Tag Archives: Ecosystem

Water Flows Downhill

March 12th – At dusk today I left my home with my camera and the puppy to see what was happening with the water.  Spring thaw was in full swing and it had been raining most of the day and I had to head out to the Rock River to get some water samples for our study that we have been conducting for the past 3 years.  It was still raining when I left the house.  I started up the hill from my house in St. Albans toward High Street.  Right away I saw water sheeting across the road and down the other side moving debris, leaves and other items.  I then headed up towards Prospect Street.  Friends of Northern Lake Champlain and the City of St. Albans have grant from Green Mountain Coffee Roasters to look at storm water solutions for Prospect Street.  After what I saw tonight, I am really glad this is an area that has been identified by Paul Madden and Julie Moore and the City of St. Albans to fix.

Water Flows Downhill

Water Flows Downhill - Lake Champlain Life

A river from Hard’Ack draining across the Cassavant’s lawn across Prospect street and down to the Lake.

The water was gushing down off Hard’Ack between the Casavant’s and Cioffi’s House and forming a stream.  I wondered to myself if that stream always appears in the spring or if this was a first.  Funny what you don’t notice if it is not your job to notice.  It got me thinking about how water runs downhill.   If you have a house or use a car and drive on the roads or even if you live in a valley.  Water somehow has to flow by you or your property or the roads you drive on to get to the basin.  The basin we live in is Lake Champlain and that basin is in trouble and that basin is our responsibility.  We all need to be part of the solution.  Again, I started thinking about how many people may not even see or notice this if it is not their job or if they do not see or visit the Lake.  I am not sure I realized what kind of trouble the lake was in until we started spending time down there at our summer camp.  I hear stories about how the Bay Park in St. Albans used to attract hundreds of people 50 years ago.  You would be lucky to find 10 people on a beautiful summer day in July.  So what’s happened and why are so few people noticing?This blog is my exploration of these questions and more.  It will be an informal blog with ideas, discussions, thoughts, and what I’m working on with Friends of Northern Lake Champlain.  I hope that this sparks ways that you might be able to join us in this work.  I know tonight when I was driving from St. Albans through Sheldon and then into Highgate to the Rock River, I felt overwhelmed by the brown water flowing down hill.

Water Flows Downhill - Lake Champlain Life

Rock River – running through and over our land.How can we solve this – can we solve this?  The change in land management on farms, increased impervious surfaces in town, and even in rural areas, has increased the amount of runoff and with that runoff come pollution and some of that pollution that drains off of our lands and winds up in the lake.  This what is causing some of the most detrimental health problems in Lake Champlain!  Driving around tonight is what has inspired me to start to write this blog.  Maybe I can help be other people’s eyes and conscience about water and explain what I see and observe.  The Friends of Northern Lake Champlain (FNLC) is a local non-profit organization dedicated to reducing the amount of run-off in our watershed.  We have been working with farmers, government agencies, citizens and municipalities for the past 11 years on practices that will help to reduce run-off from the land.  For more information on this project and how you can get involved in our organization and support our mission, please contact Denise Smith, Executive Director at denisefnlc@gmail.com.  Lake Champlain reflects you, reflects us all.  Our reflection looks better in clean water.  Make it happen. 

This post was originally published by the Friends of Northern Lake Champlain

Easement Protects Over 1,300 Acres In Essex County

Easement Protects Over 1,300 Acres In Essex County

This Article originally appeared in the Adirondack Almanack

Easement Protects Over 1,300 Acres In Essex CountyThe Open Space Institute has announced that a private landowner has donated a conservation easement that will protect a nearly 1,400-acre forest in the northeast corner of the Adirondack Park. The property borders the western shore of Butternut Pond and is bisected by several brooks, most of which feed into Auger Lake, which in turn empties into the Ausable River and eventually into Lake Champlain.

The parcel, a largely wooded Essex County tract owned by the Johanson family, buffers state lands, including Pokamoonshine Mountain, and sits within the viewshed of the historic firetower on the summit of Pokamoonshine, a popular destination for rock climbers, hikers and cross-country skiers.

In 2009, the Johanson family donated a conservation easement encumbering approximately 1,400 acres of land in the Essex County town of Chesterfield. This latest donation protects adjacent lands also owned for decades by the family. Both donations were made to the Open Space Conservancy, OSI’s land acquisition affiliate.

