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Lake Champlain Basin Program releases five-year update to management plan

Lake Champlain
Pat Bradley/WAMC
view of Lake Champlain looking south

The Lake Champlain Basin Program has released its latest five-year plan.

The Lake Champlain Basin program was established in 1990 through the federal Lake Champlain Special Designation Act in the Clean Water Act to coordinate and manage a comprehensive plan to protect the lake and its watershed. Every five years priorities and areas of concern are updated.

Opportunities for Action 2022identifies four goals to focus grant funding for projects and programs: clean water, healthy ecosystems, thriving communities and an informed and Involved public.

Stakeholders from across the basin including officials from New York, Vermont and Quebec gathered at the Lake Champlain Basin Program offices Friday to release the updated objectives.

Lake Champlain Basin Program Director Dr. Eric Howe says more than $160-milion in federal funding has been received since the program was originally authorized.

"That $160 million is only the funding that’s been routed through the Lake Champlain Steering Committee. The other U.S. federal and state agencies have received tens, probably hundreds of millions of dollars more in additional federal funding. With these funds the Basin Program and New England IWPCC (originally the New England Interstate Water Pollution Control Commission, now officially NEIWPCC) have awarded nearly 1500 grants to more than 350 organizations, including many local watershed groups, since 1992."

Democratic Vermont Senator Patrick Leahy co-sponsored the legislation that created the Basin Program and in 2002 was lead sponsor of legislation to strengthen the program’s role in managing the watershed.

“For nearly 50 years now I have used one of Vermont’s seats in the Senate to get the resources you need, whether it’s protecting our lake from invasive species, reducing the phosphorus flows, measuring the health of the lake’s ecosystem. You know this is the most remarkable ecosystem and if we take care of it, it’s going to be there for generations to come. If we take care of it.”

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency works with the Basin Program to provide funding and technical assistance to stakeholders. Region 2 Watershed Management Branch Director Rick Balla said the updated plan takes important steps to further protect the Lake Champlain basin.

“The key priorities of the Opportunities for Action plan are both fundamental and complex: clean water, healthy ecosystems, thriving communities and an informed and involved public. They’re all important and of course a lot of lake-wide improvement will cascade mainly from the clean water goal. We’re especially heartened that there’s been progress in reducing the amount of phosphorus that’s flowing into the lake and addressing invasive species. It’s also critically important that the Lake Champlain Basin Program is incorporating environmental justice considerations into its programs.”

New York state Department of Environmental Conservation Executive Deputy Commissioner Sean Mahar says the partnerships cultivated by the Basin Program are key to restoration efforts on Lake Champlain.

“The amount of work that went into this plan was immense and it’s great to see the progress that we’ve made. We’re seeing water quality as high as ever and improving overall throughout this lake ecosystem. And we’ve got a strong commitment to really making sure that we’re taking all the steps that we have to take as a state to keep invasives out of Lake Champlain and work as hard as we do to protect water quality.”

The Lake Champlain basin totals 8,000 square miles throughout New York, Vermont and Quebec with more than half located in Vermont.

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