LCC invites you to join their cyanobacteria monitoring team

Submitted by tim on Thu, 04/10/2025 - 12:21

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Interested in Becoming a Monitor?

Interested in becoming a monitor? Read below to learn more about the program and find the link to our 2025 monitor commitment form.

Dear Lake Friend,

Happy spring! We’re gearing up for another field season at the Lake Champlain Committee (LCC) and hope that you’ll join us in some of our upcoming work. If you like being on, in, and around water and have an hour or so to spare each week, please consider joining our Cyanobacteria Monitoring Program! We’ll train you in how to identify cyanobacteria and differentiate it from other floating phenomena and provide you with the resources and guidance you need to report on site conditions throughout the summer and early fall.

We also invite you to explore another community science opportunity—our CHAMP Monitoring Program, which trains volunteers to identify aquatic invasive species. It's a great complement to cyanobacteria monitoring, especially if you’re already spending time on or near the water. You’ll find more details about this program at the end of this newsletter.

Monitoring is a great way to steward the lake. If you’re interested in joining the LCC team of community science volunteers, please fill out this online form to commit to monitoring protocols, sign up for a training session, and identify your potential monitoring site(s). Explore this list to see where we need site monitors. We try to space sites for good geographic coverage and prioritize public and quasi-public beaches, boat launches, and parks because those are the areas with the greatest concentrations of people. Monitoring public sites also helps us maintain a long-term data set because there’s no risk of losing access to sites if a monitor moves or retires. However, if you have a private site location you’d like to monitor, please share the name and location and we will add it to the program. Note that the list of sites in need of monitors will change throughout the next few weeks as we identify more data gaps and hear back from new and returning monitors.

If you have already expressed interest into cyanobacteria monitoring, please make sure you have filled out the monitor interest form. If you have already submitted your volunteer form for this season—thank you! Stay tuned for more details soon.

If you can’t commit to monitoring but want to learn more about cyanobacteria, consider taking a training for educational purposes and subscribe to our weekly emails about water conditions. Sent throughout the monitoring season, the emails include a compilation of monitoring results from the previous week and resources and pictures to help you recognize and avoid cyanobacteria.

Annual training sessions are required of all monitors and will be held virtually via Zoom during the following times:

NEW AND RETURNING MONITOR TRAINING - Tues., - 5/6/25 - 9 a.m. to 12:00 p.m. via Zoom
RETURNING MONITOR TRAINING - Tues., - 5/6/25 - 6 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. via Zoom
RETURNING MONITOR TRAINING - Wed., - 5/7/25 - 9 a.m. to 11:30 a.m. via Zoom
RETURNING MONITOR TRAINING - Wed., - 5/7/25 - 2 p.m. to 4:30 p.m. via Zoom
RETURNING MONITOR TRAINING - Tues., - 5/13/25 - 9 a.m. to 11:30 a.m. via Zoom
NEW AND RETURNING MONITOR TRAINING - Wed., - 5/14/25 - 9 a.m. to 12:00 p.m. via Zoom
NEW AND RETURNING MONITOR TRAINING - Wed., - 5/14/25 - 2 p.m. to 5:00 p.m. via Zoom
NEW AND RETURNING MONITOR TRAINING - Tues., - 5/20/25 - 9 a.m. to 12:00 p.m. via Zoom
NEW AND RETURNING MONITOR TRAINING - Tues., - 5/20/25 - 2 p.m. to 5 p.m. via Zoom
RETURNING MONITOR TRAINING - Wed., - 5/21/25 - 6 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. via Zoom

Please sign up soon! Sign up for whatever training best fits your schedule, even if it’s a Returning monitor session. We will make time available at the end of the formal training session to answer any additional questions.

You'll find further information—and some cool pictures—below including:

Thanks for caring about the lake and its communities,
Lindsey Carlson, Ph.D.
LCC Water and Science Program Coordinator

LCC 2025 Cyanobacteria Monitoring Team

LCC’s Cyanobacteria Monitoring Team includes from left to right: Lindsey Carlson, Water and Science Program Coordinator; Alexa Hachigian, Field Associate/Office Manager; Eileen Fitzgerald, Education & Outreach Associate; and Jenny Patterson, Executive Director.

