ALA 1Q/2Q 2024 Newsletter: Pushing All In!

One of the many joys of my family and friend network in Connecticut is a good card game where some money was on the line (small stakes!). It could be cribbage, Setback, or a hand of dealer's choice poker. However, there was nothing like a Texas Hold ‘em tournament. There is a high-pressure moment in that game when a player risks all of their chips by declaring "I'm all in" and pushes them into the middle of the table hoping they have a strong enough hand to win the pot.

The executive leadership and board of directors of the ALA have faced our own high-pressure moments in 2024. With the promulgation of the wake sports rule, the risk of introduction of aquatic invasive species, and our nomination and acceptance of a Lake Watershed Action Plan for Big and Little Averill Lakes, we too have pushed all of our chips “all-in” for our lakes and the community because we believe we have the winning hand – the

passion of the leadership and our members, community, regional, and state level alliances and partnerships, and our balance sheet.

Big and Little Averill Boat Steward Program – last March, the board voted to commit $8,000 towards initiating an Aquatic Invasive Species boat inspection program for the boat ramps on both lakes under the auspices of the Vermont Public Access Greeter Program. Partnering with the UTG as our fiscal agent, Board member Susan Gresser began recruiting individuals

for seasonal employment that will start on July 6th and run every Saturday and Sunday through September 1 st with pay at $20/hr. This pledge of $8,000 was with the hope that the majority of that would be granted back by the State of Vermont. We are pleased to announce that the State has granted $7,000 for the program – requiring only a $1,000 net investment to

protect our lakes. Moreover, we are so pleased to announce that stewards have been hired for both lakes, backed by trained volunteers of the ALA!

Wake Boat Petition – on March 30th , the wake boat regulations were adopted by the State of Vermont. Immediately thereafter on April 1 st , the ALA submitted a petition that would prohibit wake sports on both of our lakes to Peter LaFlamme of the Watershed Management Division of VTDEC. The petition was also sent to Julie Moore, the Secretary of Vermont’s Agency of Natural Resources; Commissioner Jason Batchelder of VTDEC, Deputy Director Bethany Sargent of the Watershed Management Division, the Town Clerks of Norton and the UTG, the UTG Planning Commission, the Northeastern Vermont Development Association, and Dale Gilman, President of ARCO. We are awaiting next steps from the State.

The Annual Meeting goes from an August retrospective to a June Kickoff! Based on our survey of the membership, our Annual Meeting will be Sunday, June 23rd, 2024 at Quimby Country to highlight our go forward plans for the year. Beyond boat inspections and the wake boat petition, special focus will be on the Lake Watershed Action Plan (LWAP) discussed in the previous newsletter. The LWAP has been formerly kicked off. On May 13th, representatives from the ALA, ARCO, Weyerhauser, the UTG, the Town of Norton, and others met with Patrick Hurley, the LWAP Project Manager from the Memphremagog Water Association and Sam Mayne, District Manager for the Essex County Natural Resources Conservation District who will be co-leading the LWAP effort for the next two years. As such, we are so pleased that Sam Mayne will be our guest speaker at the Annual Meeting and his talk will focus on the LWAP. Also, 2024 is the 50th anniversary of the Averill Lakes Association! The deadline for registration is on June 14th. Please register here. This is a meeting that you will not want to miss!

We will also be raffling off a beautiful hand tied net from Sunny Brook Nets with a retail value of over $100. A $10 raffle ticket can be purchased online here. Note all online purchases must be made by June 22nd. Thank you in advance for your support of the ALA!

Testifying to the VT Joint House/Senate Budget Conference Committee - I was honored to be asked to testify about the chronic underfunding of the State's Natural Resources Conservation Districts and how critical Sam Mayne and the Essex County NRCD is in direct camp owner engagement and education through the Lake Wise program.

Almost Graduation Day - as part of the commitment I made to our community when I was elected President of the ALA in 2021 was to enroll in a Master's in Natural Resources Conservation (with an aquatics concentration) degree program at Paul Smith's College in the Adirondacks. That journey is almost complete. Commencement was last weekend where I and my cohort got to celebrate each other and the program. We will formally receive our diplomas in August after our successful project presentations/defense on June 22nd (yes, the day before our Annual Meeting!) and completion of my project writeup. My project has been a comprehensive watershed analysis of Little Averill including 2 years of sampling on the 3 tributaries, decades of water sampling at the deep hole, and weather data from a NOAA station at the Lake View Store. The data and preliminary analysis was shared with ALA Leadership on 3/14; with Kellie Merrell, Dr. Peter Isles, and Mark Mitchell of VTDEC on 3/29; and with Patrick Hurley and Sam Mayne on 5/15 to inform the LWAP. Once completed in August all data and the writeup will be posted in the Little Averill Lake resource section on our website as well as an update to the story map last published in December 2022. Now that I am "dangerous" with my degree - I look forward to "crunching the numbers" on our lay monitoring data coming from Big Averill as well as the data coming from the Little Averill buoy sensor array for years to come.

