LCC Winter 2023 E-News: What's in WRDA, All About Ice, Fish in Winter, Halt the Salt, TU Senator Leahy
Submitted by tim
on
Lake Champlain from the Sandbar Causeway looking northeast toward Eagle Mountain on a sunny late January day. (Photo by Gary Kjelleren.)
More funding has been allocated for projects like the Lake Champlain Canal Barrier, which will help control aquatic invasive species in the lake. (Photo by Lori Fisher.)
What's in a WRDA?
The $37.8 billion Water Resources Development Act (WRDA) of 2022 was passed overwhelmingly by the House and Senate and signed into law by President Biden in December. WRDA is biennial legislation that authorizes flood control, navigation, and ecosystem restoration projects for the US Army Corps of Engineers (ACOE). With a $37.8 billion budget, the 2022 version is the largest WRDA in history. In addition to providing authorization for the ACOE to undertake water resources infrastructure projects to address flooding, water transportation, and ecosystem restoration, the bill includes provisions to support underserved communities and address climate change.
WRDA aims to strengthen water restoration, waterway resiliency, invasive species management, and emergency flood protection by channeling more funds and resources to the ACOE for risk management studies and new projects. Key provisions that will help Lake Champlain are outlined below.
Ice on Lake Champlain was once not only a source of recreation, but a thoroughfare. (Photo by Jessica Becker.)
All About Ice
Though it’s still early in 2023, it already has not been a banner year for ice on Lake Champlain. The lake is still largely unfrozen going into February. When record keeping on Lake Champlain freezing began in the 19th century, it was rare for a winter to go by without a complete freeze-over from shore to shore of the lake. This regular freezing created the basis for a seasonal culture of ice-centered activities, and the lack of ice this year and in the recent past is part of a concerning trend. Read more...
Your photos could be included in our next Paddlers’ Trail Guide like this one generously shared by Jordan Rowell, Duane Peterson III, and Ryan Malle, courtesy of lakechamplainfilm.com.
LCC Seeking Paddling Pics!
Calling All Paddlers’ – We Want Your Pictures! LCC is seeking boating pictures to enhance our 2023 edition of the Paddlers’ Trail guidebook. If you ventured out on the water with a camera in the past year or two, please consider sharing some photos with us. We are looking for images of human-powered adventures on Lake Champlain and any discoveries made along the way. Scenes of paddling with friends (all wearing PFDs of course), packing your gear, fishing from your boat, taking in a sunrise or sunset, and other visual reflections of water outings are welcome.
Ice forms on the edge and surface of Oakledge Park in Burlington—but what are fish doing under the surface? (Photo by Lisa Cicchetti.)
Fish in Winter
While Lake Champlain is not as cold or icy this winter as it has been in winters of yore, it is still not a place for a casual swim at this time of year. This inaccessibility gives the depths of the lake a certain mystery. What is going on underneath the dark surface of Lake Champlain as winter unfolds? How do fish hunker down and survive what seems to be a hostile environment of icy cold water all season long?
WEC participants get their feet wet in the watershed and gain hands-on lake experience. (Photo from CBEI archives.)
Lake Camp for Teachers
LCC and partners of the Champlain Basin Education Initiative (CBEI), a community of organizations engaged in watershed education, will host Watershed for Every Classroom (WEC), a year-long professional development program for interdisciplinary teams of K-12 teachers in the Lake Champlain Basin.
WEC is like camp for teachers! Participants travel the Basin, visit farms, paddle waterways, explore mountain tops, tour urban areas, and much more! The program helps educators enrich their curricula with local, relevant and engaging topics while addressing national standards and district expectations. Participants network with teachers from around the Basin in Québec, New York and Vermont and meet with Basin scientists, historians, and stewards who work in watershed protection.
Road salt, while good at melting ice, can have unintended consequences on water quality. (Photo by Dr. Vernon Grubinger.)
Champlain Rain Disdain
How Climate Change, Precipitation, and Soil Interact to Create Water Quality Challenges
One of the major impacts of climate change in the Lake Champlain Basin is precipitation—it’s getting wetter. According to a recent presentation by soil scientist Dr. Joshua Faulkner through the Vermont Department of Environmental Conservation’s Clean Water Initiative Program “Agriculture, Climate Change, and Water Quality,” average annual rainfall has increased more than four inches over the course of the past century in the Northeast as a whole. If you’re a farmer, this figure does not come as a major red flag—100 years is a lot of time to adapt to a change of that scale, and farmers tend to be highly adaptable people.
Road salt, while good at melting ice, can have unintended consequences on water quality. (Photo by Eileen Fitzgerald.)
Halt the Salt: Safer Ways to Salt Your Street
After a warm start to the season, it is finally starting to look--and certainly feel--like winter in the Lake Champlain Basin. To make walking and driving safer in this icy season, state and municipal road crews salt roadways. This practice started in the 1930s, when cars became more commonplace and roads needed winter maintenance. Since then, the annual use of road salts in the US has increased—in the past 45 years, the amount has tripled—to a yearly estimated total of 25 million metric tons.