Background on LCC's Cyanobacteria Monitoring Program
The Lake Champlain Committee (LCC) developed a cyanobacteria volunteer monitoring program for Lake Champlain in 2003 and has overseen the community-based effort ever since. The focus of the program is to raise awareness of the issue, build a database of information on bloom frequency, and identify and publicize any potential health hazards. We coordinate closely with Vermont and New York health, environmental and recreational agencies and the Lake Champlain Basin Program and annually train hundreds of community members in methods to assess and report on water conditions. We also conduct annual trainings for state and municipal park staff, town health officers, and public water supply operators. Monitors provide important data on lake health from hundreds of Lake Champlain and inland lake sites.

What's this?

Gloeotrichia sp. – a genus of benthic cyanobacteria that forms yellow-green, spherical colonies about 1/16th of an inch wide – often resembling coriander seeds on the lake’s surface. These colonies begin life in lake sediments, where resting cells (akinetes) overwinter and awaken in spring to feed on nutrients, divide, and form buoyant colonies that rise to the surface.

Monitoring Schedule
The 2025 monitoring season runs from mid June through the fall. While some monitors will have to wrap up after Labor Day, we want as many monitors as possible to continue to report on conditions through mid-November as the season for blooms is extending. Also, we often need monitors who are around into the fall to help cover state and municipal sites that don’t have staff later in the season. If you can assist with this, please let us know on the training session form.

Online Training Sessions

All monitors are required to participate in an annual training session. Returning monitor trainings will run for about two and a half hours and New monitor sessions will run for about three hours depending on group size and questions. Topics we will cover include:

Triggers for cyanobacteria blooms
How blooms develop and what they look like
How to differentiate cyanobacteria from other lake phenomena
Health and environmental concerns with cyanobacteria
Where blooms are most likely to occur and why
Monitoring and safety protocols
What to do when you see a bloom or suspect one is developing
LCC visual assessment protocols
How to file weekly and daily reports using the VT Dept. of Health Cyanobacteria Tracking Application

Ranging Bloom Hues:
The Color Spectrum of Cyanobacteria

Closeups of cyanobacteria at Lake Champlain sites in Alburgh VT (top two and second from bottom on 9/14), Isle La Motte VT (third from top on 9/13), and North Hero VT (third from bottom on 9/14), and between Burton Island (St. Albans VT) and Woods Island (North Hero VT) on 9/14/24 during week 13 of 2024 cyanobacteria monitoring. Attend a spring training session to learn more about how to recognize blooms and how to categorize water conditions.

Monitoring Protocols and Safety Protocols

Attend an online training session (approximately two and a half hours for returning monitors, three hours for new monitors)
Have weekly access to a public or private lakeshore location
File weekly reports via an online form after meeting the above protocols
Wear gloves and avoid dermal exposure when taking water samples
File weekly reports via an online form after meeting the above protocols
Read and follow guidance in the LCC weekly emails following training

To ensure high quality data, monitors report from the same location each week and on the same day of the week whenever possible. If you observe a bloom outside of your weekly reporting period we ask that you file a supplemental report and, if possible, continue to provide daily reports on conditions until the bloom has disappeared. (There's a box to check on the reporting form to indicate whether the report is a regular weekly report or a supplemental one.) Actual monitoring generally takes about fifteen minutes per site, plus the time to get to and from your location(s) and file your online report(s).

When to Monitor

Monitors' assessments should be done between 10 a.m. and 3 p.m. as that's when cyanobacteria are most visible in the water column. If you see a bloom outside of those times you should report it right away, but the absence of a bloom before 10 a.m. or after 3 p.m. is not necessarily an accurate reflection of conditions.

Once trained, monitors make weekly reports using the Vermont Department of Health's data tracking form. Our weekly emails will provide you with your user name(s), password, and links to the online form. Monitoring reports should be submitted as soon as possible after the observation to allow for LCC vetting and so we can update the interactive tracking map (the map will go live by the first week of monitoring) and make the information accessible to people. Swift filing of reports is critical, especially if a bloom is observed, in order for us to get information out to the public in a timely manner.

