Advocacy and Action
Vermont statehouse in Montpelier
Commentaries by the Federation of Vermont Lakes and Ponds
Members of the board of the Federation of Vermont Lakes and Ponds write and contribute commentaries which have been included in local publications. Listed below are recent commentaries on various topics important to the Federation.
Vermont lakes and streams like fewer lawns, too!
By: Pat Suozzi | VTDigger Commentary, published on September 9, 2025
In the recent opinion piece “Vermonters Get Rid of Your Lawns,” [published in VTDigger on August 26, 2025] author Lucie Lehmann describes the wonderful transformation that took place when she removed her lawn and planted native perennials and grasses. Her yard came alive with color, attracting all sorts of birds, butterflies, native bees and more. She describes many of the benefits of doing this, including reduction in the use of pesticides.
I would like to add another very important benefit of less lawn: improving the health of Vermont’s lakes and streams.
Grass with its shallow roots does not absorb much rainwater. However, native plants, shrubs and trees, with their deeper root systems, are far more absorbent, which significantly reduces stormwater runoff.
Even if you live far from a lake or stream, runoff from a lawn — laden with nutrients, sediment and other pollutants — will end up in a nearby stream and eventually into one of the state’s 800 lakes and ponds.The nutrients, consisting mainly of phosphorus, contribute to creating the toxic cyanobacteria blooms that have closed so many beaches along Lake Champlain and on other lakes in the state. Stormwater flowing across your lawn can also erode roads, carrying that dirt and gravel along with salts and other pollutants into the lakes and streams.
Removing lawns and planting native species can help to reduce this pollution, protect water quality and bring you the pleasure of a garden full of life that will require little to no mowing and give you more leisure time to get out and enjoy a nearby lake.
Interested but not sure how to get started? We can help.
The Federation of Vermont Lakes and Ponds has published a landscaping booklet that includes a variety of landscape design templates and planting plans, lists of native plants, shrubs, and trees, as well as maintenance tips. While this was created mainly for lake shore property owners, all of the designs, native plant lists and maintenance tips are completely relevant to anyone who would like to change their lawn desert into a garden.
Help protect Vermont’s lakes and ponds. Stop mowing and plant a garden.
Big waves, aquatic invasives and Vermont’s home lake rule
By: Pat Suozzi | VTDigger Commentary, published on June 24, 2025
Picture this: a motorboat puts into Lake Champlain. As you watch it move out towards the middle of the lake, you notice something odd happens: its stern is down, and its bow is up.
As it moves slowly along, you realize that it is producing very large waves and that rather than a water skier, there is a person on a small board apparently surfing on the boat’s large wake. What you are observing is a wake boat in wake sports mode.
The mechanism that allows wake boats to create these waves are ballast tanks that are filled with lake water when a boat enters a lake. Once the boater is ready to leave the lake, those ballast tanks are emptied. However, there is a problem.
Those ballast tanks — and wake boats usually have multiple tanks — cannot be fully emptied, always leaving some residual water. If that boat filled its tanks in a lake infested with an aquatic invasive species that boat could potentially carry those invasives to the next lake the boat enters.
The definition of an aquatic invasive species is that it has no natural predators, proliferates quickly, damages ecosystems and provides no nutrition or support for native fish or wildlife. Even very small fragments of an invasive like Eurasian watermilfoil or a few zebra mussel larvae, if carried into a lake in a ballast tank, can spawn a serious infestation.
However, this does not have to happen. Vermont has a rule to prevent this very scenario.
In the spring of 2024, the state approved new rules to regulate wake boats including the home lake provision specifically intended to prevent wake boats from carrying aquatic invasive species from lake to lake. The home lake provision requires that all wake boats select one home lake where it will operate. If a wake boat owner wishes to operate in a different lake, they must show proof that the wake boat has been properly decontaminated.
Unfortunately, the Agency of Natural Resources chose not to implement this provision of the rule last year due to lack of time.
Yet here we are in June of 2025, and the agency has once again announced that it will not implement the home lake provision despite many of the lake associations on affected lakes repeatedly offering to work with the agency to shoulder much of the burden of implementation.
Why so much concern? After all, as far as we know, wake boats comprise a very small number of boats on the state’s lakes, although they are growing in popularity.
The reason is that an invasive infestation can harm a lake’s ecosystem, damage fisheries, make recreational use unpleasant or impossible and can cause economic harm to surrounding communities.
We are amazingly fortunate here in Vermont to have so many still pristine and uninfested lakes. Yet the Agency of Natural Resources, the agency specifically charged by law to protect Vermont’s lakes and to stop the spread of aquatic invasives, has again chosen to put the state’s precious water resources at risk. It takes just one boat carrying an invasive to add another pristine lake to the list of infested water bodies.