Eric Johanson began traveling to the Adirondacks with his parents in the late 1940s. He purchased a 175-acre tract in the area when he was 19 years old, then acquired other contiguous parcels over time to create a sanctuary he called Baldface Mountain Preserve.

According to a statement to the press by OSI. The conservation easement permits the future subdivision and modest single-family residential or limited commercial (i.e. bed and breakfast) development of two lots, and will otherwise restrict development and subdivision. It will permit passive recreational use and sustainable forestry in accordance with a forest management plan that is acceptable to the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation. The Johanson family retains ownership of the land and may pass it on or even sell the land, although any future owners must adhere to the terms of the easement.

Just three weeks ago, OSI acquired the historic Marion River Carry in the central Adirondacks.

Why was a famous local Brewmaster talking about zebra mussels?

This article by Brian swisher first appeared in Below the Surface – the blog of the ECHO Lake Center and Aquarium

Are Zebra Mussels Ruining Your Beer

Greg Noonan
photo courtesy of Vermont Pub & Brewery

Are Zebra Mussels Ruining Your Beer

In 2006 Greg Noonan, the late founder of Vermont Pub and Brewery in Burlington wrote this about the water the brewery uses to brew its beers:

[pullquote]“(W)hen we began brewing at Vermont Pub and Brewery 18 years ago, our water was very soft. However, in the intervening time our own “great lake” Champlain has been invaded by zebra mussels. When the little suckers die, their shells disintegrate into calcium carbonate. Our water supply has become much more carbonate, and therefor (sic) more alkaline. As Jim Koch of Sam Adams pointed out to me years ago, alkalinity produces dull-flavored beers.” – from “Brewing Water: Tips from the Pros” in Brew Your Own Magazine, Sept. 2006[/pullquote]

So zebra mussels affect beer brewing?

There is another link between aquatic critters and beer other than isinglass?  As a home brewer and an aquatic ecologist, I was intrigued by this notion.  I had also been putting off any real effort toward understanding water chemistry despite these personal interests.  I decided to investigate this idea that an invasive mussel might affect how beer is made locally and perhaps learn something along the way.

Are Zebra Mussels Ruining Your Beer

Zebra mussels
photo courtesy of Wikimedia commons

First lets clarify what Greg Noonan was saying regarding water softness and alkalinity.  To do this well, we need to understand a bit about the chemistry of water.  Most of us know that water is made up of two hydrogen molecules attached to one oxygen molecule (ie. H two O).  These three molecules arrange themselves in space in a way that more electrons hang out near the oxygen atom, leaving fewer electrons near the two hydrogen atoms.  This means that a molecule of water has a slight negative charge near oxygen and a slight positive charge near the two hydrogens.  This property allows water to react with a wide variety of charged particles (called ions), including other water molecules.  When other substances are added to water, like when water flows through the Basin’s watershed or when a brewer combines malted barley with warm water, reactions between those substances and water will change where electrons spend their time and the numbers of positively and negatively charged ions in the liquid.  Scientists have developed the pH scale to describe the amount of certain positively-charged ions in a liquid.  When there are equal numbers of positively and negatively charged parts of water (like in distilled water) the pH is 7.  When positively charged parts of water out-number the negative the liquid is acidic, pH drops below 7 (with a minimum of 0); when negatively charged parts of water out-number the positive the liquid is alkaline and the pH rises above 7 (with a maximum of 14).  Typically, the pH of Lake Champlain’s water is around 7.8 to 8.

Water hardness is a measure of two particular minerals in water: calcium and magnesium.  Soft water has low concentrations of these minerals and hard water has high concentrations of them.  These minerals typically exist as mineral salts, with positively-charged mineral ions bonded to negatively-charged ions like carbonate and sulfate.  When added to water, these ions separate from one another and react with other charged ions and with the oppositely-charged areas of the water molecules.  In aquatic environments, water can react with rocks like limestone (calcium carbonate) or gypsum (calcium sulfate).  Lake Champlain’s Basin has very little of these minerals in the rocks themselves, but has some calcium carbonate in the form of mussel and snail shells.  When the negatively-charged carbonate ions are in abundance in water, the pH is higher than 7 and is alkaline.

Are Zebra Mussels Ruining Your Beer

A home-brewed German altbier
photo courtesy of B. Swisher

In the statement above, Greg attributed the changes in the water at his brewery to the infestation of zebra mussels, with the death of older zebra mussels adding carbonate and alkalinity to his brewing water. Aha! An ecological hypothesis in disguise!

