Tag Archives: news

New York Funding Shoreline Stabilization in Bulwagga Bay

Port Henry and Moriah, New York have been losing Lake Champlain shoreline to erosion. The Adirondack Park Agency estimates about 25 to 40 feet have been lost since 1995. The town-owned beach and campsite have been severely eroded and both could be completely lost without intervention. On December 19 Governor Andrew Cuomo announced grants from the state to fund stabilization projects.

This article by Fred Herbst on the Denpubs.com website gives the details.

Moriah, Port Henry get grants

Moriah will get $249,815 for its Bulwagga Bay shoreline stabilization project from the state’s Regional Economic Development Council initiative. Photo by Nancy Frasier.

By Fred Herbst  from Denpubs.com website

Port Henry — The town of Moriah and village of Port Henry will receive $1.2 million in grant funding from the state’s Regional Economic Development Council initiative.

Gov. Andrew Cuomo made the announcement Dec. 19.

Moriah will get $249,815 for its Bulwagga Bay shoreline stabilization project and $200,000 for a Lake Champlain non-point source pollution subwatershed assessment and management plan.

The village of Port Henry will get $600,000 to replace 1,371 linear feet of water line and 1,686 feet of sewer line and install eight new fire hydrants.

The Housing Assistance Program of Essex County, Inc. will receive $150,000 to redevelop a building at 4316 Main St. in Port Henry as a mixed-use property with retail on the first floor and two senior citizen apartments on the second.

Statewide, a total of $738 million was awarded for 725 economic development projects in every region of New York State.

The Bulwagga Bay project is key for the town of Moriah and the entire North Country, Moriah Supervisor Tom Scozzafava said.

“This is great news for the community,” he said. “These grants are based on regional impact. Bulwagga Bay has an impact beyond the town of Moriah.”

The town-owned Bulwagga Bay beach and campsite on Lake Champlain is being damaged by erosion. Without action the public beach and 175-site campground will be lost.

“It has to be done,” Scozzafava said of the shoreline stablization project. “The town board can’t sit back and let that shoreline erode. It’s a black and white issue; there’s no gray area. It has to be done.

“We’re losing 6 to 10 feet of beach a year,” he said. “We’re losing the beach; we’re losing the campground.”

The shoreline has moved back 25 to 40 feet since 1995, according to the Adirondack Park Agency.

   Read the full article here…

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.

Birds Everywhere!

Birds Everywhere!

by Eric_LaMontagne

Photo: Neil Phillips, Flickr

We all know that Lake Champlain has a huge variety of fish species, including some that can be found nowhere else in Vermont.

This time of year though, fish aren’t the only thing that are plentiful: thousands of birds descend on our lake for their annual migration.

According to the Lake Champlain Basin Program (www.lcbp.org), 318 species of birds live, breed, or use Lake Champlain as a resting point along their migration routes. Fourteen of those are listed as endangered or threatened by New York, Vermont, or the US Fish and Wildlife Service.

Both New York and Vermont have some well managed areas that make for great bird watching. The NY DEC has the Lake Champlain Marshes Bird Conservation Area which includes six Management Areas along the western shore of Lake Champlain. These areas are located at Kings Bay, Montys Bay, Wickham Marsh, Ausable Marsh, Putts Creek, and East Bay. Each area has a wide variety of habitat which will ensure a broad selection of species. For a map of these areas, seehttp://www.dec.ny.gov/animals/31955.html

Vermont is home to several conservation areas as well. The Dead Creek WMA is specifically managed for migrating birds, and is a great place to see dozens of species of birds. Other great locations to check out include the Sandbar WMA in Milton, East Creek WMA in Orwell, and The Narrows WMA in West Haven. Visit www.vtfishandwildlife.com for more listings.

If you’re planning on heading out on a birding trip, consider taking a look at the Lake Champlain Birding Trail brochure. It is a good guide to get you started, regardless which side of the lake you want to explore. Find it athttp://www.lakechamplainregion.com/files/public/LkChampBirding.pdf.

Muskellunge Are Back!!!!!!

Lake Champlain is the only lake in New England to which muskellunge (muskie)are native.
According to the Vermont Fish and Wildlife Department, the largest Muskellunge caught and recorded in Vermont was a 38.22 lbs fish taken on September 9, 2005 from the Missisquoi River by Chris Beebe.
Vermont Fish & Wildlife – Fish Transport Vehicle

 

This year ECHO Lake Aquarium & Science Center partnered with Vermont Fish & Wildlife to acquire several juvenile muskie to display in an exhibit in the near future. 
The muskie originated from eggs taken from wild brood stock collected in April, 2012 on Lake Chautauqua in western New York State. 
New York Department of Environmental Conservation’s Chautauqua Hatchery, located  on Lake Chautauqua in Mayville NY, hatched the eggs and grew them to 4 inches for release.  
Currently, the few juveniles at ECHO are 6 ½ months old, but many thousands more were released into Lake Champlain on August 22, 2012.
Juvenile Muskie Ready for Release

 

The released muskie are expected to attain 10 to 12 inches before winter sets in and their growth slows. 