With the boating season already well underway, what can be done?
If you love Vermont lakes you can help to stop the spread by making sure that all your aquatic gear: boats, kayaks, canoes, paddleboards, and even life jackets and children’s toys, are cleaned, drained and dried whenever they leave a waterbody and before they enter another.
If you go to a lake with Greeters, stop and talk with them. The Greeters, managed by volunteer lake associations, are trained to inspect and clean aquatic gear and can also provide information about whether a lake is infested with an invasive and, if so, the best ways to avoid spreading it.
Finally, a few special requests to wake boat owners: please consider keeping your boat on just one lake this summer, especially if you have used your boat in wake sport mode in an infested lake. If that is not possible, please drain your ballast tanks as fully as you can and keep your boat out of the water for at least 14 days to allow any invasives to die. Also, keep in mind that wake boats’ enhanced wakes can cause shoreline erosion issues, and can be dangerous to other lake users — so please perform all wake sports in the lake’s designated wake sport zone.
Our lakes are the jewels of Vermont. All of us working together can protect these very special resources.
Aquatic invasives — ‘It’s like déjà vu all over again.’
By: Pat Suozzi | VTDigger Commentary, published on November 18, 2024
With the recent announcement of the discovery of golden clams in Lake Champlain, the total number of known invasives in that lake rises to 52. This follows the recent announcement this summer that Eurasian watermilfoil, also an aquatic invasive, has now been found in Joes Pond — the second inland lake in the last three years to be added to the infested water bodies list. These were certainly disappointing announcements.
Aquatic invasive species (AIS) are biological pollutants. The US Fish and Wildlife Service notes that aquatic invasive species spread is “harming vital ecosystems and native wildlife and plants and impacting recreation, human, animal, and plant health, the economy, and infrastructure.”
The most widespread aquatic invasive in Vermont is Eurasian watermilfoil. This milfoil can seriously damage native aquatic habitats by outcompeting native species. Milfoil does not provide the food that native fish and amphibians need to survive and thrive. Once it crowds out native plants, the natural food web is broken, and the aquatic ecosystem begins to deteriorate. In addition, milfoil grows so vigorously and thickly that it can form mats on the surface of the water, leading to surface rot and encouraging algae growth.
That’s the bad news.
The good news is that we have the tools to slow, if not stop the spread of Eurasian watermilfoil and to reduce or even eradicate existing infestations.
The most important and cost-effective tool available to stop the spread of aquatic invasives is prevention but there are barriers to effective prevention.
The main aquatic invasive species prevention effort at the state’s inland lakes and ponds is carried out by the greeter programs managed by volunteer lake associations. Greeters inspect and clean boats entering and leaving water bodies to ensure invasives are not transported.
However, there are fewer than 40 such programs at public accesses, many of them only staffed part-time yet there are several hundred public accesses in the state in over 800 lakes and ponds.
Why so few programs? And why are too many only part-time? In a word: money. The state provides very little funding (well under $1 million) for aquatic invasive species prevention and control programs. Although invasives are biological pollutants, these programs are not eligible for clean water funds.
As a result, not only the work of managing prevention and control programs, but also the work of raising the funds to make that work possible falls to volunteers.
Another issue is that there are hundreds of accesses to lakes and ponds spread around the state with nearly all open 24/7, 365 days a year. While additional funding is necessary to expand and staff current greeter programs at the busiest times, even with exponentially greater funding and hundreds more staff, it would be impossible to staff every access all the time.
Other challenges to prevention exist, yet despite these barriers, we believe that prevention is still the best option, but it will take every citizen and every visitor who uses Vermont’s public waters to be part of the solution.
Aquatic invasive spread is caused by human actions therefore changing our actions can help to solve the problem.
The first step is to be aware that every single piece of gear that touches the water — not just motorboats but also canoes, kayaks, fishing tackle, life vests, even children’s toys — has the potential to harbor invasives and carry them from one waterbody to another.
The second step is to always clean, fully drain and fully dry all aquatic gear before entering any water body. You can find much more information on aquatic invasives and how to prevent their spread at our website.
We are incredibly lucky here in Vermont to have abundant freshwater resources, with many clean, invasive-free, pristine lakes. However, human activities and climate change are putting more and more pressure on these fragile ecosystems. Yes, we need more funding, we need greater user education and commitment to lake and pond protection, and we need state officials to place a high priority on protecting our lakes from aquatic invasives and on reducing existing infestations. Our volunteer lake associations remain determined and dedicated to this work but it takes all of us working together to protect and preserve Vermont’s precious public waters.