Did the arrival and subsequent infestation of zebra mussels in Lake Champlain cause a change in levels of carbonate ions?  Although zebra mussels and other freshwater mussels do have shells composed almost entirely of calcium carbonate, the animals themselves grow their own shells by taking in calcium from their aquatic environment and binding it with carbonate.  In fact, the earliest life stages of mussels have no shells at all and swim in the water column.  Current research suggests that in most cases, lakes have to have enough dissolved calcium (8-20 milligrams per Liter) to support an infestation of zebra mussels. Therefore, the overall amount of calcium carbonate in Lake Champlain likely hasn’t changed because zebra mussels have to have the component parts in their environment to create calcium carbonate.  Efforts by the Vermont Department of Environmental Conservation’s Lake Champlain Monitoring team to detect any changes in calcium concentrations caused by zebra mussels confirm this.

However, it is possible that zebra mussels have altered how much calcium carbonate is dissolved in the water (rather than bound up in shells) of Lake Champlain at any given time.  Like most organisms in the lake, they likely grow fastest in the warmer months and cease growing (with older ones dying) in the colder water temperatures of winter.  So it is possible that calcium carbonate levels rise in winter when zebra mussels are no longer taking it up from the water.  Unfortunately the publicly available data (here) collected by the VT DEC is collected only three times each year which makes it unsuitable to answer this question.

Water is the single-most largest ingredient in beer.  

Even before brewers ever understood the complexity of water chemistry in the ways that Mr. Noonan alludes to, the local sources of water shaped the variety of beer styles across the globe.  With the scientific understanding of water and brewing chemistry we now have, anyone can replicate the chemistry of water from well-known brewing centers as Munich, Pilzen, Dublin, London, and Burton-on-Trent.Although Greg Noonan’s hypothesis about why his source water at the Vermont Pub and Brewery changes over time may not be entirely supported by the data, it serves as a shining example of how the ecology of Lake Champlain touches us in unique and perhaps unanticipated ways.

Want to find out more about the flavors and origins of beer? Come join us in sampling the beer styles of Germany at ECHO’s FeBREWary Beer Event on February 14.  More information here.

Crosby tract preserves wetlands habitat along Lake Champlain

This news release was issued by the Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department on February 1, 2013

After 17 years, Crosby tract preserves wetlands habitat along Lake Champlain

The Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department and The Nature Conservancy have partnered to conserve a parcel of land that connects two separate units of the Mud Creek Wildlife Management Area and protects a 4-mile contiguous stretch of wetland from Ransoms Bay of Lake Champlain to the Canadian border. The tract also connects with 1,000 acres of conserved land on the Quebec side of the border.

The purchase of the 148.9 acre parcel follows a long-term effort to conserve the tract by Fish & Wildlife’s Bill Crenshaw and The Nature Conservancy’s Jon Binhammer.

Mud Creek, Alburgh, VT

Mud Creek, Alburgh, VT

“What makes the Crosby tract special is that Bill Crenshaw and Jon Binhammer worked on the conservation of this land for 17 years with two different landowners,” said Jane Lazorchak, land acquisition coordinator for the Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department. “Bill and Jon’s perseverance to see that this land was conserved and available to the public, in addition to their many other conservation projects throughout Vermont, represent a legacy that will last for generations.” Crenshaw retired in December following a 39-year career with the Fish & Wildlife Department.

“We have finally achieved our desired result – permanent public access to about 30 acres of uplands, 120 acres of wetlands, and 1,800 feet of frontage on Lake Champlain, including a natural lake sand beach and rock outcrop called Blue Rock,” said Binhammer.

The Crosby tract and Mud Creek area is well known for its waterfowl and other wetland-associated wildlife. “These forested wetlands are the preferred habitat for wood ducks, and the rocky outcrop is a basking habitat for the spiny softshell turtle, a state-threatened species,” said Binhammer.

“This is an outstanding piece of fish and wildlife habitat,” added Crenshaw. “About 75 percent of it is Lake Champlain-influenced wetlands which are naturally productive.”

