Annual Report of Activities Released

The LCBP has released an Annual Report of Activities for Fiscal Year 2015, which highlights projects that were in progress or concluded between October 1, 2014 and September 30, 2015. It includes both external contracts managed by LCBP, and key LCBP tasks implemented by staff during this time period. The grants, projects, technical reports, and staff products total $5,530,994.00. The match provided by recipient organizations totals $1,204,334.00.

This report provides an update for our Congressional delegation —U.S. Senator Patrick Leahy who has provided a quarter of a century of leadership for Lake Champlain water quality, U.S. Senators Bernie Sanders of Vermont, and Charles Schumer and Kirsten Gillibrand of New York, and Representatives Peter Welch of Vermont and Elise Stefanik of New York—all of whom have provided strong support for improved management of Lake Champlain through congressional authorizations, major federal appropriations, and guidance. It also reports our progress to Governor Peter Shumlin of Vermont, Governor Andrew Cuomo of New York, and Premier Philippe Couillard of Québec, who have made vital executive commitments to ensure that jurisdictional staff continue to implement the Lake Champlain management plan Opportunities for Action (OFA).

The Lake Champlain Basin Program received funding in FY 2015 from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the Great Lakes Fishery Commission, and the National Park Service as well as special project funding from the International Joint Commission. The New England Interstate Water Pollution Control Commission (NEIWPCC) manages the financial, contractual, and human resource business operations on behalf of the LCBP Steering Committee.

Read the LCBP Annual Report of Activities >>

LCBP Resource Room Welcomes Record Numbers

Visitors to the LCBP Resource Room examine zooplankton.

The Lake Champlain Basin Program Resource Room is a popular destination for visitors to the second floor of ECHO at the Leahy Center for Lake Champlain and for the community at large.

Located on the Burlington, Vermont waterfront, the Resource Room saw record attendance in 2015. More than 29,000 guests visited last year, about 24% of ECHO’s total visitation. It was also a year of renovations including updates to shelves and counters, new carpeting, updated computer monitors, and microscopes.

With a focus on water quality and lake management, Resource Room staff provide answers to questions about fish and wildlife, regional history, culture and recreation. Many visitors seek practical information on volunteer and citizen science opportunities, local watershed groups, wildlife rehabilitation, and lake-friendly home and garden practices. Staff also present tailored programs for school groups, provide resources for educators, develop interactive activities, and create new exhibits quarterly.

In 2015, our staff shared information with a growing number of college students and organizations including the Lake George Association, Great Lakes Sea Grant Network, International Association for Great Lakes Research (IAGLR), Champlain Research Experience for Secondary Teachers (CREST), Squam Lakes Natural Science Center, and the Mobius Vermont mentoring partnership.

Since June 2015, staff has provided daily public programs on topics such as wetlands, plankton, river ecology, invasive species and water quality. With Lake Champlain central to our efforts, the LCBP Resource Room encourages stewardship and fosters watershed awareness among our guests. Students who are interested in diving deeper into lake or river topics can call Laura, Stephanie, or Cynthia at 864-1848, ext. 109 to schedule an appointment for assistance.

Education and Outreach Highlights

Participants in the Watershed for Every Classroom program sample for macroinvertebrates in the Ausable River.

CBEI Partners Deliver State of the Lake Workshop
Teachers participated in a free Champlain Basin Education Initiative workshop in January at ECHO. “An educator’s tour of the 2015 State of the Lake Report” was presented by Dr. Eric Howe from the Lake Champlain Basin Program. Following the presentation, Ryan Morra from Shelburne Farms engaged educators in a classroom learning dialogue about their new understandings of the Lake issues and how they might use the report with their students. Ten educators registered for the workshop from South Burlington, Charlotte, Vergennes, St. Albans, New Haven, Colchester, and Burlington.
Learn more about future CBEI Workshops >>

Watershed for Every Classroom Course to Begin July 11
CBEI partners are seeking a few more participants for our Watershed for Every Classroom five-credit graduate course. The course begins in July 2016 and ends in May 2017. Educators will explore the rich environmental and cultural resources of the Lake Champlain Basin, practice activities and protocols that they can use with their students and learn first-hand information from scientists, historians, and field experts. They will explore water quality issues, paddle in the LaPlatte River system, conduct physical, chemical and biological water quality testing on the Ausable River system, explore South Lake historic sites, learn about basin geology atop Mt Philo, investigate stormwater issues and green infrastructure, visit vegetable and dairy farms, row long boats, and venture to Vermont, the Adirondacks, and Québec to dive deeper into issues. Participants will gain new insight as adult learners and then transfer their knowledge to their students through curriculum components which will meet their regional and state learning expectations.

Watershed for Every Classroom is a project of the Champlain Basin Education Initiative (CBEI). The partners include the Lake Champlain Basin Program, Shelburne Farms, UVM Watershed Alliance/Sea Grant, Our Curriculum Matters, Lake Champlain Committee, Vermont Agency of Natural Resources/Project WET, and others working to promote environmental and cultural  place-based education throughout the Lake Champlain watershed.
Learn more about Watershed for Every Classroom >>

Great Places to Learn
The Lake Champlain Basin offers a variety of fun and engaging opportunities to take learning outside. These sites can focus on a specific subject, or can be jumping-off points for exploring the issues, processes, and perspectives that define and challenge the watershed. To highlight some of these locations, the Champlain Basin Education Initiative (CBEI) has launched the “Great Places to Learn” story map. Follow CBEI educators to sites they have visited as part of the Watershed for Every Classroom program and other CBEI workshops. Teachers and students can get involved with solving real problems as they grapple with the complexities of local places!