Pass S.146 this year to protect Vermont’s most pristine lakes
By: Pat Suozzi | VTDigger Commentary, published on April 29, 2024
Last year the Vermont Senate passed S.146, a bill relating to the permitting of indirect discharges. What does this mean? It will mean more protection for our lakes and ponds.
To protect Vermont’s high quality waters, those lakes that exceed the Vermont Water Quality Standards should be reclassified from B2 to A1 watersheds. A1 reclassification would better protect water quality, require earlier state interventions if phosphorus levels rise and enable priority access to funding for restoration.
The Department of Environmental Conservation has so far determined that at least twelve lakes — Caspian, Cole Pond (Jamaica), Coles Pond (Walden), Echo (Charleston), Maidstone, Newark, Raponda, Rescue, Seymour, Shadow, South Pond (Eden), Willoughby and Havey’s — are eligible for reclassification. Together these lakes represent over 50,000 acres of watershed that would be protected.
However, all work to protect these very special lakes and their watersheds has stalled because of an antiquated limitation on the design capacity of septic systems in the watersheds of Class A waters as cited in Vermont Statute 10 V.S.A. § 1259 (d). This statute is now functioning as a barrier to increasing protections for lakes through reclassification. Four of these lakes — Maidstone, Caspian, Echo and Shadow — have submitted petitions to be reclassified but these petitions, while fully reviewed and deemed administratively complete, have been on hold for well over two years due to this limitation.
The Federation and its member lake associations have been working in conjunction with local communities, watershed groups and the Department of Environmental Conservation staff for many years to institute best management practices to reduce runoff and prevent rising phosphorus levels. Much has been done but there is still more that needs to be done. Phosphorus levels continue to rise in many lakes, including some of our cleanest and most pristine lakes.
It may seem counterintuitive to say that very clean lakes would be better protected by removing a limitation on the size of septic systems in their watersheds. However, today with newer innovative alternative systems, the focus solely on capacity no longer makes sense. Properly managed, these newer septic systems can dramatically reduce the pollutants in wastewater before it enters the leaching field. Such systems, which can manage larger capacities, are cleaner, more efficient and would provide better protection to the state’s waters.
The current statutory limitation means that a community septic that could replace older, possibly failing, individual septic systems could not be installed — even if the total design flow of that community system was LOWER than the total of the individual systems.
For example in 2022, seven lakefront homes on Caspian Lake banded together and replaced their individual septic systems with a community system that was sited farther from the lake, uses newer technology, is cleaner and more efficient and cost the homeowners less than the cost to replace each individual system.
That high cost of replacing an individual septic is also a serious barrier to replacing older systems thus often leaving those older systems in place. However, lowering the cost by creating community septic would not be possible if these watersheds were reclassified to A1 under the current statute.
To remedy this situation and to better protect the state’s freshwater resources, the Federation of Vermont Lakes and Ponds is urging the Vermont House Committee on Environment and Energy to take this bill up and to make the statutory change this year. Our lakes and ponds are depending on it.
Vermont’s lake associations — preserving and protecting our lakes and ponds
By: Pat Suozzi & Jerremy Jones | VTDigger Commentary, published on January 15, 2024
Did you visit one of Vermont’s many lakes this summer?
Maybe you launched a boat, a canoe, kayak, or paddle board at one of the many fishing accesses around the state and were approached to have it inspected by a Greeter. You may have wondered who manages that program, and who works to make sure Vermont’s lakes and ponds are protected and remain clean and healthy.
Since nearly all of Vermont’s lakes and ponds are public waters held in trust by the State, you might think that it is the responsibility of the State. Vermont statute places this responsibility with the Agency of Natural Resources (ANR). Within the agency, the Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC), in conjunction with other ANR departments, is charged with the responsibility of overseeing the State’s public waters.
However, with over 800 lakes and ponds in Vermont, it’s not possible for the relatively small DEC staff to do all that is necessary to preserve and protect the State’s public waters and their watersheds. For that reason, the state partners with various conservation, watershed, and lake groups to help with the work necessary to monitor and protect Vermont’s water resources.
So, who is doing the work on the ground (and in the lake) to protect Vermont’s waterbodies and waterways?
DEC staff provide training and guidance, oversight, technical assistance and standards, and management of permitting for projects. DEC staff scientists also conduct important research, and data collection and analysis. However, much of the “hands on” work necessary to protect the State’s public waters falls to local, mainly volunteer, lake and watershed associations that partner with the state agencies to make it possible for all Vermonters to enjoy our wonderful lakes and ponds.
Let’s look at some examples of the fantastic work being done by Vermont’s lake associations and preservation groups.
The Vermont Public Access Greeter Program is an integral component of the DEC’s overall plan to prevent the spread of aquatic invasive species (AIS). Greeters inspect vessels and equipment entering and leaving lakes to ensure they are not carrying AIS on their boat, trailer, or equipment into a lake or transporting it to another waterbody. They also educate boaters about the dangers of AIS. A few greeter stations have hot water power washers and will wash boats to ensure no AIS is transported.
