Dear LCC Members and Friends,

Below is our November issue of Ripples, LCC's monthly E-newsletter. Before you dive in to articles about the health effects of blue-green algae blooms, important  meetings on lake clean-up, or how chromatophores influence the color of fish, we want to let you know how much we value and appreciate your involvement in the work for clean, accessible water. We are grateful for all you do!

Happy Thanksgiving from the LCC Board and Staff

Tenuous Links Between Blue-green algae and Neurological Diseases

Blue-green algae have been implicated in the development of some neurodegenerative diseases leading to headlines like, “Could tap water cause Lou Gehrig’s Disease?” or “Are toxins in seafood causing ALS, Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s?It is no surprise that many such headlines end with question marks. There is a great deal of fogginess about any actual connection between the diseases and environmental agents that might cause them. While a relationship may exist, the link is far from certain.

The debate revolves around an amino acid known as beta-methylamino-L-alanine, BMAA for short. Amino acids are the building blocks of proteins; there are 20 of them that the human body can make and then combine in various manners to form the proteins in our bodies. However, there are other amino acids that don’t regularly get incorporated into proteins – BMAA is one of these. If BMAA accidently gets incorporated into proteins then it changes their shape and impairs their function. Researchers found BMAA in the brains of Canadians who had Alzheimer’s, and in the brains of victims of a variety of neurologic conditions in Guam.

BMAA is produced by blue-green algae, but not just blue-green algae in lakes. Blue-green algae are everywhere. They exist in freshwater and saltwater. They form symbiotic relationships with fungi to make lichens and with plants to collect nitrogen from the atmosphere. There are species that live freely in the soil. Almost all (95%) blue-green algae strains tested for BMAA from these varied environments were found to produce it. As a result, everyone is exposed to blue-green algae at some level, but only a small subset develops neurodegenerative diseases. Read more about blue-green algae on LCC's website.

December Meetings on VT Lake Clean-up Efforts

The Vermont Department of Environmental Conservation, the Vermont Agency of Agriculture and Food Markets, and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) have scheduled a series of public meetings to discuss the Lake Champlain restoration plan (the Lake Champlain TMDL). The plan establishes limits on pollution that can come from different sources within the Lake Champlain Basin. The meetings are part of EPA’s on-going efforts to develop a new plan for Lake Champlain after they disapproved the previous one, mostly for its lack of reasonable assurance that efforts to control pollution would be successful. More information is available here. The schedule of meetings is in the table below.

The state acknowledges that, “we have not done enough” to control pollution to Lake Champlain. To address deficiencies Vermont has offered a new Draft State of Vermont Proposal for Restoring Lake Champlain”. The proposal will be a principal subject of the meetings. The proposal outlines the state’s strategies for addressing agricultural runoff, stormwater management, river stability, forestry, and plans for funding implementation efforts. Please plan to attend a meeting and speak out in favor of strong actions to protect lake health.

Lake Champlain Basin Phosphorus Clean Water Act TMDL Public Meetings, December, 2013

Date Time Location
December 2, 2013 2:00pm – 4:00pm Bliss Room, St Albans Historical Society 9 Church Street, St. Albans
December 2, 2013 7:00pm – 9:00pm Swanton Municipal Building 120 First Street, Swanton
December 3, 2013 9:30am – 11:30am Auditorium at the Pavilion Building 109 State Street, Montpelier
December 10, 2013 2:00pm – 4:00pm ECHO Lake Aquarium and Science Center 1 College Street, Burlington
December 10, 2013 7:00pm – 9:00pm Founders Room, Middlebury Inn 14 Court Square, Middlebury
December 11, 2013 10:30am – 12:30pm Fox Room, Rutland Free Library 10 Court Street, Rutland
     

LCC Has Beautiful New Note Cards

Wish you could look at Lake Champlain every day? Now you can with a purchase of LCC's stunning new photo cards featuring beautiful vistas of our favorite lake! An eight-card set includes two cards each of four different arresting scenes and costs $10 for members, $14 if you haven't joined yet. (Shipping and handling is extra.) The cards are printed on high quality, 100% recycled card stock and come with matching envelopes. You can view all four scenes on our <link shop>website and <link shop _blank external link in new>purchase them online, download our mail-in-order form, or call us at 802 658-1414 and we'll process your order. Proceeds from any note card purchase supports LCC's work for a healthy, accessible lake. Many thanks to photographers Carolyn Bates, Trip Kinney, Lisa Liotta, and Philip Mongeau for generously sharing their lake pictures with LCC!