Learn more about CBEI at the WatershED Matters website >>

LCBP Participates in MLPBS Forum about Lake Champlain Issues
Dr. Bill Howland, LCBP’s Director, participated in the April 15th Mountain Lake PBS episode of Mountain Lake Journal. Hosted by Thom Hallock, the program focused on pollution issues linked to microplastics, agriculture, urban lands, and potential oil train concerns. Lake Champlain Sea Grant, Lake Champlain Committee, and SUNY Plattsburgh also participated in the discussion.
View the program >>

Grant Results

Students in MRBA’s Bugworks program identify aquatic insects; a new open-bottom culvert allows easier passage of fish and other organisms on Crossett Brook; students on Lake George Association’s Floating Classroom measure water clarity. Photos: MRBA, WNRCD, LGA.

LGA Floating Classroom
An LCBP grant helped support the Lake George Association Floating Classroom last summer. The program educated 2,412 students, residents, and visitors of Lake George about watershed ecology and water quality issues through practical activities. Participants used Secchi disks to measure water clarity and plankton nets to collect zooplankton. They measured water quality parameters and learned about relationships between a healthy aquatic food web and the harmful effects of invasive species introductions, like spiny water flea, that can directly impact plankton populations and the fishery. The programs concluded with a review of ways that people can help protect the Lake in relation to everything they learned, such as maintaining and inspecting septic systems, avoiding phosphorus fertilizers, planting buffers and rain gardens, following stormwater regulations, and preventing the spread of invasive species. 

Bugworks
The Missisquoi River Basin Association delivered its Bugworks program to 249 students and teachers in classrooms and summer camps, including each elementary school in the Missisquoi watershed. The program also reached an additional 40 children and adults at the Richford River Fest Celebration. The goal of Bugworks is to bring an understanding of water quality issues to children in our watershed. Topics and activities, which are linked with the Vermont Teaching Standards, include aquatic insect identification, insect life cycles and metamorphosis, bugs as indicators of stream health, water-testing, water chemistry, food chains, the evaluation of data, and producing a scientific report.

Warren County Habitat Improvement Program
The Warren County Soil and Water Conservation District installed simple habitat enhancement structures in and along Warren County’s ponds and tributaries within the Lake Champlain watershed. The purpose of the structures is to improve and enhance wildlife habitat in the watershed’s aquatic and riparian segments altered by urban and agricultural development, channel straightening and stormwater runoff introduction. Habitat improvements to Halfway Brook and its tributaries, West Brook, English Brook and Lake Champlain Watershed ponds in Bolton, Lake George, and Queensbury were accomplished with native bank plantings, amphibian habitat structures, fish habitat and passage augmentation and migratory bird structures. This grant was used to repair and mitigate the damages caused by stormwater runoff and road maintenance practices to ponds and streams.

Crossett Brook Aquatic Organism Passage
The Winooski Natural Resources Conservation District, in partnership with the Friends of the Winooski River and the Town of Duxbury, coordinated the replacement of a culvert on Hayes Road on Crossett Brook in the Winooski River watershed. The project replaced a damaged, undersized culvert that was installed after the crossing washed out in the spring 2011 floods. The new open-bottom arch meets current state standards for fish passage and hydraulic capacity. The project reconnects three miles of important native brook trout habitat, supports lower water temperatures, improves spawning success and promotes flood resiliency within the system.  Other funding partners included the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Vermont Community Foundation, Vermont Transportation, and the Vermont Department of Environmental Conservation.

Lamoille County Stormwater Solutions
The Lamoille County Conservation District (LCCD), VT, raised public awareness about stormwater management practices to reduce stormwater runoff and future flooding impacts by installing three Green Stormwater Infrastructure (GSI) projects throughout the county. A rain garden was constructed at the Morristown Centennial Library. At the Morristown Elementary School, two infiltration galleries were created and planted with mature trees to provide long-term shade and soil stabilization, three infiltration pods were created to capture overland stormwater flow, and an eroding streambank was stabilized. Water quality models of these small scale projects estimate that stormwater from six acres of land area, including 2.2 acres of impervious, area will be treated. This work will prevent more than 1,200 lbs. of suspended solids and one pound of phosphorus from reaching downstream waterways each year.

Upcoming Events

NEC NALMS and MA COLAP Annual Meeting
May 20, 2016, Marlborough, MA
The New England Chapter of the North American Lake Management Society and the Massachusetts Congress of Lake and Pond Associations offer this two day seminar on addressing lake management. Join us on May 20 and 21, 2016, at the Holiday Inn in Marlborough, MA to hear about highly relevant issues for your lake, network with others dealing with similar issues, and gain some momentum toward solving lake problems. For more information, contact kjwagner@charter.net.

2016-2017 Watershed for Every Classroom (WEC)
July 2016 – May 2017, multiple locations
The Champlain Basin education Initiative will offer this year-long professional development experience for educators in the Lake Champlain Basin (Vermont, New York, and Québec). The eleven-day program offers teachers inspiration, knowledge and skills to frame exciting watershed education. Participants can earn five graduate credits through St. Michaels College. Check the WatershED Matters website for details coming soon.

Vermont TMDL Public Meetings
Dates and locations to be determined
The LCBP will assist the Vermont Department of Environmental Conservation with public meetings to roll out the Vermont Phosphorus TMDL, expected to be held in early June. Stay tuned for details.