This is important work and essential to stopping the spread of AIS in the State’s public waters. Nearly all of the greeter programs on inland lakes are managed by volunteer lake associations. While the DEC provides training, it is the local lake associations that do the day-to-day management, staffing, and reporting, often in conjunction with a local municipality or Natural Resources Conservation District (NRCD).
Greeter Programs are only one element in the fight against AIS. Some 100 of the state’s lakes and ponds are already infested with some type of AIS. While the greeters are instrumental in preventing further spread, it is equally important that those lakes that are infested work to control and reduce the level of infestation to decrease the possibility of that infestation being carried to other lakes, and to restore a more balanced aquatic ecosystem. The most widespread invasive in our lakes is Eurasian watermilfoil (EWM), a biological pollutant that can spread quickly, damaging the aquatic habitat, and reducing water quality.
The work to control, reduce, and where possible, eradicate milfoil is complicated and costly. Regular plant surveys by professionals must be done to assess the level of infestation and to track the damage it causes to the aquatic environment. Control methods include hand pulling, diver assisted suction harvesting (DASH), bottom barriers, and herbicide. All but hand pulling (which is only effective for very small infestations) require state permits.
Applications for permits can be complex, particularly the application for a permit to use herbicide to control a milfoil infestation. That permit requires extensive documentation including a long-range lake management plan, a pesticide minimization plan, and proof that other methods have been used over several years and have failed to prevent the spread of the infestation. If permits are received (and it should be noted that use of herbicide is rare in Vermont lakes, with only 11 out of the 100 that are infested having received a permit), then the work must be funded, arranged, completed, assessed, and documented with reporting.
Who provides the funding for these vitally important AIS prevention and control programs?
If you answered the State, you’d be partially correct (but mostly incorrect). The State provides very little funding for the prevention and control of AIS. In 2023, the State’s Grant-In-Aid program only supplied $350k to all lakes and ponds seeking funding for their AIS projects. Those that received funds only received up to 25% of their total project cost. Thankfully, due in part to advocacy to the legislature by the Federation of Vermont Lakes and Ponds (FOVLAP) and NRCDs, a small amount of funding was added into the State budget which should result in increased funds being available for prevention and control programs in 2024 – but this is just a fraction of what is needed. Funding requests to the Grant-In-Aid program regularly top $1.2 million. It’s left to the volunteer lake associations to close the gap by raising funds through membership dues, donations, and by seeking funding from municipalities, and applying for additional grants to pay Greeter staff and fund their AIS control programs.
All of this may sound like more than enough for volunteer lake associations to do to protect and enhance the health of the State’s public waters, but what about water quality? Who works to maintain and improve water quality on Vermont’s lakes and ponds?
While DEC staff work tirelessly to fulfill their mission to “preserve, enhance, restore and conserve Vermont’s natural resources and protect human health for the benefit of this and future generations”, it is volunteer lake associations, watershed groups, and their local partners (like NRCDs) that are implementing water quality improvement projects at their lakes and ponds.
These groups, with the training and guidance of the DEC, are the organizations running numerous water quality improvement programs which include: water sampling (Vermont Lay Monitoring and the LaRosa Partnership Program), petitioning the State to be reclassified as Class A1 waterbodies (increasing their protection), and reducing phosphorus entering the lake by implementing stormwater runoff mitigation projects (Lake Wise, Stormwater Master Plans) and creating long-term plans for the preservation of the public waters in their watersheds (Lake Watershed Action Plans).
Lake associations and conservation groups also act as an early warning system for emerging issues in the State’s waterbodies.. Many groups organize and perform Vermont Invasive Patroller (VIP) paddles throughout the season, looking for new introductions of invasive species. If something is found, samples are sent to the DEC for analysis, and if it determined to be an invasive, the DEC will help to organize a team to – if caught early enough – help to eradicate the AIS before it becomes established. Lake associations have also been trained to identify cyanobacteria (harmful algae blooms) and regularly monitor and report lake conditions each week of the summer. These reports are found in the Vermont Cyanobacteria Tracker.
But wait, there’s more.
These volunteer groups also carry out extensive educational activities, helping to keep lake residents and lake users informed of best practices, helping lake property owners better develop lake friendly landscaping to protect shorelines from erosion, working with private road associations and local municipalities to address polluted runoff from entering lakes, providing free boating education classes, maintaining safety buoys and markers, and partnering with the Vermont Center for Ecostudies to place loon nesting rafts and lead collection tubes at boat launches.
