The Lake Champlain Basin Program’s Vermont Citizen Advisory Committee recently held a hybrid meeting to release the 2025 Lake Champlain Action Plan.
The action plan issued by the advisory committee lists a series of priorities that Vermont must address to protect Lake Champlain. The list ranges from flood mitigation to land use development that reduces water quality impacts and aquatic invasive species management.
Committee Chair Denise Smith said the committee wanted to be more creative and expand on existing programs that could maximize solutions for clean water and climate resilience.
“When we think about the future of Lake Champlain we think about water quality. We think about climate resilience and we think about the healthy ecosystems that are needed to bring all of those things together which includes diverse habitat, flood management, water management. And that’s really how we’re going to get that healthy future for Lake Champlain,” Smith said.
Advisory Committee Vice Chair and Environmental Scientist Karina Dailey noted that since 2011 the Lake Champlain Basin has experienced 22 extreme weather events, including three major floods in 2023 and two in 2024, highlighting the priority on flood adaptation and resilience.
“This is thinking about the connectivity of our freshwater systems from the headwaters all the way to Lake Champlain and not just the water itself but the river corridor and floodplains and wetlands that are connected to that system and the vegetation along those boundaries, the riparian buffers and the health of the soils and the hydrologic connectivity of that system,” explained Dailey.
The report includes recommendations to address agricultural impacts and chloride runoff especially from road salt use. It also advises more effort to prevent the spread of aquatic invasive species, including a potential mandatory boat inspection program. Prioritization of regulatory enforcement and management of land development are also suggested to reduce negative water quality impacts. Smith also said that the state of Vermont needs to expand public access to Lake Champlain.
“We need to allocate resources to expand water access for all, including opportunities for non-motorized recreation and we need to improve specifically in the south lake for marginalized and historically disenfranchised communities. We need to continue investment in outdoor recreation businesses to bolster public access and Vermont’s $1.5 billion recreation economy,” said Smith.
There were several questions about efforts to reduce the use of road salt. Lake Champlain Committee Water Protection Advocate Jarod Carpenter said they have been meeting with the Vermont Department of Environmental Conservation and the Agency of Transportation to develop a proposal for the legislature to consider.
“It is modeled on New York’s, it’s called the Randy Preston Road Salt Reduction Act, which is named after the former co-chair of the Adirondack Road Salt Working Group. And it also includes measures from New Hampshire’s Green Snow-Pro Program,” noted Carpenter. “But the state of Vermont AOT (Agency of Transportation) has great best management practices on the use of salt application at various temperatures and the use of brine and other techniques to reduce the amount of salt. The measure would take those best management practices and apply them to education and outreach programs. There’s also portions of the bill focused on monitoring water quality levels for chronic and acute levels of chloride. So, it’s fairly comprehensive.”
Lake Champlain Basin Program staff also provided an overview of the State of the Lake report which was released in early June.