Daily Monitoring
While most monitors provide weekly reports, as noted above, we strongly urge monitors to provide daily reports if blooms are occurring at their designated site(s) through the time the bloom dissipates. This helps keep health and environmental officials and the public updated on conditions.

Also, we are interested in having monitors who are available record water quality observations on a daily basis regardless of whether or not a bloom is occurring. These daily observations will provide further information on water conditions and how blooms develop and dissipate. Participating monitors still submit weekly online reports but also receive an Excel spreadsheet to record daily observations which are collected mid-way through and at the end of the monitoring season. Any bloom conditions observed outside of the weekly reporting are submitted online right away. Your sign-up form includes a box to check if you’re interested in daily monitoring.

Prep for Monitoring

If you become a monitor, we'll help you prepare a simple toolkit for observing lake conditions: gloves and high footgear to avoid contact with cyanobacteria, a clear jar for water sampling, downloadable photo cards for water samples; pens for filling out forms a stick to help distinguish cyanobacteria from filamentous green algae, and soap and water to wash off immediately if you have any contact with cyanobacteria. Sun protection like a hat, sunglasses, sunscreen, and a towel also come in handy. LCC will provide key materials—like gloves, jars, and monitor T-shirts—and we’ll share drop-off and pick-up locations once the season gets underway.

Prepare for Monitoring
You can familiarize yourself with cyanobacteria in advance of our online training by checking out the background information and monitoring program pages on our website (including the guide to categorizing blooms, instructions for photographing blooms and taking a water sample and how to recognize cyanobacteria blooms).

What Happens to the Data?
Monitoring reports are vetted by LCC and then relayed to local, regional, state, and provincial environmental, health, and recreation staff. Weekly results from locations around Lake Champlain and select inland lakes are posted on a data tracking map hosted by the Vermont Department of Health and accessible to anyone with internet access. All monitors as well as individuals who sign up for our water quality reports receive a weekly email from LCC compiling results from the weekly reports. These weekly emails will also contain your user name and password, site number(s) and name(s) once they are assigned, along with updates on recent conditions, reporting guidance, and links to resources and information to help you file accurate reports. LCC staff are also available for consult via phone and email.

Champlain Aquatic invasive Monitoring Program (CHAMP)
It takes a community to protect Lake Champlain, and we invite you to get involved through the Lake Champlain Committee’s Champlain Aquatic invasive Monitoring Program (CHAMP). Launched in 2023, CHAMP is a volunteer-based initiative that trains and supports community members to survey for aquatic invasive species (AIS) at shoreline sites around the lake. Volunteers paddle or walk along the shore, use a simple rake toss to collect aquatic vegetation, assess their findings, and report any observations of key invasive species through an easy form.

CHAMP pairs especially well with our Cyanobacteria Monitoring Program, but it also works great as a standalone effort—requiring just a once-monthly commitment. LCC provides everything you need to get started, including ID guides, a field toolkit, and hands-on training. As we expand CHAMP to more sites in 2025, we’re looking for new and returning volunteers to help us lead this important work. If you’re interested, please sign up for a training session here — we’d love to have you join us in protecting the health of our lake.

About the Lake Champlain Commitee
The Lake Champlain Committee (LCC) is a 501(c)3 bi-state nonprofit that has been working for a clean, accessible lake since 1963. We use science-based advocacy, education and collaborative action to protect and improve water quality, safeguard habitats, provide access and foster stewardship. LCC's work is primarily funded through donations. Click to renew your membership or join LCC. Our cyanobacteria monitoring program is supported by LCC members, donations and a grant from the Lake Champlain Basin Program and NEIWPCC.

Join the 2025 LCC Monitoring Team!

We would love to have you join our wonderful group of volunteer monitors. We will connect with new and returning monitors virtually in upcoming training sessions and hopefully meet up in person during one of our Monitor Open Houses to distribute toolkits and gear including our comfy organic T-shirts and hats.

Lake Champlain Committee

208 Flynn Ave Bldg 3

Studio 3f

Burlington, VT 05401