And it’s not all work! Many lake associations also organize community events such as: 4th of July fireworks, boat parades, picnics, rewarding volunteer opportunities, annual meetings, educational events, ice out contests, and many more.
If you want to know more about all of these activities, along with gaining a better understanding of lake ecology, you will find that many lake associations maintain websites and Facebook pages loaded with valuable and interesting information about lakes, watersheds, and aquatic habitats. You can find links to many lake associations websites on the Federation’s Member Lake Associations page.
These associations and volunteer groups undertake so much work because they believe that we are all stewards of our natural resources, and as such, it is the responsibility of the entire community to protect, preserve, and enhance the health of the State’s public waters. Working in partnership with state agencies and other conservation organizations, these volunteers are indispensable to ensuring the health of the State’s waters for future generations.
If you love Vermont’s lakes, ponds, and waterways, take a minute to thank your local lake and watershed associations and preservation groups who volunteer countless hours of their time to preserve these precious natural resources for all of us.
In this season of giving, when it seems that everyone is asking for your support, think about the value of having clean lakes and ponds for all to enjoy and help protect your favorite lake or pond by supporting that lake association with a donation.
Without your support, these groups can’t continue this important work – and if they don’t do it, who will?
With flood resilience, sometimes doing less is better
By: Pat Suozzi | VTDigger Commentary, published on September 21, 2023
We are currently facing the impacts of climate change. The heavy rainfall and flooding that occurred during the summer resulted in a significant amount of contaminants and sediment flowing into our lakes and rivers.
Nevertheless, the contamination could have been much worse, as highlighted by Oliver Pierson in VTDigger (Aug. 13), stating that “a decade’s worth of effort” made watershed infrastructure more resilient to flooding and climate change impacts.
However, there is still much more work to be done. To prepare for such heavy rainfall occurring in the future, we must not only continue this work — we must accelerate it.
The focus on flood resilience often revolves around “hard” infrastructure such as roads, bridges and wastewater systems. These are large projects that require time, money, and specialized skills.
However, individuals can play a significant role in protecting our streams and lakes from the contamination caused by the intense runoff resulting from heavy storms. By changing how you manage your property, whether a small lot or many acres, you can help to mitigate some of the damage done by heavy storms, reducing runoff of sediment and pollution into our waterways.
Changes that might seem small can cumulatively have a big impact.
Heavy runoff carries nutrients such as phosphorus as well as other pollutants into lakes and streams. Higher levels of phosphorus can lead to cyanobacteria blooms, fouling waters and releasing toxins. The serious and widespread blooms we have seen in Lake Champlain this summer are an example of what happens when large amounts of contaminants enter the water.
There are ways that individuals can help reduce this contamination. In fact, many of the helpful actions involve doing less work. If you own lakefront or streamside property, a simple and effective way to protect the water quality is to avoid mowing your lawn all the way to the water’s edge. This is because grass, with its shallow roots, is not effective at absorbing runoff. Heavy rains will flow across the lawn and carry pollutants and sediments into the water. By reducing lawn mowing and creating vegetated buffers at the shorelines, you can effectively absorb more runoff and reduce the contaminants that reach the water.
In addition, planting native flowers, shrubs and trees, with their deeper roots, can help protect shorelines from erosion and reduce sediment and nutrients from entering the water. These plantings can also attract pollinators and birds. By mowing less, you can also enjoy more leisure time and observe the beauty of nature around you.
When lakes become flooded, the increased water levels can cause erosion to areas of the shoreline that are typically not in contact with the water. This becomes a particular problem if large waves hit the shoreline at these higher levels. Something boaters can do to help prevent erosion is to refrain from creating wakes of any size during flood conditions.
Even if your property is not on a lake or stream, you can still make a real difference. No matter how far from a waterbody you are, runoff from your property will find its way into streams and lakes in your watershed. By strategic plantings, addressing drainage from roofs and other impervious surfaces, proper grading of driveways and private roads, and eliminating the use of fertilizers and pesticides you can help to build flood resilience and protect our freshwater resources.
Most of all, simply do less. By not mowing vast swaths of lawn and by replacing the grass with native plants, you reduce polluted runoff and protect streams and lakes. In addition, you have a more diverse landscape that supports native pollinators, butterflies and birds, plus you get the bonus of more leisure time.
Looking to create a beautiful and low-maintenance landscape that can improve our state’s flood resilience while reducing your workload? Check out the Federation of Vermont Lakes and Ponds publication Guide to Healthy Lakes for ideas and landscaping plans.
You can also find additional resources, including lists of native plants and more landscaping ideas, on our website. Local nurseries often carry native plants, shrubs, and trees and can help with suggestions.