In the hatchery, they have been fed exclusively a formulated pellet diet, but once they switch over to live prey in the lake, their growth rates will be very high. 

In the last 4 years, Vermont Fish & Wildlife have stocked a total of 25,000 of these fish into the lower Missisquoi River and Missisquoi Bay in an attempt to restore a viable muskellunge population to Lake Champlain.   

Here are the actual stocking numbers provided by the Vermont Fish & Wildlife:
Year             #of fish      
2008            250
2009           10,000
2010           0
2011           5,300
2012           8,800
We invite you to come visit the Upper Animal Care (UAC) window on the top floor at ECHO where we have 2 juvenile muskie on display. Come watch them grow!

Middlebury College’s New Lake Champlain Research Vessel is Home

 

Middlebury College’s new Lake Champlain research vessel, the RV David Folger, has completed the journey from Vancouver, British Columbia, and is now berthed at its’ new home Point Bay Marina in Charlotte, Vermont. The official dedication on October 20, 2012.

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Why a Lake Champlain Research Vessel?

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From: Blogs Dot Middlebury

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Middlebury College is blessed by its proximity to Lake Champlain, a 435-square-mile lake – the sixth largest in the US. An historic waterway and the birthplace of the US Navy, the lake contains many shipwrecks. It borders Vermont, New York, and Quebec and sits at the center of the region’s ecosystems, which boast impressive biodiversity. The region also holds 34 hazardous-waste sites and 95 landfills, yet the lake is a major source of drinking water for roughly 200,000 people. Compared to the Great Lakes, however, Lake Champlain remains under-studied.

For 24 years, Middlebury College’s research vessel, the R/V Baldwin (RVB), served the College as a “floating laboratory” on Lake Champlain. This remarkable facility provided unique opportunities for faculty-student collaborative research, research training, and teaching in Geology, Biology, and Environmental Studies, but by 2009 the RVB had reached its limits. It was nearly 30 years old, was last upgraded in 1990, and couldn’t be renovated any further.

Though well equipped, the RVB was undersized and out-of-date for research and class requirements, and maintenance costs were escalating. Weight-load limits restricted the amount of gear on the vessel, which meant that equipment had to be unloaded and reloaded for most trips. Because of Lake Champlain’s length (~100 miles) and the vessel’s slow speed (6–8 knots), it often took longer than a single day to reach research sites. The RVB was unsuited for the short, choppy storm waves on Lake Champlain, so it couldn’t work on the Main Lake during rough conditions. Research access on the lake was restricted mainly to the narrow, weed-choked southern regions. The RVB’s size also restricted student access to lake research. Its maximum capacity was adequate for most summertime faculty and senior-thesis research, but during the academic year some classes had to go out multiple times to accomplish a single research “errand,” while other classes had to be split up — or couldn’t be accommodated at all.

In 2006, an external review of the Geology Department (the main user of the RVB) recommended replacing the RVB with a larger, more seaworthy vessel built to United States Coast Guard (USCG) T-boat safety specifications. A generous grant from the Lintilhac Foundation supported the planning effort. However, the cost of replacing the vessel was prohibitive, and the onset of the Great Recession shortly thereafter appeared to mean that this dream was now dead in the water. Then, in 2009, the National Science Foundation announced the Academic Research Infrastructure Recovery and Reinvestment (ARI-R2) Program, a funding opportunity backed by federal stimulus dollars. Because we had recently completed a feasibility report on replacing the RVB, the College was ideally prepared to apply for this funding, and to our delight, the NSF gave us the opportunity we had been yearning for: an award to replace the College’s aging research facility.

This new floating laboratory will be a College facility, used by all of the sciences. It will expand research opportunities for Middlebury College’s faculty and provide superior research training for its students. Middlebury is a leader in environmental and science experiential learning and field research, and the College is excited to be able to offer better lake access to faculty and students in the biological, chemical, and environmental sciences. The scope of research will be increased by gaining access to the entire lake, reducing transit times to research sites, and providing a stable, up-to-date platform for high-quality research. Improving and expanding research capabilities on Lake Champlain will generate new knowledge in several disciplines about the lake itself, the region, and freshwater lakes in general.

This project will also add a sophisticated research vessel with advanced capabilities and greater capacity to the research infrastructure on Lake Champlain, enhancing interdisciplinary inquiry not only for more Middlebury College students and faculty, but for other members of the local educational community. The new facility will:

  • enable faculty at other local colleges to give students hands-on training in research techniques that would otherwise be unavailable
  • provide research training to local K-12 teachers
  • offer outreach to “land-locked” institutions and organizations in Vermont that need lake access
  • advance development of a nautical archaeology program in the Lake Champlain basin
  • produce data with environmental benefits to the region

With this new research vessel, Middlebury College will prepare highly qualified candidates to enter professions in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) fields. Many of our students earn advanced degrees in ocean sciences, and the new facility will help Middlebury College to carry on and expand that tradition.

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