The lakes, rivers and wetlands of Lake Champlain’s Missisquoi Bay watershed provide recreational opportunities, drinking water and support for wildlife habitat and plant communities.  Water resource protection and remediation is necessary to ensure the community’s continued enjoyment of these uses.

Karen Bates, Watershed Management Division basin planner, and partners in the watershed have assessed water resources, conducted high-resolution water quality modeling, and combed through every previous assessment to document projects to protect high quality waters and remediate where needed.  The result is the draft Missisquoi Bay Watershed Tactical Basin Plan, which is now ready for public review and comments.  The plan also contains a chapter on how the basin-scale allocations of the new Lake Champlain Total Maximum Daily Load(TMDL) are broken down into small geographic areas to assist communities and stakeholders in identifying the best locations to implement phosphorus reduction projects.  The following table outlines the plan objectives and strategies.

A series of three public meetings to learn more about the tactical basin plan and provide comments has been scheduled over the next month. The meetings are co-hosted by the Northwest Regional Planning Commission, the Northern Vermont Development Association, and the Lake Carmi Local Implementation Team. The schedule is:

• November 9th, 6:00-8:00 pm, Georgia Fire Station, Georgia, VT (joint presentation with the Lamoille Plan)
• November 14th, 6:00-8:00 pm, Jay Municipal Building, Jay, VT
• November 17th, 5:00-7:00 pm, FELCO Community Room, Franklin Homestead, Franklin, VT

The draft tactical basin plans will be accessible via the Watershed Management Division’s basin planners and online.

The public comment period is November 1st through close of business (4:30 pm) on December 2nd.

For more information, contact Karen Bates by email or phone at (802) 490-6144.