Additionally, there are programs available that offer advice and ideas for reducing runoff. The Storm Smart program can provide helpful information about reducing rainwater runoff, while the Vermont Department of Environmental Conservation’s Lake Wise program works with lakefront property owners to protect lakeshores and develop lake-friendly landscapes.
It is essential to take swift action toward creating a resilient landscape and safeguarding our precious water resources. Interestingly, doing more may sometimes require us to work less.
As the fall planting season is upon us, it is an opportune time to begin implementing some changes in your landscape. By letting native plants, shrubs and trees thrive and decreasing mowing and fertilizer use, we can enhance the protection of our water bodies, promote biodiversity, foster a healthier environment, and enhance flood resilience.
Especially this month, appreciate Vermont’s lakes
By: Pat Suozzi | VTDigger Commentary, published on July 9, 2023
Do you love to spend time at a nearby lake or pond swimming, fishing, boating, or just enjoying the peace and serenity of the water?
July is Lake Appreciation Month and a good time to take a moment to appreciate the value and importance of the over 800 lakes and ponds dotting our landscape.
Vermont’s lakes attract tourists and visitors providing important economic benefits to the state. Hundreds of lakes and ponds around the state have public beaches and boat launches, providing unparalleled access to recreation for all Vermonters. In addition, lakes and ponds provide vital wildlife habitat, are a source of drinking water, and help to replenish groundwater aquifers.
Although we still have some of the cleanest and most pristine waters in the country, Vermont’s lakes and ponds are under increasing pressure from climate change and the spread of aquatic invasive species. Warming temperatures, more intense storms, and rising nutrient levels from polluted runoff contribute to toxic algae blooms while the spread of aquatic invasive species squeezes out native species, resulting in destruction of habitat for native fish, amphibians and bird species.
Volunteer lake associations around the state are working hard to protect Vermont’s public waters, to reverse rising nutrient levels, prevent the further spread of aquatic invasives, reduce or eradicate existing aquatic invasive infestations, and restore and maintain Vermont’s lakes and ponds. This work takes not only these dedicated groups of volunteers but all who love and appreciate our vital water resources.
During this month, take some time to appreciate Vermont’s lakes and ponds, and to consider ways you can help to preserve them.
Here are a few things you can do:
- Visit your local lake and take a minute to enjoy and appreciate this resource.
- If you bring a boat, kayak, canoe, paddleboard or any aquatic gear, be sure that it is cleaned before entering the lake to help prevent the spread of aquatic invasive species.
- If greeters are on duty, make sure to have them check your gear when entering AND leaving the lake and have them wash your boat if there is a decontamination station available.
- Support your local lake association: become a member, join the board, donate. These volunteer lake stewards do an enormous amount of work to protect and improve the health of our public waters.
- No lake association? Consider starting one. Find information on how to do that here.
- Let your local selectboard, senators and representatives know how important healthy and clean lakes are.
- If you’re a lakefront property owner, use native plants and shrubs to prevent shoreline erosion and keep polluted runoff out of the lake. Learn more about lake-friendly landscaping and shoreland protection here.
- Stop using fertilizers and pesticides on your lawn or garden to reduce polluted runoff into streams and lakes.
- Join the Federation of Vermont Lakes and Ponds in our work of public education and advocacy for all of Vermont’s lakes and ponds. Find out more about what we do and how you can help here.
This July, appreciate the beauty and quality of life that our lakes and ponds provide, but also recognize that these vital resources are fragile and need our care. With all of us working together, we can protect and preserve Vermont’s lakes and ponds for now and for future generations.
State fails to ensure prevention of aquatic invasive species
By: Pat Suozzi | VTDigger Commentary, published on January 18, 2023
The waters of Vermont are held in trust by the state for the benefit of all its citizens. Aquatic invasive species are both an environmental and economic threat to our public waters. These invasives are a pollutant that can permanently alter the aquatic ecosystem, squeeze out native species, inhibit recreation, and reduce water quality.
Yet, the Aquatic Nuisance Control Grant-in-Aid program that provides partial funding for volunteer lake associations to run prevention and control programs has been level-funded for decades and is now being cut in 2023 by 22%. With this cut, the state once again sidesteps its responsibility.
The Federation of Vermont Lakes and Ponds has issued a new policy statement strongly criticizing this reduction of funding by the state for aquatic invasive species spread prevention and control programs.
Although the Vermont Legislature in 1978 recognized the critical threat posed to Vermont’s public waters by aquatic invasive species by passing Vermont’s Aquatic Nuisance Control law, the state has never provided adequate funding or staffing to fulfill its statutory responsibility.
The federation’s policy statement is a consensus of its board of directors, its auxiliary board, and its member associations. It urges the Legislature and the Agency of Natural Resources to:
- Develop a consistent and adequate revenue stream to support Vermont’s aquatic invasive species management and control programs by developing new revenue sources along with increasing allocations from the general fund.
