Federal Agencies Work Group Opportunities for Federal Action: Measuring and Monitoring Success

Document progress and achievements resulting from implementation of the Plan.

KEY FEDERAL ACTIONS

Environmental Protection Agency

For more than 15 years now, EPA funds, through the LCBP, have supported the Lake Champlain Long-term Biological and Water-Quality Monitoring conducted jointly by the States of Vermont and New York. This long-term database has been critical to tracking progress in Opportunities for Action and will help track implementation of the TMDL. The Lay Monitoring Program, the second oldest citizen-monitoring program in the United States is nearly 25 years old and is conducted by the Vermont DEC. This citizen-collected data also have been vital to tracking Opportunities for Action both within Lake Champlain and inland lakes in its Basin. Blue-green algae monitoring, described fully in the Human Health section, is coordinated with both of these long-term monitoring efforts via the LCBP.

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration & U.S. Department of Agriculture With support from a USDA Water-Quality grant, Sea Grant and the UVM Watershed Alliance recently developed a web-accessible water quality database, called the Vermont Water-Quality Gateway. The Gateway will allow the public to view and download data, while a password-protected data-entry portal will allow data entry by participating educational and approved citizen monitoring groups. The Watershed Alliance is active in 15 schools in Vermont and New York. Alliance schools collect quality-controlled stream and water-quality data. These data provide important baseline conditions and allow for the tracking of any improvements or deterioration in water quality.

VERMONT DEC A volunteer lay monitor uses a secchi disk to measure the water clarity of Lake Champlain.

U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service

The Service’s ongoing fisheries technical assistance program includes a variety of monitoring efforts for salmonids, forage fish and other species. In addition, migratory bird population monitoring at Missisquoi National Wildlife Refuge tracks occurrence of a variety of waterfowl and other species at the Refuge.

Natural Resources Conservation Service

NRCS maintains a “Performance Results Measurement System” to track specific conservation accomplishments. NRCS also has collaborated with the Agency of Agriculture in tracking phosphorus reductions associated with joint cost-share efforts.

U.S. Geological Survey

The U.S. Geological Survey has worked with the State of Vermont to determine if phosphorus levels in tributaries to Lake Champlain are decreasing, remaining the same or increasing since the early 1990s. These analyses are included in the 2005 State of Lake Report, which describes conditions in the Lake and progress towards meeting phosphorus reduction goals. Phosphorus levels were found to be statistically declining in six tributaries, remaining the same in eight, and increasing in three tributaries.