LCC News

With no concept of weeks, months, or daylight savings—frogs and salamanders rely entirely on environmental cues of temperature and precipitation to tell them when it’s time to start their vernal lifestyle. What does this seasonal shift look like, and how have humans affected it? Read...

Read on to see what LCC and Lake Champlain have been up to lately! Read...

Stormwater runoff poses a major challenge for water quality in Lake Champlain. When rain falls on impervious surfaces, it does not have the chance to infiltrate into the ground and instead flows over roofs, parking lots, and roads—collecting pollutants and nutrients along the way—until it eventually reaches the lake, untreated. Runoff from developed land contributes more phosphorus to Lake Champlain than any other land use type per area. Read...

For about as long as we have had agriculture, we have had agricultural pests—insects and other creatures who make their living off food we grow. We’ve been in an evolutionary showdown with these pests for centuries, adapting new technologies to better protect our food. The stakes of the back and forth increased dramatically with the advent of chemical pesticides. In the 1980’s, a specific class of pesticide was developed called neonicotinoids, or “neonics”. Read...

The changing of the seasons in the Lake Champlain Basin brings new wonders to the avian world. Cartoonist, writer, avid birder, and graduate of the University of Vermont’s Field Naturalist Program Rosemary Mosco broke down the four seasons of bird watching in the Northeast US: Elegant Songbird Spring, Subtle Treasures of Summer, Magnificent Fall Migrations, and the season we are now in—Weird Duck Time. Read...

While the winter of 2024 has been unseasonably warm, we still needed to turn on the heat and don extra layers to adjust to the seasonal change. But what about the lake’s vegetative life? How have the native aquatic plants of Lake Champlain evolved to survive winter? Read...

American bullfrogs (Lithobates catesbeianus) are deeply associated with spring and summer–their deep “jug-o-rum” serenade evokes images of hot summer nights: fireflies, and leafed-out trees. But what are they up to during cooler times? As with all living things in the Lake Champlain region, bullfrogs need to adapt to the winter season, and as aquatic amphibians, many do this in the lake itself. Read...

Sincere thanks to our wonderful team of cyanobacteria monitors and partner organizations for diligently checking Lake Champlain and inland lake locations during the 2023 season. Monitors collectively filed nearly 3,000 reports over a 19-week period. Read...

We don’t often give surface water much thought on its journey after it enters a storm drain–out of sight, out of mind. But the health of the waters going through storm drains is intrinsically tied to the health of all of our waters. It’s a common misconception that storm drains usually lead to wastewater treatment plants. In reality, most of this water is directly discharged into nearby waterbodies, and in the Lake Champlain basin, that means it eventually winds up in the lake. Read...

LCC is working with a coalition of partners in support of Vermont legislation to protect pollinators and water ecosystems by dramatically curtailing the use of “neonics”. H.706 would phase out up to 90% of neonics over the course of the next five years, with certain emergency exemptions for farmers. Help get this bill passed by contacting your state reps today and asking them to support H.706. Read...

Dozens of beekeepers, students, conservationists, environmental advocates, and pollinator enthusiasts of all sorts gathered at the Vermont State House today to make the case for providing greater protections for pollinators and aquatic ecosystems. “Not only do neonic pesticides lead to die offs of honeybees, wild pollinators, and birds, they also leach into groundwater and wash into surface waters with precipitation,” stated Lori Fisher, Executive Director of LCC. “This degrades water quality and harms aquatic insects, particularly mayflies and damselflies. These and other invertebrates are vital species that are a cornerstone of a healthy aquatic ecosystem.” Read...

March 2024 - Neonicotinoids, or "neonics" are versatile chemical pesticides that can be treated on a plant’s seeds so they’re built into the plant as it grows. As research continues to emerge on the harms that this class of chemicals has to the ecosystem beyond their targets, we need to seriously reconsider this practice and stop using these pesticides. Read...

What effect did the floods of Summer and again in December in 2023 have on fish? We talked with Will Eldridge from Vermont Fish and Wildlife to see what these floods did for fish from the headwaters to the lake. Read...

The four seasons of bird watching in the Northeast US: Elegant Songbird Spring, Subtle Treasures of Summer, Magnificent Fall Migrations, and the season we are now in—Weird Duck Time. Read...

The time of year for winterization is upon us: we seal windows, run heaters, open boxes of coats and mittens, and dust off sleds and skis. These are all strategies that humans in colder climes like the Lake Champlain basin employ for winter survival and enjoyment. But what about the lake’s vegetative life? How have the native aquatic plants of Lake Champlain evolved to survive winter? Read...

The Lake Champlain Committee (LCC) and the Vermont Citizens’ Advisory Committee (VT CAC) invite you to the Lake Champlain Community Sailing Center on Monday, 11/13/23 at 5:00 PM to learn more about lake issues and how Lake Champlain was affected by summer floods. Click to learn more! Read...

From afar, a patch of bright green on any body of water is cause for alarm: we are too used to the sight of cyanobacteria plaguing shallow waters close to shore. But get closer to determine what you’re seeing. It may be neither cyanobacteria nor algae, but tiny, individual plants known as duckweed. Read...

In this email you’ll find details of Week 18 monitoring along with information to help you recognize and report on cyanobacteria. Click on the links for scenes of fall blooms on Lake Champlain’s Inland Sea and Missisquoi Bay; a low alert bloom at Burlington’s Coast Guard boat access on Lake Champlain’s Main Lake Central; pictures of the varied conditions witnessed during Week 18 from clear water to high alert blooms; photos of Prouty Bay Lake Memphremagog post-bloom; shots of a high alert at Philipsburg Public Park QC on Lake Champlain’s Missisquoi Bay; pristine scenes at Blanchard Beach and Texaco Beach in Burlington VT on Lake Champlain’s Main Lake Central; autumn observations at St. Anne’s Shrine in Isle La Motte VT, and Burlington VT sites at Blanchard Beach, Oakledge Rocky Shore, and North Beach; and a snapshot of Missisquoi Bay monitor Nancy Lambert in action at her QC site. You can also learn about iron bacteria (and how to distinguish it from a petroleum sheen) and duckweed—which is often confused with cyanobacteria from a distance. If you’re intrigued about duckweed, you’ll find more information about the smallest known flowering plant in the world in LCC’s Lake Look column on our website. Read...