- Strengthen the protection of lakes and ponds from aquatic invasive species by working with lake associations, municipalities, and other conservation organizations to implement greeter programs on those lakes currently lacking such a program, and to expand existing programs, including funding boat wash stations at as many public accesses as possible.
- Ensure that the state Aquatic Nuisance Control Program that supports our lake associations is fully staffed and that the Aquatic Nuisance Control Grant-in-Aid Program is fully funded.
- Vigorously enforce the state’s regulatory statutes and policies regarding aquatic invasive species transport and spread.
The spread of aquatic invasive species has long been a serious problem for the state’s public water bodies. Our volunteer lake associations are dedicated to do all we can to protect Vermont’s precious water resources but it is absolutely necessary that the state provide a reasonable level of funding to prevent the continued degradation of our precious water resources, and to preserve and protect Vermont’s lakes, ponds and their watersheds for the benefit of this and future generations.
The complete text of the Federation of Vermont Lakes and Ponds statement concerning the reduction of resources for control of aquatic invasive species can be found here.
Funding cuts jeopardize Vermont’s lakes and ponds
By: Pat Suozzi | VTDigger Commentary, published on October 24, 2022
Vermont’s lakes and ponds are facing a serious and growing threat from the spread of aquatic invasive species.
While Vermont can still boast some of the cleanest and most pristine surface waters in the country, our public waters are under increasing pressure from the spread of aquatic invasive species. In the summer of 2022, three lakes that formerly had no invasives reported new infestations of Eurasian watermilfoil.
This is unfortunate news because these kinds of infestations are preventable. With a small amount of funding from the state’s Aquatic Nuisance Control Grant-in-Aid program and a great deal of fundraising, volunteer lake associations around the state run greeter programs to inspect and clean boats entering and leaving lakes and to educate boaters and all lake users about the problem of invasive species.
These funds are also used to control and reduce already existing infestations, helping to prevent transport to other lakes. Yet for 2023, the state is cutting these funds by over 30%.
Greeter and control programs are vital to preventing invasive species spread. As the damage invasives can cause to an ecosystem has become more evident, more lake associations have developed greeter programs, looking to the state Aquatic Nuisance Control Grant-in-Aid program for basic funding.
Although the number of programs has grown, the Aquatic Nuisance Control funds have been level-funded for nearly 20 years at $450,000. Now, when there is even greater pressure on our lakes from increased usage, when we should be creating more greeter programs, and when those already operating should increase their hours, the state is cutting the funds that support these programs to a mere $305,000.
The amount of this cut may seem small in a multibillion-dollar budget but $145,000 can be the difference between clean water or an invasive infestation.
While these funds were never truly adequate and volunteer lake associations have always been in the position of having to raise more funds, they still helped. They were often the seed that got a program off the ground.
Nevertheless, of the 196 Vermont lakes with public boat or fishing accesses, only approximately 32 have active greeter programs, and of these, only four have hot-water boat wash stations to clean boats (the best way to ensure no invasives are transported). The reason for these low numbers is simple: inadequate funding.
The spread of aquatic Invasive species is a human-caused problem, spread by moving boats and other gear from infested water bodies to non-infested water bodies. The best and most cost-effective defense against spread is prevention. Once a waterbody is infested, reducing and controlling the infestation to maintain the health of the lake and to avoid degraded water quality is extremely expensive, far more expensive than prevention.
For example, diver-assisted suction harvesting to clear 1 acre of Eurasian watermilfoil can cost as much as $10,000, while running a greeter program for an entire summer season might cost $20,000 to $30,000.
Control and reduction of aquatic invasives is also part of prevention. The more that an infestation can be reduced, the less likely boats leaving that water body will carry the invasive to other water bodies.
Yet, the indications are that this funding cut will all but eliminate funds for control programs.
This is not a trivial matter. Aquatic invasive species, such as Eurasian watermilfoil, if left unchecked, can spread to form monocultures that will squeeze out the native plant species that are necessary to support native fish and other wildlife that depend on a healthy lake ecosystem.
Other types of invasives, such as zebra mussels, can clog water intakes, make beaches unusable, and damage boat engines. Invasive species can cause poor water quality and can adversely affect human health.
There is an economic cost, too. A dense infestation can lead to falling waterfront property values, meaning lower tax revenues for towns, as well as decreases in tourism, an important contributor to Vermont’s economy.
We are fortunate that many of our most beautiful and pristine lakes — such as Willoughby, Caspian, Maidstone, Seymour and Raponda — still have no known invasives. However, without adequate funding, these and the other lakes and ponds still not infested are in real danger of infestation.