On behalf of an energized and grateful leadership team and Board of Directors, we look forward to seeing you on June 23rd at Quimby Country! Bernie Gracy President, Averill Lakes Association.

ALA 3Q/4Q Newsletter

Welcome to stick season! I love to go to camp during this transitional period between early fall

and winter in the NEK. You see things in the forest that were previously obscured by the

foliage. The landscape is physically the same, yet it feels so different. And there Is a certain

excitement and urgency in the air – whether it be having enough firewood for the season,

winterizing camp, or if you a hunter getting that buck.

Excitement and urgency are two good themes for this newsletter. We have a lot to share about everything that has happened since our annual meeting at Quimby’s last August. Let’s start with excitement.

Lake Watershed Plan for Big and Little Averill Lakes

In early October the ALA leadership was contacted by Alison Marchione of VTDEC’s Lakes and Ponds Division about the potential for a Lake Watershed Action Plan (LWAP) for both Big and Little Averill Lakes. Lakes and Ponds annually “short lists” lakes in Vermont that meet the three criteria – increasing phosphorus trends, disturbed watershed, and an active and engaged lake association. This year, Big and Little Averill made it to the short list of potential lakes for the first time. Then on November 2, 2023 – the ALA was notified that Big and Little had been selected!

An LWAP is an assessment and planning tool that is used to identify and prioritize the greatest

threats to our specific lake ecosystems. A completed LWAP will include results from a lake

watershed assessment of the shoreline, tributaries (of which the ALA has played a huge role on Little Averill), and hydrologically connected roads; identification of nutrient and sediment

runoff sources within the watershed; and prioritization and ranking of the severity of the

identified sources with recommendations for protection and restoration. The prioritized list of

restoration and protection projects can be considered for funding under Vermont’s Clean

Water Initiative Program and other sources.

The LWAP process is collaborative and participatory in nature which at a minimum will include

representation by VTDEC and the ALA but will be open to all individual owners, lake users, other stakeholder groups like ARCO and the Averill Corporation, local businesses, and the UTG. The next step is that VTDEC will issue a Request for Proposals (RFP) to contractors who can submit proposals for the project. The RFP will be released in December, and a selection will be made in January/February of 2024. The LWAP process will kick off in spring 2024 with extensive outreach and planning through at least 2026. There are only 5 DEC funded LWAPs – Maidstone Lake, Lake Fairlee, Lake Willoughby, Shadow Lake, and Lake Morey.

4 new Lake Wise Awards on Little Averill Lake

Thanks to Lu Van Zeeland’s initial education and advocacy – camp owners on Big and Little

Averill lake are requesting Lake Wise assessments on their property conducted by Alison

Marchione at VTDEC or Sam Mayne of Essex County’s Natural Resources Conservation District. I am proud to announce that 4 more camps on Little Averill received their Lake Wise Awards in September. We are 1-2 away from receiving a lake-wide Gold Award from the state -- issued when 15% or more of all of the properties on the lake have earned Lake Wise Award. As of January 2023 there were only 3 lakes that had earned the Gold Award – Echo Lake, Lake Seymour, and Lake Iroquois.

ALA's Bernie Gracy presents at the 2023 International Symposium of the North

American Lake Management Society.

With the encouragement and support of VTDEC’s Kellie Merrell and Dr. Brandon Wiltse of Paul Smith’s College, Bernie was invited to give a very well-attended talk at NALMS 2023 in Erie Pennsylvania on October 25th . There he described our strategy management system and decision tools that we used at the ALA leadership retreat last May and shared at the Annual Meeting as handouts.

More information on the program can be found at https://www.nalms.org/nalms2023/program/

He also took the opportunity to attend other sessions. Of particular interest, with standing room only attendance, were 4 presentations on Cyanobacterial Harmful Algal Blooms (C-HABs) in Oligotrophic Waters. One in particular about Skaneateles Lake informs one of the urgent topics below.

New Constitution, Leadership, Committee, and Board of the Averill Lakes Association

At the 2023 Annual Meeting of the ALA, the membership unanimously adopted a

comprehensive revision of our Constitution and By-Laws. Among the recommendations coming out of our May 2023 strategy offsite and enshrined in the Constitution was the addition of an “at-large” member of the leadership team, adoption of a “working” board of directors where each board member would have a defined role and responsibility in their term of office, and (in the case of a vacancy) where a member of the leadership could assume a dual role as a director provided they fully assume that director’s role.

