Week 13 was a challenging one as blooms took off in new areas and persisted in others and the online reporting system overseen by the VT Dept. of Health (VDH) was not accessible for several days while IT staff worked to resolve issues. This meant monitors had to try to submit reports multiple times and LCC staff had a backlog of reports to sort through and vet once the tracker came back online. Over one third of the 126 reports we ultimately received during the week were of blooms which further reinforces the need to check water conditions carefully even during the fall.

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Lake Champlain currently has 51 known aquatic non-native and invasive species of plants, fish, mussels, and other freshwater dwellers. Invasive species are both non-native, or introduced to an area outside the range in which they evolved, and nuisance, or disruptors of the ecosystem into which they were introduced. Zebra mussels, Eurasian watermilfoil, and water chestnut are all invasive species found in Lake Champlain.

Humans have the greatest influence on the spread of invasives—hitchhikers need a ride to get to where they’re going, and humans are highly-mobile hosts that give rides knowingly through deliberately releasing fish into waterways or flushing exotic aquarium plants down the toilet, and unknowingly on watercraft. Fortunately, humans can also play a key role in early detection and spread prevention. That is why the Lake Champlain Committee (LCC) started a new community science project: the Champlain Aquatic invasive Monitoring Program (CHAMP!) with funding from the Lake Champlain Basin Program. Read...

Hints of color are starting to show in the Adirondacks and the Green Mountains as we move into fall. Another dramatic show of color that elicits less awe and more concern has been in the lake between these mountains since early summer—the blues and greens of cyanobacteria blooms.

“Witnessing a cyanobacteria bloom can take an emotional toll,” notes LCC Executive Director Lori Fisher. “Blooms threaten water quality, public health, recreation, the economy, and quality of life. Monitoring is a way for people to get actively involved in lake protection by gathering and sharing data. And that monitoring is not the end result – it’s foundational to LCC’s nutrient reduction advocacy.” Read...

Gardens were not the only places being weeded in August—LCC hosted a water chestnut removal event with the Vermont Department of Environmental Conservation at the Sandbar Wildlife Management Area in Colchester, VT. Volunteers spent the morning paddling the shallow waters north of the mouth of the Lamoille River and pulling up the invasive plant to help prevent it from colonizing the area. Read...

The Summer 2023 floods brought devastation to so many throughout the Lake Champlain Basin—they inundated homes and businesses, destroyed crops and livelihoods, and washed away roads. On paper, it will be a costly recovery, but the true cost of the destruction cannot be measured in money alone. Rivers throughout the basin rushed to levels not seen in nearly 100 years, with staggeringly high flow ultimately pouring into Lake Champlain. What did the rivers carry, what does this mean for the lake, and how can we be more resilient in the future? Read...

The Lake Champlain Committee is a partner in a new program called Stream Wise. Organized by the Lake Champlain Basin Program, Stream Wise is a way for people who live near streams and rivers to be recognized and rewarded for maintaining a healthy stream buffer. The program consists of an assessment where a trained Stream Wise assessor visits your property and helps determine if it meets the criteria to be considered “Stream Wise” and issues awards and recommendations accordingly. It helps landowners learn about what makes a stream buffer effective and how to improve the land around the waterway that runs through or along their property. Read...

In the shallow shores of Lake Champlain, a predator who engulfs its prey in milliseconds floats just below the surface, waiting for the next unlucky victim. It is neither freshwater shark nor sinister cryptid cousin to Champ, but actually a seemingly innocuous, yet carnivorous native plant: the bladderwort. Read...

For those who tend lawns, there are still a few more weeks until mowing season shifts to raking season. As such, there is time to make simple yet impactful changes to your lawn maintenance that will benefit soil health, water quality, and save you time.

If you have a grass lawn and want to keep it that way, there are management practices that you can adopt to reduce runoff and promote water quality. Consider Raising the Blade to at least three inches. This allows roots to grow deeper, as grass can divert energy to extending roots rather than re-growing the cut blades. Deeper roots aerate the soil and improves capacity for water retention. Raise the blade to a point where you’re removing less than 1/3 of the grass blade when mowing. This reduces stress to your lawn, which helps it stay green and lowers water demand. Leave the grass clippings where they fall after mowing—they will help fertilize the grass naturally as they decompose, foster a healthier lawn, and save you time! Read...

