Sincere thanks to our wonderful team of cyanobacteria monitors and partner organizations for diligently checking Lake Champlain and inland lake locations during the 19-week 2023 season. Monitors collectively filed nearly 3,000 reports.
Want to get involved? Join us for the 2024 season if you have some free time every week during the summer and fall and want to give back to a waterbody you love. You’ll receive training in the spring, a t-shirt and hat, and support from LCC staff throughout the monitoring season. By volunteering you’ll gather important data to aid research, keep community members apprised of water conditions, and help strengthen and expand the monitoring program. We are looking for monitors for both Lake Champlain and inland lakes. If you’re interested, please sign up here.
Deep thanks to the dedicated efforts of our 2023 monitors:
Ellen Albertson, Jeff Allen, Reuben Allen, Jen Andrews, Nancy Andrews, Uma Ashrani, Rick Baker, Janine Banks, Joel Bartfield, Kurt Behrens, Marion Benevento, Jim Bennett, Jerilyn Bergdahl, Jeanette Berry, Bob Bois, Francois Boutin, Joe Brayden, Kathy Buck, Holly Bull, Jen Burkman, Gail Butz, Richard Butz, Yann Calderwood, Robert Caldwell, Christine Cano, Gary Carlson, Allan Carpenter, Sylvie Casella, Patti Cerra, Lori Charash, Oksana Ciolko, Catherine Collins, Philip Cowan, Julia Crocker, Carol Crosby, Al Cumming, Joanne and John Cwikla, Sandi Detwiler, Valerie Dillon, Christina Duell, Kerry Dunkling, Judy Dunnan, Susan Dunning, Jaryn Dupler, Kevin Farrar, Dan Field, Patrick Finn, Lori Fisher, Kayla Fitchette, Eileen Fitzgerald, David Forbes, Terri Fox, Icha Gervais, Sabine Gervais, Mary Gibson, Mark Gibson, Parker Gill, Sara Gratz, Adam Grundt, Alexa Hachigian, Lynne Hale, Carol Hanley, Pamela Hebert, Ryan Heck, Rick Hedding, Matthew Herberg, Chris Herrington, Cathy Hickory, Jim and Dee Hodson, David Holland, Vicki Hopper, Emma Houle, Bob Ierardi, Peter Isles, Rei Jia, Alec Kaeding, Jaine Kellogg, Jeremy King, Doug Kiser, Marty Kiser, Gary Kjelleren, Jack Knight, Monica Lalime, Nancy Lambert, Steven Langevin, Jennifer Lawson, Alexa Lewis, Merrily Lovell, Thomas Lukas, Jennifer Martinez, Jon McBride, Don McDowell, Quentin McKinley, Walter Medwid, Timothy Meehan, Jack Mercik, Andrew Milliken, Irina Mirsky-Zayas, Ryan Mitchell, Sandy Montgomery, Brady Mueller, Sandy Murphy, James Murphy, Karen Neeson, Elisa Nelson, Katharine Noiva, Alison Parker, Bill Parkhill, Dorothea Penar, Chree Perkins, Dan Petherbridge, Susan Poirier, Jim Pontbriand, Chip Porter, Léo Prévost-Chansigaud, Fran and Spencer Putnam, Connor Quinn, Gail Rafferty, Lois Rawson, Rich Rawson, Virginia Renfrew, Kel Richards, Mike Roach, Jessica Roberts, Elisabeth Rondinone, Joe Rosen, Laurie Sedlmayr, Angela Shambaugh, Cathy Sheffield, Julie Silverman, Emmett Sirjane, Berney Skutel, Paul Smith, Jascha Sonis, Mallory Stafford, Michael Stahl, Pamela Strohmeyer, Megan Sutor, Romany Tafid, Mary Jo Teetor, Peggy Teilon, Perry Teillon, Bruno Tuffelli, Jeff van den Noort, John Van Dijk, Pat Vana, Susan Vigsnes, Barbara and Jim Wanner, Mitchell Watson, Debra Welsh, Gretta White, Kiki White, Chuck Woessner, Chip Wright, Jo Wright, Carol Yarnell, Mason Zales, and Thomas Zych. We also want to thank the monitoring efforts of the Burlington Community Sailing Center, the Lake Champlain Maritime Museum, and Vermont State Park monitors throughout the state.
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”. These are versatile chemicals that can be added to irrigation water, onto plant tissue, or treated on a plant’s seeds so they’re built into the plant as it grows. The chemical binds with receptors in insects’ central nervous systems, which leads to paralysis and ultimately death. They are the most widely used chemical insecticide in the world, accounting for roughly 25% of global pesticide use, and are in an estimated 99% of corn seeds in Vermont as well as most corn seeds in New York. In the scope of the tit-for-tat battle we’ve been engaged in with pests this may seem like a win for humans. But, as with all things in nature, pesticides do not exist in a vacuum—there are wide-ranging unintended consequences of neonics on ecological systems above and below the water. 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. As the intensity and frequency of heavy precipitation events increases with climate change, efforts to mitigate stormwater runoff are increasingly critical. LCC has done extensive work on stormwater reduction at schools over the years including producing a stormwater education manual, conducting storm drain stenciling projects with educational facilities and municipalities, undertaking “Ahead of the Storm” stormwater assessments, and collaborating with Lake Champlain Sea Grant (LCSG) to develop the Soaking Up Stormwater Curriculum Guide.
Schools provide ideal locations for both educational work and stormwater reduction efforts given their central role within communities and many of them also have extensive areas of impervious surface from large buildings and parking lots. Bellows Free Academy in St. Albans Vermont (BFA St. Albans) was a particularly apt setting for LCC to pilot our 2023 school stormwater reduction project (funded through a grant from the Lake Champlain Basin Program) because of its proximity to Stevens Brook, a stream designated as an impaired waterway by the State of Vermont, and St. Albans Bay, an area with high levels of phosphorus and frequency of cyanobacteria blooms. We teamed up with school staff and students along with Lake Champlain Sea Grant (LCSG) to assess conditions and develop a project to address the most challenging on-site stormwater issues at the school’s campus in downtown St. Albans.
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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.
Like other frogs, bullfrogs are true cold-blooded amphibians, which means that they need to regulate their body temperature through their environment–seeking sun when they’re too cold, and shade when they’re too hot. This is not as easy in the winter, so bullfrogs opt for hibernation. They do this underwater in shallower sections of the lakebed where temperatures are more stable and remain above freezing. 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. Before runoff enters a storm drain, it can pick up a wide range of pollutants and nutrients from the streets, fields, and sidewalks it rolls over.
One way you can help improve the water quality of stormwater runoff is by cleaning storm drains on your street. These drains, particularly during periods of spring rains and snowmelt, can become clogged with trash, sediment, and leaves and other organic matter. When runoff is prevented from entering the storm drain, it is spending more time on the streets collecting pollutants before it is discharged. Organic materials that clog storm drains also leach phosphorus into the water, which feeds cyanobacteria blooms.
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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...