To that end the following were elected or re-elected to the following roles:

Leadership

•  President: Bernie Gracy

• Vice President: Susan Gresser

• Treasurer: Gennette Carr

• Secretary: Connie Jackson

• Member-At-Large: Dave Leidy

Board of Directors

•  Director of Community Science and Stewardship: Connie Jackson

•  Director of Membership: Gennette Carr

•  Director of Communications: Tim Cowan

•  Director of Community and Media Relations: Susan Gresser

•  Director of Fundraising: Don Tase

•  Director of Events: Rebecca Scott

As we transition to this operating model we would like to thank past board members Monique

Petrofsky, Charlie Morrison, Craig Nolan, and Eric Hauschild for their service, wise counsel, and gift of time to the Averill Lakes Association.

The current leadership team and board of directors are fully desirous of maximizing the number of active working board participants and minimizing those in dual role responsibilities. The execution of our 3-year strategic plan and the pending LWAPs for Big and Little Averill Lakes will drive the need for volunteers on the board, supporting board committees, LWAP projects, and strategic initiatives. I am pleased that someone else has come forward to potentially lead a board role and relieve a “dual-roler”. Stay tuned for other opportunities to contribute to your community in 2024.

New Legal Committee

Our By-Laws direct us that "parliamentary proceedings shall govern all meetings."  We use

Roberts Rules of Order.  Under Robert’s, a new committee can be named and constituted. A

committee is understood in parliamentary proceedings as a body of one or more persons

elected or appointed to consider, investigate, or take action on certain matters or subjects.

It was the strong recommendation of members of our leadership team and board that we

should have legal counsel as we navigate a complex future – just as Tom Dunn did historically

on lake levels with the PUC and the Coaticook River Water Power Company. And with the

absolutely outstanding leadership and contribution that Jim Clemons has provided in the

drafting of our petition to opt-in for prohibition for wake sports – Jim was an obvious choice.

Robert’s has 5 methods for appointing members to a committee:

1. Appointment by the Chair

2. Nomination by the Chair and Election by Voice Vote

3. Appointment by Motion

4. Floor Nominations and Election by Voice Vote

5. Election by Ballot

Robert’s recognizes that “in the absence of special conditions, appointment of committees by

the chair…is usually the best method in large assemblies, and it is the ordinary procedure in

many smaller societies as well” [RONR (12th. ed), §50:13d]. Under that rubric and with the

enthusiastic assent of the leadership, I formed a standing legal committee chaired by Jim at our 3Q23 board meeting and we will continue to welcome Jim’s counsel, leadership, and

contribution.

We now have electronic payments!

We are excited to announce that we are now able to accept electronic payments for camp

dues, the annual meeting, and donations (currently not tax deductible) to the Averill Lakes

Association via our website. Members will still have the opportunity to pay by cash or check at the annual meeting but we believe all will appreciate the convenience of paying online. More information on how to do this will be forthcoming in subsequent newsletters, emails, and mailings as we promote membership renewals and our 2024 Annual Meeting.

2023 Water Clarity Results Posted on the Big and Little Averill Resource Pages on averilllakes.org

Continued thanks to Don Tase for his years of service in water quality testing and a HUGE shoutout to Kim Hubbard for our first year of testing on Big Averill. Mark Mitchell, state of VT Limnologist and Lay Monitoring Program Coordinator indicated that all summer means in both lakes for 2023 were within the Class A1 lake nutrient criteria in Vermont's Water Quality Standards.

And now on to the more urgent matters.,,

Wakeboat/Wake Sports rule status, ARCO, Little Averill, and ALA Petition Status

Vermont’s Agency of Natural Resources Secretary Julie Moore has not formalized the state-

wide wake sport rule yet. Action is expected next year. In anticipation, Jim Clemons, Tim

Cowan, and Susan Gresser have drafted an outstanding petition to VTDEC on behalf of the ALA to exercise its rulemaking authority in accordance with 10 VSA§1424(e) to adopt rules to

prohibit wake sports and the use of wake boats on both Big Averill and Little Averill Lakes. The petition is a work of legal and story-telling art on which they have spent numerous hours in drafts and revisions. We owe them all a debt of gratitude for this work which is an example of proactive, anticipatory leadership. In the interim, ARCO has voted to ban wake boats and wake sports from using its Little Averill boat launch! A sign will be posted at the launch next spring indicating that “Wake Boats are Prohibited from Using this Launch Due to Concerns Over Public Safety and Shoreline Erosion Per the Averill Recreational Camp Owners, Inc.

