The Lake Champlain Basin Program has released its State of the Lake and Ecosystem Indicators report, which provides an analysis of the health of the lake and trends for its water quality and ecosystem.
The State of the Lake report is issued every three years as an addendum to the Basin Program’s Opportunities for Action management plan, which outlines overall goals for the watershed. Lake Champlain Basin Program Director Dr. Eric Howe said this latest report finds some improvements, but climate change is creating challenges.
“The new report documents impacts of climate change on the lake, including more intense rainstorms, warmer air and water temperatures and reduced ice cover,” said Howe. “A new element in the report interprets aquatic organism passage and efforts to improve passage for fish and flood resilience in our watershed. I'm happy to share that the amount of phosphorus pollution being sent to the lake is improving in some areas. There have been a great deal of resources dedicated to this problem, federal, provincial, state and local and it is nice to be able to report that we are starting to see improvements. And this is despite the impacts from the floods we experienced in the basin last year. There's still a lot of work to be done.”
Lake Champlain Basin Program Chief Scientist Dr. Matthew Vaughan provided an overview of the report’s data on water quality and ecosystem indicators. He said it also provides context to understand progress toward clean water goals. He walked through the report and its charts including the proliferation of cyanobacteria blooms, phosphorus levels and a new section on the impact of flooding on water quality.
“In the seven day period beginning with the July 2023 storm, 300 billion gallons of water and more than 300 metric tons of phosphorus were delivered to Lake Champlain,” reported Vaughan. “This total is roughly half of the annual targeted phosphorus load in one week and about 1/3 of that was delivered in just a single day. The 2023 storms led to unseasonably high lake levels. Three new graphics in our report provide interpretation on data from the floods and explain how last year compared to typical conditions and those we saw following the 2011 floods.”
EPA Regional Administrator David W. Cash noted the goal of keeping Lake Champlain healthy is a bi-state and bi-national effort that intersects global climate change concerns.
“Particularly at this time of climate change we know that as temperatures continue to rise, one of the metrics that the State of the Lake found was that Lake Champlain is freezing a whole lot less than it used to. It used to freeze every year since the 1900s and now only once every four years,” Cash said. “And we don't know what the ecosystem impacts are going to be. Which species will thrive better, who might be problematic, and which don't thrive as well. Over the coming years, it's going to be very important that this partnership track the impacts of climate change, how it impacts water quality, ecosystems, agriculture, habitats, all of that, striving to better understand lake issues, new ways to restore its health.”
Quebec Delegate to New England Chief of Staff Laurence Gagnon says the health of Lake Champlain, especially regarding phosphorus levels in the Missisquoi Bay, is being improved in part due to policies that have been implemented based on data. She adds that all partners must remain vigilant about the potential incursion of the invasive Round Goby into the lake.
“Quebec alongside with Vermont and New York are active participants in the Lake Champlain AIS (Aquatic Invasive Species) Rapid Response Task Force,” Gagnon said. “Quebec is assessing the presence and spread of Gobi in the Richelieu River using eDNA (Environmental DNA) and traditional sampling methods and sharing the results in a timely fashion with its partners. Through coordinated effort, conduct of sound research and on-the-ground project and analysis by the sharing of information and best practices and the development of policies based on data, facts and science, we have come a long way in three years.”
