News by Category

Bloom activity remained concentrated in St. Albans Bay this week, where 67% of reports documented blooms. The Category 3 (high alert) bloom at Hathaway Point pictured shows just how dense conditions became, with a thick shoreline accumulation and a…

LCC and Tetra Tech hosted a three-part webinar series exploring the growing field of benthic cyanobacteria research and monitoring across North America. These sessions brought together leading scientists and public health experts from around the…

This week, St. Albans Bay recorded one of the highest percentages of cyanobacteria bloom reports on Lake Champlain this season.

Each summer, thousands of people turn to the Cyanobacteria Tracker before heading to the lake. While blooms that turn the water green may seem like a modern problem, the organisms behind them have existed for billions of years. The story of…

Lake Champlain continued to see relatively few cyanobacteria blooms this week, with just three high alerts and six low alerts reported across the lake.

After several active weeks, bloom reports declined across Lake Champlain, with 12 blooms documented and no blooms reported on Vermont's inland lakes. Although wildfire smoke created hazy conditions throughout the week, monitors continued to submit…

Volunteers submitted 201 monitoring reports this week, with nearly one in four reports documenting bloom conditions on Lake Champlain. St. Albans Bay experienced the highest percentage of blooms, while Main Lake Central received the greatest number…

Week 3 brought cyanobacteria blooms to several regions of Lake Champlain, with 14% of monitoring reports indicating bloom conditions. Missisquoi Bay recorded the highest percentage of blooms relative to the number of reports received, with one-third…

Judy monitors Shelburne Bay for cyanobacteria each week throughout the season and is one of the many dedicated volunteers helping keep Lake Champlain users informed about cyanobacteria conditions. Way to go, Judy!

The second week of monitoring brought the season's first widespread reports of cyanobacteria blooms, with monitors documenting green surface accumulations and shoreline scums at several locations around Lake Champlain and inland lakes. The Category 3…

The first week of the 2026 cyanobacteria monitoring season (6/14 - 6/20/2026) kicked off with rainy weather and a range of generally safe conditions around Lake Champlain - though some phenomena including turbid waters, pollen-filled shorelines, and…

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…

Brrr! It’s getting chilly in and around our waterways as fall fully takes hold. However, cyanobacteria blooms are still happening at various Lake Champlain and inland lake locations. Please use the resources in this email to learn how to recognize,…

While reports continue to dwindle as more monitors leave shoreline areas, we continue to see blooms. Please use the resources in this email to learn how to recognize, avoid, and report cyanobacteria. Click on the links for how to join our monitoring…

Fall is a time of year when we have far fewer monitors reporting but blooms can still occur. This email includes details of Week 15 monitoring results along with resources to help you recognize cyanobacteria and stay informed about water quality.…

Fall is a time of year when we have far fewer monitors reporting but blooms are still prevalent. Forty-three percent of the Lake Champlain reports and 8 percent of the VT inland lake reports we received for Week 14 were of blooms. Please use the…

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…

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.…

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…

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,…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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,…

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…

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…

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…

The 2022 cyanobacteria monitoring season has come to a close for LCC monitors and partners. Monitors collectively filed over 2,500 reports during this year’s 20-week season. In the links and photographs below you’ll find our last weekly report…

Site coverage is scant this time of year but all 47 reports from Lake Champlain received during week 19 were of good conditions. For inland lakes, Lake Carmi had a low alert bloom and Joe’s Pond had a high alert. The latter covered a wide swath of…

Only a scattering of monitoring reports are still coming in as we move into stick season but all that do provide important data on water conditions. Lake Champlain was bloom-free for the second fall week in a row. Lake Champlain was bloom-free again…

Good water conditions dominated monitoring reports for the third full week of fall but there are far fewer monitors reporting this time of year on Lake Champlain and inland lakes. This week’s photos don’t show any cyanobacteria but scroll down to see…

Good water conditions dominated monitoring reports for the second week in a row since we moved into the fall season but cyanobacteria blooms continued to show their colors in areas of Lake Champlain and several inland lakes.

Good water conditions dominated monitoring reports during week 15 but blooms showed up in a few Lake Champlain locations as well as several inland lakes. Scroll down to see clear water at Alburgh Dunes State Park, and Graveyard Point on Lake…

Week 14 of monitoring brought cooler weather, fewer sightings of cyanobacteria, but also far fewer monitors to report them. High alert blooms continued in parts of St. Albans Bay, Lake Carmi, and Lake Morey which have all had persistent blooms during…

While the weather cooled during Week 13 of monitoring, blooms continued in several lakes or bays where they were present previously and showed up in some new locations. On Lake Champlain, high alert conditions were restricted to nutrient-rich St.…

Blooms continued into Week 12 of the monitoring season. You can see visuals of some of them from Lake Memphremagog, Lake Morey, Tinmouth Pond, Shelburne Pond and Lake Champlain’s Arnold Bay and Valcour Island, and Lake Champlain’s Keeler Bay. You’ll…

Several monitors reported odd gelatinous globules in the water at several sites in Lake Champlain’s Inland Sea during week 11 of monitoring. Happily they took water samples and photographs and shared the details with us and our partner Dr. Ana…

Happy end of August! As we move towards September, please remember that blooms can still happen as summer wanes which is why we are only about half way through the monitoring season. Blooms have been witnessed through November in our region during…