All of this salt has to go somewhere. When in contact with the water, salt dissolves into its ion building blocks, the most common of which are sodium and chloride. The now salty water first washes off roads, stoops, parking lots, and sidewalks, and it can kill adjacent vegetation quickly, as these species are rarely adapted to high salinity. Salty water then either seeps into groundwater or flows through waterways, winding up in larger reservoirs like Lake Champlain. Chloride concentrations in Lake Champlain and its tributaries have been steadily rising for the past several decades.
One of Lake Champlain’s only deep-water predators, Burbot come alive in the cold. (Photo by Amelia McReynolds.)
A Whole ‘lotta Lota lota: How Burbot Thrive in Lake Champlain’s Winter Water
In the depths of Lake Champlain, an eel-like creature slithers among the rocks, hunting for a foraged fish dinner. This is no sinister cousin of Champ—this is the burbot (Lota lota), one of Lake Champlain’s only deep-water predator fish (the other one is lake trout). Burbot have a unique look, with small scales forming patterns of blotched green, brown, yellow, and black, all making up their particularly slimy skin. Perhaps their most distinct feature is the single “barbell” protruding from under their chin—think of a long, narrow goatee made of scales rather than hair. They also have large, wide-set, tubular nostrils that protrude from the front of their face, resembling catfish.
Senator Patrick Leahy and Marcelle Leahy, a dynamic duo of Lake Champlain, at the fall tribute to them as Shelburne Farms. (Photo by Bobbi LoCicero, courtesy of VNRC.)
Thank You Senator Leahy!
In the fall of 2022, the Lake Champlain Committee, Vermont Natural Resources Council (VNRC), Shelburne Farms and a host of environmental and conservation organizations collaborated on a tribute to Senator Patrick Leahy in recognition of his unwavering support of communities and the environment during his decades-long tenure in public service. The event was held at Shelburne Farms, overlooking the lake he has done so much to protect and attended by over 500 people. Throughout his career in the US Senate, Patrick Leahy has been an unfailing champion for our region’s—and the nation’s—air, water, and land, and for public health. From the Conte National Wildlife Refuge, across the Green Mountain National Forest, to Lake Champlain, his dedication to safeguarding and investing in natural resources has improved our lives.
“Senator Leahy has led work to protect and restore Lake Champlain for four decades through both authorizing and appropriating legislation” stated LCC Executive Director Lori Fisher. “He has left a legacy that will be remembered and revered for generations to come.”
LCC’s team of dedicated cyanobacteria monitors have helped to build the program into one of the most comprehensive in North America. (Photo by Lori Fisher.)
Hooray Monitors!
Sincere thanks to our wonderful team of 2022 cyanobacteria monitors and partner organizations. Monitors faithfully checked Lake Champlain and inland lake locations in wind, rain, sleet, and sun during a 20-week long monitoring season and filed over 2,500 reports on water conditions.
Please join us for the 2023 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 cool t-shirt and hat, and support 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.
New VT Pesticide Regs Fall Short of Protecting Human & Ecological Health
The Lake Champlain Committee (LCC) collaborated with environmental organizations across the state of Vermont—including Northeast Organic Farming Association of Vermont, Audubon Vermont, Conservation Law Foundation, Vermont Public Interest Research Group, Vermont Natural Resources Council, and the Vermont chapter of the Sierra Club—to oppose new state regulations on pesticides. Read more...
COVID Funds Will Help Improve Water Quality
Thanks to American Rescue Plan Act (AARPA) dollars, several communities in the Lake Champlain Basin in Vermont are poised to upgrade their wastewater treatment systems with the goal of reducing combined sewer overflows (CSOs). Read more...
Warming Climate Triggers Harmful Oxygen Loss in Lakes
Research from Cornell and Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute indicates that thousands of temperate zone lakes around the world are “losing a global-warming battle to maintain oxygen.” Read more...
Concern Growing Over PFAs in Freshwater Fish
A new study published in the Journal of Environmental Research indicates high levels of Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS, in freshwater fish across the US. PFAS are used in jet fuel, fire-fighting foam, and numerous household products including types of food packaging. Read more...
Cyanobacteria Blooms - an International Problem
Cyanobacteria blooms, also referred to as Harmful Algal Blooms (HABs), are on the rise in the US and around the world. According to a review by the International Joint Commission there were only 12 published accounts of HABs recorded in Canada and the US in the 1980s and 19 in the 1990s. By 2021 there were nearly 1,700 HAB related-warnings and health advisories in the US alone. Read more...
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Lake Champlain Committee Board of Directors
Gary Kjelleren, Chair | South Hero, VT
Sandy Montgomery, Treasurer | Montreal, QC
Alan Booth | Plattsburgh, NY
Cliff Landesman | Brooklyn, NY
Rick Sharp | Colchester, VT
Hank Slauson | Shelburne, VT
Lake Champlain Committee Advisory Council
Lisa Borre | Belding, MI
Steven Kellogg | Essex, NY
Peter S. Paine Jr. | Willsboro, NY
Bob Paquin | Shelburne, VT
Mary Watzin | Raleigh, NC
