’re all connected back to the water — so taking care of that, as a very foundational resource, is just so important.”
At the RSC, Schnars has worked primarily on improving water quality in Lake Erie and the other Great Lakes. Similar to Chautauqua Lake, one of the biggest issues plaguing Lake Erie that Schnars and her team have been working to combat is an increased amount of bacteria present in the lake, as well as an uptick in the number of harmful algal blooms. The RSC conducts weekly monitoring at various sites around Lake Erie and issues advisories if water quality becomes dangerous.
Schnars has also worked extensively with turtles, both at the RSC and in her prior work on the Gulf Coast of Texas. In Corpus Christi, Texas, she worked with the United States Geological Survey to protect the Kemp’s ridley sea turtle — the most endangered sea turtle in the world. After her stint with the USGS, she continued her work with turtles in the Great Lakes, studying not only their migratory patterns and behaviors, but also the impacts that bacteria and other contaminants have on the shelled reptiles.
“We really looked at legacy contaminants that were building up in the tissues of these snapping turtles and how it impacted them, … and how those contaminants are passed to offspring,” she said. “Before the hatchlings even come out of their eggs, they already carry a contaminant load, just from what was passed on from their mom to them during development.”
Schnars’ lecture will explore her years of work to improve water quality — and to help turtles. She hopes that Chautauquans will leave with a better understanding of the work the RSC does to protect important bodies of water, as well as the tools to start doing their part to improve the quality of water in both their communities and the rest of the world.
“One thing I try to tell everyone, from our very young students that we educate all the way up to college students and adults, is that we can all be part of the solution,” she said. “So although these problems sound massive and they’re impacting all of this water, … everybody can be part of the solution and do something at their own home, in their own backyard.”