The story of lake trout in Lake Champlain is one of mystery and hope. In spring 2023, the Lake Champlain Fish and Wildlife Management Cooperative – a working group of fisheries professionals from the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation, the Vermont Fish and Wildlife Department, and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service – announced plans to halve the annual stocking of lake trout in Lake Champlain this year. They cut back because of increases in lake trout wild recruitment, or survival past the first winter of life. This follows a trend of jumps in lake trout populations and subsequent reductions in stocking—there was a 30% reduction in trout stocking in 2022. While thousands of animal populations across taxa around the world plummet, the native lake trout of Lake Champlain are making a comeback. Why? Read...

We had fewer reports during week 12 in part due to a lower incidence of blooms but also because municipal and state parks are closing and seasonal staff and volunteers are leaving the region so there are fewer monitors reporting as summer ends. However, fall blooms are not uncommon so the monitoring program will continue through October with reduced site coverage. Lower temperatures will cool the water surface and generally reduce the incidence of blooms in deeper waters like Lake Champlain’s Main Lake, but shallow water areas like Missisquoi and St. Albans Bay and Lake Carmi will be less affected and blooms may continue. Read...

It was another challenging week for water quality with nearly half of the 188 reports received from Lake Champlain sites chronicling blooms during week 11. Hot temperatures over the Labor Day weekend spurred cyanobacteria growth and blooms were reported in every Lake Champlain lake segment except for the South Lake. Read...

During week 10 of cyanobacteria monitoring over a third of the 148 Lake Champlain reports received were of blooms. Blooms were dominant again in St. Albans Bay and Missisquoi Bay but also colored waters and shoreline areas in parts of the Inland Sea, Main Lake North, and Malletts Bay. Main Lake Central, Main Lake South, and the South Lake were bloom-free. Read...

Blooms continued to dominate Lake Champlain monitoring reports from St. Albans Bay and Malletts Bay during week 9 and were also recorded in Missisquoi Bay, the Inland Sea, Main Lake North, and Main Lake South. Main Lake Central and the South Lake were again bloom-free but we received very few reports from the latter lake segment. Read...

It was another week of bloom gloom at many northern Lake Champlain sites. The majority of reports from St. Albans Bay, Missisquoi Bay, the Inland Sea, St. Albans Bay, and Malletts Bay sites were of bloom conditions. Main Lake North also had a significant number of blooms while all site reports from Main Lake Central to the South Lake were bloom-free. Some monitors reported that they witnessed the worst conditions they had ever seen in a particular lake section. You’ll find specific details from Lake Champlain and VT Inland Lake sites in this report. Read...

Another challenging week for St. Albans Bay with blooms dominating the reports for that section of Lake Champlain yet again. Blooms were also witnessed in Missisquoi Bay, the Inland Sea, and Main Lake North. Other sections of the big lake were bloom-free for week 7 as were the VT Inland Lakes based on the reports we received. While it is characteristic of recent trends that we see blooms concentrated in St. Albans Bay and Missisquoi Bay this time of year, be mindful that they can happen anywhere. The heavy nutrient loading from the July 2023 flooding as well as temperature and weather patterns all influence conditions. This email is a compilation of week 7 (8/6 – 8/12/23) monitoring results but three days into week 8 we have already received over 50 bloom reports from Lake Champlain sites in Missisquoi Bay, St. Albans Bay, the Inland Sea, and Malletts Bay! In some cases monitors have noted blooms extending as far out into the waters as they can see. Witnessing a cyanobacteria bloom can take an emotional toll – blooms threaten water quality, public health, recreation, the economy, and quality of life. We’re bearing witness to painful changes in our waterways. Monitoring is not the end result of the Lake Champlain Committee’s work, it’s foundational for our nutrient reduction advocacy. Read...

Blooms hit St. Albans Bay hard again with cyanobacteria persisting at some locations all week long or showing up off and on during the sixth week of monitoring. August and September are often prime times for bloom conditions so please use the resources and links in this email to learn how to recognize and report cyanobacteria. Read...

Take your gardening skills to the water! Join the Lake Champlain Committee (LCC) and the VT Department of Environmental Conservation for a hands-on activity to remove the invasive water chestnut from the shallow water areas around Sandbar Wildlife Management Area. Read...

Blooms took off during week 5 in many areas of Lake Champlain’s St. Albans Bay closing the town beach and impeding recreational use for most of the week. Blooms also showed up at several Burlington sites in Main Lake Central but didn’t persist for as long. August is historically when many locations are more susceptible to blooms and the recent heavy nutrient loading from the July 2023 floods may exacerbate this situation. Read...