Our volunteer lake associations bear the burden of the work of prevention and control of aquatic invasive species in the state’s public waters. Each year, our volunteers raise hundreds of thousands of dollars and contribute thousands of hours of unpaid labor to implement a variety of programs to monitor, collect data, prevent the spread of invasives, protect our lakes and ponds from pollutants, and educate the public about best practices to protect our public waters.
We do this willingly, but we cannot do it without a reasonable amount of funding and support from the state. This funding cut suggests that the state is abdicating its responsibility to protect our public waters from aquatic invasive species.
Thinking about pesticides to control invasive species in Vermont waters?
By: Ann Bove | VTDigger Commentary, published on April 14, 2022
We are fortunate in Vermont to have one of the strictest laws in the country regarding the use of a pesticide in water to control an invasive species.
Vermont law requires five positive findings for authorization to use a pesticide in water: negligible risk to public health, acceptable risk to nontarget organisms, no reasonable nonchemical control options, the development of a long-range management plan incorporating pesticide minimization, and that a public benefit can be achieved.
If one of these five findings cannot be made in the affirmative, by law, a permit for use cannot be issued.
Invasive species are “nonnative (or alien) to the ecosystem under consideration and whose introduction causes or is likely to cause economic or environmental harm or harm to human health” (1999 Executive Order 13112 – Invasive Species). They are a biological pollutant. Extremely difficult if not impossible to contain, control, or eradicate, invasive species can interfere with our ability to enjoy lakes, ponds, and rivers.
Dense stands of invasive aquatic plants provide unbalanced and substandard physical habitat for many fish species and macroinvertebrates due to the lack of mixed structure normally provided by a diversity of native aquatic plant species. These monocultures also pose a threat to game and nongame species populations alike and, via competition, cause losses or reduction of native plant species.
There is much scientifically supported evidence that native aquatic plant communities benefit significantly from aquatic invasive plant management. Control of invasive species like Eurasian watermilfoil protects recreational uses of our waters — boating, swimming, fishing — as well as the biological integrity of plant and animal populations of Vermont’s surface waters. Citing Vermont law 10 V.S.A, Chapter 50. §1451, “It is the policy of the state of Vermont to prevent the infestation and proliferation of invasive species in the state that result in negative environmental impacts, including habitat loss and a reduction in native biodiversity along with adverse social and economic impacts and impacts to the public health and safety.”
While some Vermont lake and pond users who fish may have adapted strategies to embrace a monoculture of Eurasian watermilfoil, research indicates such monocultures are not reflective of a healthy ecosystem and cause negative impacts over time, and supporting these monocultures does not reflect Vermont policy.
Vermont has over 120 species of native aquatic plants growing submersed in, floating on, or emerging from our lakes and ponds. Such diversity provides habitat and cover and is used as a food source by many aquatic critters. Aquatic plants — native or invasive — need light to thrive, just like plants that grow on land. In most Vermont lakes, the zone where light penetrates, and aquatic plants grow, is typically from shore to 20 feet deep.
Invasive aquatic species first turned up in Vermont in Lake Champlain in the 1940s, either because of our direct connection to infestations in New York via the canal system, via hitching a ride on recreational-based water equipment like boats and trailers, or via another pathway.
Some of our largest and most heavily used recreational lakes do indeed have infestations of Eurasian watermilfoil — Champlain, Memphremagog, St. Catherine, Bomoseen, Fairlee, among others. Many of these lakes are fortunate to have informed municipalities, active lake associations, and engaged lake enthusiasts dedicated to control Eurasian watermilfoil infestations as well as prevent the introductions of other invasive species, including invasive animals like zebra mussels and spiny water fleas.
However, roughly 75 percent of Vermont’s 800-plus lakes and ponds do not support an invasive species. Yes, 75 percent! Significant resources — time and money — are expended by many of our local communities to keep it this way. Preventing an introduction is far less costly than managing one, once an invasive species like Eurasian watermilfoil takes hold.
Use of a pesticide in a water body is nothing to take lightly. For many Vermont communities, this method reflects a last-resort control option. A decision to consider such use to manage an invasive aquatic species like Eurasian watermilfoil in a Vermont lake or pond should be community-based — whether one is a recent transplant or one’s history is rooted in Vermont for generations — and based on science and facts.
Before closing the door on Eurasian watermilfoil management, seek advice from known experts. The Vermont Lakes and Ponds Program is delegated to manage aquatic invasive species in waters of the state — species like Eurasian watermilfoil. This state program reviews submitted applications for pesticide use in water and must make the findings required by Vermont law to determine if a permit authorizing use can be issued or not.
To learn more about Eurasian watermilfoil, other invasive aquatic species and Vermont’s strict aquatic nuisance control permitting law, contact the Vermont’s Lakes and Ponds Program.