We hope you had an amazing summer on the lakes. For the Averill Lakes Association - this has been a summer for the record books. As we celebrate our 50th year, we have kicked it up another notch to better understand and protect the health of our beautiful lakes. It is also gratifying to see the depth of local, regional, and statewide leadership, partnership, cooperation, and collaboration that is taking place with VTDEC, the Essex County Natural Resources Conservation District, the Memphremagog Watershed Association, the UTG, ARCO, Quimby Country, Jackson's Lodge, the LVS, and others with the ALA leadership and community volunteer-members. There is a lot to report out so let's get to it! AIS Prevention: Great and Little Averill Greeter Courtesy Boat Inspection Program
After a successful pilot program we conducted in 2023, we launched our Greeter Courtesy Boat Inspection program on both lakes weekends from 8 am to 4 pm from the July 4th weekend to Labor Day weekend. A HUGE shout out to Matt Laferriere and Craig & Vicki Augustinsky for a job well done and to Susan Gresser who spearheaded this! The information our greeters captured were both fascinating and somewhat alarming - demonstrating the importance of this program for continued visibility and vigilance.
On Little Averill, 51 boats were inspected with the intended use of 56% recreation and 43% fishing. These boats were last in Lake Memphremagog, Neal Pond, Crystal Lake, Lake Carmi, Jobs Pond, Arrowhead Mountain Lake, Bald Hill Pond, Peacham Pond, Center Pond, Lake Seymour, Echo Lake, Lake Wallace, Island Pond, Norton Pond, and Great Averill lakes as well as the Coaticook and Connecticut Rivers. Motorized and non-motorized boats were split nearly 50/50.
On Great Averill, 93 boats were inspected - 80% for intended recreational purposes, 20% for fishing. Those boats were last in Lake Champlain, Seymour Lake, Maidstone Lake, Little Averill, Norton Pond, Island Pond, Martin Meadow Pond (NH), as well as Otter Creek and the Connecticut River. Two-thirds of the boats inspected on the launch at Great Averill were motorized, only 1/3 non-motorized. Some of the lakes mentioned above like Champlain, Memphremagog, Seymour, Arrowhead, Carmi, Echo, Seymour, Otter Creek, and the Connecticut river have a confirmed presence (2023) of an aquatic invasive species or species of concern. Our greeters did not find any invasive species in the combined 144 boat inspections. However there is a strong sample gap - because of available funding we were limited to weekends from 8-4. Arrivals before or after those hours or Monday through Fridays could not be inspected. We are blind to the number of additional boats entering our lakes and where they are from outside of our inspection hours.
Best practices for relaunching a boat in 5 days is to clean off mud and plants from the boat, trailer, motor and other equipment (and discarding removed material in a trash receptacle or on high, dry ground where there is no danger of them washing into any water body), draining all water from the boat, motor, bilge, live wells, ballast tanks, storage compartments, gear, and other equipment (away from the water);Â opening and removing drain plugs while trailering, and drying anything that came in contact with the water in the sun for at least five days. This greeter program is thus a last line of defense for our lakes for boaters who do not follow best practices. The gold standard is to rinse any incoming boats with high-pressure hot water at a nearby decontamination station, especially if the boat has been in a prior waterbody containing an invasive species. At our 4th quarter board meeting - we will be discussing the potential of expanding the greeter program in days per week coverage, hours per day, staffing, and required funding and labor model to support. We are also exploring the potential of establishing a decontamination station.
Annual Camp Dues raised to $30 and can now be paid online
At the 2024 Annual Meeting held on June 23 at Quimby Country - the membership voted to raise the dues to $30 per camp to create more funding capacity for the greeter program. We received a grant from VTDEC this year that funded 82% of our costs to launch this partial program on both lakes. The ALA absorbed the additional 18% expense. Prior to this year most programs in Vermont had been funded at 35% of expense, and associations and municipalities had to pick up the difference. This year, lobbying efforts by individuals and the Federation of Vermont Lakes and Ponds (FOVLAP) resulted in $500,000 being added into the 2024 state budget. There is no guarantee of a repeat next year. You can now subscribe to the ALA via this link with your credit card. Your annual membership will auto-renew and ensure that the flow of funds can be deployed to protect our lakes. You also retain the existing choice to mail in a check once a year with this form or pay directly at the annual meeting. We thank the membership who overwhelmingly voted to increase the dues to continue this important last line of vigilance, defense, and visibility. The minutes from the annual meeting can be found here.
Lake Watershed Action Plan - Lot's of Action!
The Memphremagog Watershed Association (MWA) hit the ground running this summer:
Shoreland assessments (via boat) were conducted around the entire perimeter of each lake.
5 Lake Wise assessments performed in July & early August. We now have 16 Lake Wise awards - 8 each on Great and Little Averill!
232 observations were collected from stream, road, or lakeshore assessments!
10 potential projects identified so far:
3 roads
3 lakeshore areas
3 stream crossings
1 forested gully
If you are a map geek like me - you can explore all of this in an interactive map that can be found here.
Now that the leaves have dropped, the MWA will do more ground assessments along streams and forest roads/trails taking advantage of stick season and the improved visibility. Â
During the 2025 mud season, they will re-visit the road assessments and then early next summer they hope to wrap up the lake wise assessments. We look forward to a full report out of their findings and recommendations at the next Annual Meeting.
Tributary and Lake Monitoring
The leadership of the ALA recognized the continued dedication of Connie Jackson, Don Tase, and Kim Hubbard for their tributary and lake water quality monitoring community science efforts. We all owe them a debt of gratitude.
Their data has been shared with the MWA for the LWAP and I will be hosting a winter webinar for interested membership to show how this valuable data when combined with the meteorological data captured by a NOAA weather station at the Lake View Store points to the potential effects of Beavers, Bogs, and Browning for the statistically significant rise of Phosphorus on Little Averill Lake. As we approach the Thanksgiving season, we would like to thank our members, greeters, citizen scientists, volunteers, collaborators, partners, and supporters for everything that you do for our beautiful corner of the world.
On behalf of a grateful Leadership and Board of Directors,
Bernie Gracy President, Averill Lakes Association