The floods of July 2023 brought devastation to so many throughout the Lake Champlain Basin—they inundated homes and businesses, destroyed crops and livelihoods, and washed away roads. Rivers throughout the basin rushed to levels not seen in nearly 100 years, with staggeringly high flow ultimately pouring into Lake Champlain. What did the rivers carry, what does this mean for the lake, and how can we be more resilient in the future? Read...

It has been two weeks since flooding devastated many communities in the Lake Champlain watershed and throughout the state of Vermont. The heavy rains lasted for days and sent rivers and streams over their banks, pouring into homes and businesses and carrying a swill of debris, nutrients, sediment, untreated wastewater, chemicals, and more into Lake Champlain. Read...

There were fewer blooms during week four than during the first two weeks of monitoring but we are not in the heart of bloom season yet. We also likely saw a reprieve in some areas due to the turbidity and dilution factors from the flooding. However, we are bracing ourselves for the after-effects of all the additional nutrient loading which will help feed future blooms. Read...

Far fewer bloom reports were received during Week 3 of the cyanobacteria monitoring season. This is largely attributed to the volatile weather patterns and the increased turbidity from the flooding that affected much of Lake Champlain as well as Vermont inland waterways. The heavy sediment load carried by a high volume of water had a combined effect of limiting light necessary for bloom growth and diluting existing cyanobacteria. However, flooded tributaries also sent high levels of nutrients to Lake Champlain and other waterways. Early estimations are that some tributaries delivered more phosphorus to Lake Champlain during the July 2023 floods than during all of 2022! This will likely fuel blooms later in the season. Read...

Week 2 of cyanobacteria monitoring began with another spate of bloom reports and ended with catastrophic flooding which has devastated communities in the Lake Champlain watershed and throughout the state of Vermont. We hope you are safe, healthy, and dry—and that you’ve made it through the storms (which aren’t over) without damage. While Lake Champlain is below flood stage, it is receiving a heavy load of debris, nutrients, sediment, and a stormwater swill of oil and other pollutants from swollen tributaries, wastewater overflows, and failed septic systems. Read...

Lake Champlain has one particular quality that sets it apart from its Great Lake neighbors. The Lake Champlain Basin has the highest ratio of land to water; in other words, it has the greatest amount of land draining to the smallest area of water. That means that residents of the Lake Champlain Basin .have an opportunity to use land stewardship as a means of water protection. There are many approaches to managing land with water quality in mind depending on what kind of land you’re working with, but one surefire land management strategy for healthy waterways is a stream buffer. Read...

Cyanobacteria Monitoring began the week of June 25 and will run through early fall. Subscribers to our emails will receive weekly updates about conditions monitors are finding on Lake Champlain and at many inland lakes. This week’s report covers conditions from Sunday, June 25 through Saturday, July 1, 2023. If you’d like to learn more about cyanobacteria or join our monitoring team please sign up here. We will hold training sessions on Wednesday July 12 from 9:00 a.m. until Noon and 5:30 to 8:30 p.m. Read...

June 2023 - Summer breathes life into the Champlain Valley—trees leaf, insects hum, and birds come back to their summer homes. Among this annual reawakening of ecological activity is cyanobacteria. With longer and sunnier days warming the lake, conditions can become a breeding ground for blooms of cyanobacteria (sometimes called blue green algae, even though they are not technically algae) that can inundate water and close beaches. Read...

In March of 2023, the Lake Champlain Fish and Wildlife Management Cooperative – a working group of fisheries professionals from the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation, the Vermont Fish and Wildlife Department, and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service – announced plans to halve the annual stocking of lake trout in Lake Champlain this year. It's a response to recent increases in wild recruitment, or survival past the first winter of life, of lake trout. While thousands of animal populations across taxa around the world plummet, the native lake trout of Lake Champlain are making a comeback. Why?

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The Stone Age, the Bronze Age, and the Iron Age have come and gone, and some scientists say that we are now living in the Plastic Age. Major bans of single-use plastics, including many single-use EPS products, became law in Vermont in 2019 and New York in 2022. While the bans on single-use plastics including EPS foams were major steps in curbing plastic pollution, there is one type of EPS foam that doesn’t just end up in the lake, but is purposefully put in the lake by design: dock foam. Read...

Since the time of European settlement, Vermont has lost half of its wetlands in the Champlain Basin to development and agriculture, and more than a third of wetlands that existed statewide.1 Wetlands are known by a lot of different names – swamps, marshes, peatlands, sloughs, bogs, fens, and potholes, among others – and are a critical part of Vermont’s landscape. Read...

When road salt dissolves, it needs to go somewhere—and in the Lake Champlain Basin, it winds up making our lake a bit saltier, which is bad news for freshwater life. Read...