Give a Gift to the Lake

Know someone who loves the lake? Have a good friend who you play on the water with? Express your caring for the wonderful people in your life and your concern for water quality at the same time by gifting a membership in LCC. Just fill in our mail-in-order form or sign them up <link support join _blank external-link-new-window external link in new>online (be sure to check the Gift Membership box) and we'll do the rest! Gift a membership at the $45 level and recipients will receive word with a special lake card in December and we'll send them the annual Paddlers' Trail guidebook in June. Purchase a $55 gift membership and we'll include an autographed copy of our award-winning book "Lake Champlain A Natural History" with the lake card.

Boat Launch Stewards Stop Invasive Species

Since 2007, the Lake Champlain Basin Program has funded a boat launch steward program for the lake. The stewards interact with boaters as they are launching or removing their boats. They monitor high traffic boat launches during peak activity times during the summer, delivering a message about steps boaters can take to limit the spread of invasive species. A recent report on the 2013 season shows that most of the boaters, over 90%, only use their boats on Lake Champlain, but the other 10% come from as far away as Texas. Based on this past summer’s data, 85% of boaters contacted say they have taken steps to reduce the chances of invasive species spread and that number has increased each year. As a result of spread prevention steps, the stewards rarely actually encounter invasive species. Only 7.4% of boats inspected had any living organisms attached to them and 2.5% had invasive species. Of the invasive or unknown species encountered, 23 were on boats leaving Lake Champlain, while nine were on boats coming into Lake Champlain. While most of the invasive species found on boats were already present in Lake Champlain, stewards on Lake George did encounter Quagga mussels on at least one boat. Quagga mussels are currently not known to inhabit either Lake Champlain or Lake George. Hopefully, through efforts like the Boat Steward program and preventive actions taken by everyone who boats on the lake, we'll be able to keep quagga mussels and many other invasives from colonizing in Lake Champlain.

Yellow Floating-heart Increases in South Lake

Yellow floating-heart (Nymphoides peltata) is a non-native, potentially invasive species. It likely got into the lake through the Champlain Canal. The species has been here for many years, growing in shallow quiet bays. In other parts of the country thick mats of the plant have caused problems for boaters and crowded out native species, but in Lake Champlain its distribution has been limited to small areas of the South Lake where populations have caused few problems. That may be changing. Staff from the Vermont Department of Environmental Conservation (VT DEC) reported that in the summer of 2013, for unknown reasons, populations of yellow floating-heart increased dramatically. The plant has rounded heart-shaped floating leaves about 3-10 cm in diameter. Read more about floating heart on LCC's website.

Seaplanes and Spread Prevention

Seaplanes moving from water body to water body can serve as a vector for invasive species movement. To reduce such risks, the Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association has developed a videofor seaplane owners about how to avoid picking up and transporting aquatic nuisance species from one lake to another. The video outlines a few simple guidelines for inspecting planes during pre-flight checks and cleaning them following a trip. The background information is useful for boaters as well.

Missisquoi & Trout Rivers One Step Closer to Wild & Scenic Designation!

Earlier this week a Senate panel passed legislation to designate the Upper Missisquoi and Trout Rivers in Vermont as part of the National Wild and Scenic Rivers system.

The Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee passed the bill by Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT), a committee member, and co-sponsored by Senator Patrick Leahy (D-VT). Companion legislation sponsored by Representative Peter Welch (D-VT) was introduced earlier this year in the House of Representatives.