Funding for this purchase came from the North American Wetlands Conservation Act (NAWCA), passed by Congress in 1989 to conserve wetlands throughout North America for waterfowl and other wetland-dependent species. Vermont Duck Stamp Funds were used in part to help match the NAWCA grant. The Vermont Duck Stamp Program started in 1985 by Legislative action and to date has completed 82 projects in the state with approximately 11,000 acres of wetlands and adjacent uplands protected or enhanced.

Click Here to view video of Mud Creek Wildlife Management Area: Alburgh, Vermont

Media Contacts:

Jane Lazorchak, 802-479-4405
Jon Binhammer, 802-229-4425

More About Alburgh, VT:

More About Conservation Efforts:

Lake Trout Moving “Below the Surface” of Lake Champlain

We at ECHO are fortunate to have a wonderful resource in the UVM Rubenstein Ecosystem Science Laboratory housed with us at the Leahy Center for Lake Champlain.  The “Rube” as its called, is the home of some of the most current research on the Lake and its Basin– all done by a dedicated, interested, and sharing group of UVM faculty, students, and staff.  Among them is Dr. Ellen Marsden, who has been studying lake trout in Lake Champlain for a long time.  As you may already know from our video about Champ, Dr. Marsden has a knack for communicating scientific concepts concisely and in an accessible manner.  Sometimes a moving picture can tell us what words cannot.  For instance, she and her graduate student, Bret Ladago, built a underwater Remote Operated Vehicle (ROV) that is capturing remarkable footage of lake trout staging for spawning in shallow reef habitats in Lake Champlain (for the best viewing, maximize the view):

In this one, several lake trout are “shoaling” — staying in one area where they may later spawn.  Several trout in this small group have adult sea lampreyattached to them; some show wounds from previous parasitism by sea lamprey.  To my eyes, the proportion of fish with either sea lamprey attached or wounds is dramatic; yet overall I only can get a really good look at perhaps a dozen individual lake trout.

In this one, a much larger number of fish are moving past the ROV while “schooling.”  Again, there are signs of sea lamprey parasitism on a portion of these fish.  In this case, I can see that there are many more fish in the area and I can examine many more fish for signs of parasitism by sea lamprey than in the previous footage.

This amazing footage provides never-before-seen glimpses into the appearance and behavior of Lake Champlain’s lake trout.  But yet it is important to understand that these are glimpses- just a very small snapshots of the large population of lake trout.  For example, the shoaling video alone could make us believe that despite our efforts to control the numbers of sea lamprey in the Lake, a majority of fish show signs of parasitism.  The second video may lead us to temper that view somewhat.  More footage might reveal other impressions.  How do we know what the true rate of parasitism of lake trout by sea lamprey is?  Are efforts to control sea lamprey changing this over time?

While the video footage is certainly engaging, its not the best tool for estimating rates of sea lamprey parasitism.  For example, because we cannot always see both sides of the trout, we do not know if individual trout may be seen multiple times.  Furthermore, there appears to be behavioral differences between the sets of footage which might indicate that the fish we see may not be average or typical members of the population.

Fisheries science provides the tools we need to answer these questions.  By actually capturing and examining hundreds of large lake trout in a standardized way, the Lake Champlain Fish and Wildlife Management Cooperative has collected data year after year to provide answers.   According to their data (presented here from Lake Champlain Basin Program’s 2012 State of the Lake Report), rates of wounding on both lake trout and atlantic salmon by parasitic sea lamprey have been declining since 2007:

Taken from: http://sol.lcbp.org/biodiversity_impact-sea-lamprey-on-salmon-trout.html

For 2011 around 40% of large lake trout had scars from infestation of sea lamprey.  Ideally, this rate will continue to drop over time and achieve the 25% target rate set by fisheries managers for lake trout.

There are many reasons that we should care about the health of lake trout populations in Lake Champlain.  As large, deep water fish-eating predators, they exist with Atlantic Salmon as one of the top predators in the Lake, playing a role in maintaining the structure of the Lake’s food web.  By virtue of their size and habitat, they are part of the economic draw to the Lake, supporting the business of fishing guides, equipment sales, and fishing license sales.  Some of these dollars get invested back into conservation activities of our state and federal governments.  Additional public dollars support management activities to control the numbers of immature sea lamprey growing up in local streams and rivers and to rear young lake trout for stocking.  Last but not least, as these videos attest, they are graceful, resilient, and beautiful members of our Lake community.

For more information about lake trout in Lake Champlain, check out this story from UVM’s University Communications series, or visit Dr. Marsden’s website.