Greeter Program Pilot Review on Big Averill

At the 3Q23 Board Meeting, Susan Gresser provided a retrospective on our one-month-long

“greeter” program pilot at the Big Averill Lake boat launch. The primary feedback to scale the

program at both lakes will be the need to raise funds (through state funds and our own efforts)

to pay boat stewards to staff the launches during the summer. Doing this at one or both lakes

will be a primary topic of discussion at the 4Q23 board meeting on December 14th .

Cyanobacteria Patrols on Big and Little Averill Lakes

One of the top adopted priorities coming out of our 2023-2025 strategic plan was to establish a Cyanobacteria Patrol on both lakes. This would include shoreline and open water observations and we hope in the near future would also include sampling and lab analysis. From sessions at NALMS 2023 and other lakes in New England and the Adirondack Park, C-HABs form during the warmer months and as late as mid-October.

We will be using our website in 2024 to inform members on how they can assist in shoreline

detection and the option to receive formal training from VTDEC to become a Cyanobacteria

Monitor. We would also ask if there is anyone on Big Averill and Little Averill with a boat who

might be interested in open water monitoring and potential sampling between at least late

June and late September (preferably to mid-October) one day a week on the same day each

week. If there is interest – please contact us at info@averilllakes.org.

4Q23 Quarterly Meeting Open Invitation

As discussed at the 2023 Annual Meeting – all of our quarterly meetings will be open to the

membership. This is a great way for members and prospective volunteers to learn how we are

navigating the issues and opportunities before us as well as prospective leaders and board

members to see if you have interest in guiding the organization forward. If you have interest in

attending, please email us at info@averilllakes.org no later than December 10th , 2023 and we

will forward the Zoom link to you.

Wow that was a long one! So much going on! As we enter the Thanksgiving season, we would

like to thank our members, volunteers, and supporters for everything that you do for our

beautiful corner of the world.

On behalf of the Leadership and Board of Directors,

Bernie Gracy

ALA Members Making a Difference

Hi Lake Lovers-

We are hoping to see most of you at the August 26th Picnic/annual meeting at Quimby's. We have a jam packed agenda for the meeting so we wanted to issue this "member extra" to report on all of the good work that our members have done on behalf of our lakes and our community. Many of you have volunteered your time and support for these initiatives and the Association greatly appreciates your involvement.

Thanks to Lu Van Zeeland's advocacy, more landowners have participated in the Lakewise Program, a free educational program offered by the DEC, offering land and stormwater management with the goal of protecting our lakes. At the annual meeting we intend to provide some up to date metrics on the number of assessments done as well as the number of camp owners earning the Lake Wise award on both lakes.

Water quality monitoring is now occurring on both lakes biweekly by Kim Hubbard and Don Tase in concert with the VT DEC's Lay Monitoring Program. Tributary testing for Phosphorus and Nitrogen continues for a 2nd season on Little Averill thanks to Connie Jackson and the VT DEC's LaRosa Partnership Program. Preparation, storage, and pickup of our samples occurs at the Lake View Store thanks to Dave Leidy.

We just completed a pilot Greeter Program for the month of July at the Big Averill boat launch. While I coordinated the pilot, many Big Averill landowners volunteered their time on weekends to inspect boats and inform boat owners of the threat of Aquatic Invasive Species.

Volunteers participated in the Loon Project with Eric Hanson helping repair the floating nests at the beginning of the season and report to Eric loon nesting behavior. On Big Averill, both nesting pairs were successful in hatching chicks. On Little Averill the north nest failed (egg found in the lake) and the west nest got a late start. She was still sitting on it as of the 31st of July. In cooperation with the Vermont Center for Ecostudies, board member Rebecca Scott placed lead collection tubes at both Averill lake launches to "get the lead out" and protect our loons and other water fowl.

And last but not least three lakeowners have completed a petition backed by the association and several agencies to present to the DEC for a ban of wake boats on the Averills. Many of you spoke at the hearing in February and again at this final public hearing August 1st. The proposed regulation will now go before the legislators and once accepted we will file our petition.

Good work and energy from all of you make this association thrive. Please get in touch if you wish to participate in any of our projects, have ideas/passion for additional initiatives, and/or want to join our "Working Board". It takes all of us to keep our lakes pristine and special. We know that you are well aware of how unique our place is in the Northeast Kingdom.

On behalf of the leadership and Board of Directors Susan Gresser, Director, Averill Lakes Association