The National Wild and Scenic Rivers system was established in 1968 to recognize and preserve rivers with exceptional scenic and recreational value. Forty states have rivers listed in the Wild and Scenic Rivers system but the Missisquoi and Trout rivers would be Vermont’s first. LCC has been a supporter of the designation. Read more on Missisquoi's designation on LCC's website.

Tile Drains: How much of a Water Quality Problem?

Tile drains are used extensively by farmers in the Champlain Valley and beyond to increase crop productivity on marginal lands. Drains work by lowering the water table allowing more oxygen to reach crop roots. LCC recently attended a tile drainage conference at the William H. Miner Agricultural Institute. The conference brought together farmers, regulators, consultants and non-profits to learn about water quality impacts and the best ways to limit their effect.

Unfortunately, the state of knowledge about impacts on water quality is pretty murky. Drains usually discharge to a nearby stream. Drain water carries dissolved phosphorus and nitrogen to receiving waters. However, in the absence of drains more water might flow overland to streams carrying sediment-bound phosphorus and nitrogen. At least when water seeps into drains, there is a chance soil will filter out and bind the nutrients. To protect water quality should we be more concerned about the forms of nutrients, such as dissolved nutrients that are more biologically available for algae growth, or the quantity? To complicate matters, in heavy clay soils that are subject to cracking, water runs directly to the tiles through the cracks by-passing any benefits from filtering. Read more on Tile Drains on LCC's website.

Boaters Urged to Wear Flotation Vests

New York State boating laws require all persons aboard motorboats, canoes, kayaks, rowboats, and sailboats less than 21 feet in length to wear a personal flotation device (PFD) while on New York waters from November 1 to May 1. 

New York implemented this PFD law in the fall of 2009 after a spate of deaths involving people who were not wearing life jackets while boating during spring and fall cold water temperatures.

Sudden immersion in cold water after falling overboard or capsizing, particularly at water temperatures below 68°F, can overcome even the strongest swimmers. It may lead to sudden cardiac arrest or gasping and inhalation of water, the loss of swimming ability and grip strength, and eventually hypothermia and unconsciousness. Read more on boating on LCC's website.

Nature Note – Fish Chromatophores

Ever wonder what makes brook trout spots so orange? Or sunfish so bright? The color of fish is determined by the arrangement and patterns of chromataphores in their scales. Chromatophores are pigment-containing and light-reflecting organelles within the cells.

Chromatophores color can change with environmental conditions, for example at night. As the light reaching a fish’s eyes changes, signals from a fish's nerves then rearrange the pigments in the chromatophores to make them darker or lighter shifting the color patterns on the scales.

Like LCC on Facebook!

On Facebook? We are too! 'Like' LCC's Facebook page for engaging content, the latest lake news, and beautiful lake photos. Here's how to like the Lake Champlain Committee on Facebook:

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Moving? Changing Email Addresses?

If you’ve changed your address recently, please send us an email so we can update your files and ensure you receive news on lake issues and LCC’s work. Email is our primary form of communication with members. Mailing electronically saves time and resources and reinforces the stewardship ethic of our mission. We don’t give away or sell email addresses.

To ensure you receive email from LCC, please add lcc@lakechamplaincommittee.org and the domain enews.lakechamplaincommittee.org to your safe/allowed list and address book. Thanks!

Lake Champlain Committee Board of Directors

Gary Kjelleren - Chair (South Hero, VT), Sharon Murray - Treasurer (Bolton, VT), Alan Booth (Plattsburgh, NY), Sandy Montgomery (Montreal, QC), Ann Ruzow Holland (Willsboro, NY), Mary Van Vleck (Charlotte, VT), Chuck Woessner (Grand Isle, VT).

Lake Champlain Advisory Council

Megan Epler Wood (Burlington, VT), Steven Kellogg (Essex, NY), Peter S. Paine, Jr. (Willsboro, NY), Mary Watzin (NC).

Lake Champlain Committee Staff

Lori Fisher, Executive Director

Jessica Rossi, Office Manager

Mike Winslow, Staff Scientist