Facts About Lake Champlain
Pollution
Forested land accounts for 71% of the Lake Champlain Basin while agricultural land accounts for 18% and developed land 6% (the rest is water), but agricultural land is frequently converted to developed land. The changes in land-use are not good news for the Lake. Developed land accounts for 3 times more phosphorus pollution than agricultural land and 40 times more than forested land.
 Adult lake trout are opportunistic feeders that will snatch any other fish they can. In doing so they also concentrate the poisonous mercury that was in their prey. In predator fish mercury concentrations are, on average, 7 million times higher than the surrounding water. Mercury drifts to Lake Champlain primarily from coal burning power plants and incinerators to the west.
How has pollution changed over the years? One group of cancer causing chemicals found in lake sediments, PAHs, began to decline after peaking in the 1950s, but now they’re on the rise again. The high concentrations in the ‘50s were linked to industry, but today’s rise is probably caused by automobile traffic. How can scientists tell? Cars and industry produce different types of PAHs.
Natural History
The Lake Champlain Basin is home to about 81 fish species, 318 birds, 57 mammals, 21 amphibians, and 20 reptiles.
Each fall Lake Champlain acts as a funnel for migrating birds from the north trying to reach the Atlantic coast. In early October alone, between 20,000 and 40,000 ducks and geese migrate along the Lake. They are preceded by uncounted multitudes of songbirds, shorebirds and raptors.
 During the spring and fall the waters of Lake Champlain do a somersault. The process, called turnover, occurs when, due to heating and cooling, the water at the bottom of the Lake becomes denser than the water at the top of the Lake. Turnover brings nutrient rich water to the surface and oxygen rich water to the depths of the Lake.
Lake Champlain is the 6th largest lake in the United States. It is 120 miles long but only 12 miles across at its widest. Its surface is 435 square miles and it contains 6.8 trillion gallons of water; 90% of which enters the Lake from its 8,234 square mile drainage basin.
Lake Champlain is fairly small for its large drainage basin. There are 17.9 square miles of land area for every one square mile of lake area. By comparison, Lake Ontario, the Great Lake with the largest land to water ratio, has 3.4 square miles of land for every square mile of water.
There are 31 major tributaries that drain into Lake Champlain from its 8,234 square mile basin. Once in the Lake waters drain north to the Richelieu River, before entering the St. Lawrence River and ultimately the Atlantic Ocean.
One of the world’s oldest known coral reefs is found on Isle La Motte in Lake Champlain. How, you ask, did corals grow in such a cold climate? Well, 480 million years ago when the reef formed our area was actually south of the equator under a warm tropical sea.
Wetlands are the kidneys of Lake Champlain, filtering out pollution and storing excess water which is then slowly released to the Lake. There are over 300,000 acres of wetlands in the Champlain Basin and 42 major wetlands (greater than 50 acres) along the shore of the Lake. Over the years however wetlands have been dredged, drained, and filled at an alarming rate. Between 1780 and 1980, 60% of the wetlands in New York State and 35% of the wetlands in Vermont were converted to some other use, generally agriculture or development.
Where’s the beach? On Lake Champlain the answer is usually north of outlets to large rivers and facing south. As rivers enter Lake Champlain they slow down, and drop the sand they’re carrying. Since the water in Lake Champlain flows north, sand is carried in that direction and deposited on the first peninsula that can trap it.
 Lake Champlain probably originated about 200 million years ago when, due to movements in the earth’s crust, a massive block of bedrock dropped down between the Adirondacks and Green Mountains. The Lake was later shaped, formed, and re-formed by glaciers. At times it one time it was a massive Lake with its surface 600 feet higher than today and draining south; later it became a salt water sea. Today Lake Champlain has an average depth of 64 feet (400 feet at its deepest) and drains north to the Richelieu River.
Human History
 Lake Champlain in the birthplace of the United States Navy. In 1776 troops under the command of Benedict Arnold built the first U.S. naval fleet in what is now Whitehall, NY at the southern end of Lake Champlain. This fleet later took on a larger British fleet at Valcour Island in the Battle of Lake Champlain.
On July 4, 1609 a fleet of 24 canoes containing sixty Algonquins and three Europeans emerged from the Richelieu River onto a lake, "of great extent, perhaps fifty or sixty leagues." The group spent at least a month exploring the lake. One of the Europeans was Samuel de Champlain for whom that lake is now named. To the best of our knowledge he never again Lake Champlain.
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