Hello LSC.

We'd like to let you know that the LSCA has written and sent a letter to Secretary Moore at the Agency of Natural Resources, State officials, and our representatives and senators to voice our concern that the position of the Lake Wise Coordinator in the Vermont Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) is being held open to accrue “vacancy savings”.

Back in December, the creator of the Lake Wise Program at Vermont Lakes and Ponds, Amy Picotte, retired after 31 years of service to Vermont and all of its lakes and ponds. You can read more about Amy's work on Lake Wise by clicking here.

We respectfully add our voice to request that the Lake Wise function at the state level be fully funded and receive continued investment.

Over the past three years, the Lake Wise Program on Lake St. Catherine has been extremely successful at both educating property owners about best practices for the lake's shoreline, and implementing stormwater mitigation projects on their properties. We have also seen a dramatic shift in interest in the preservation and protection of our shorelines to increase water quality by shoreline property owners. Property owners are reaching out to us for help at their shoreline, informing us of potential issues after storms, and inquiring about complying with the Shoreland Protection Act.

Photo Credit: PMNRCD

The 2021 Lake Wise Program at Lake St. Catherine resulted in:

• 24 property owners signing up for Lake Wise
• 20 assessments were completed
• 89 written recommendations were made to property owners
• 22 projects were implemented, including: vegetated buffer plantings, infiltration step installation, culvert stabilization efforts, and rain garden construction
• 340 feet of shoreline buffers were installed
• 412 native plants planted
• 40 live stake cuttings planted
• 4 Lake Wise Award winners (bringing our total on LSC to 16)

You can read the full text of our letter below. 

If you'd like to participate in the Lake Wise Program this year, please email us at info@lakestcatherine.org to add your name to the list.

Thank you for reading.

Dear Secretary Moore:

The Lake St. Catherine Association is deeply concerned that the position of the Lake Wise Coordinator in the Vermont Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) is being held open to accrue “vacancy savings”, particularly at a time when federal resources coming into Vermont are providing substantial financial support to be able to efficiently continue funding the Lake Wise Program at DEC.

The Lake St. Catherine Association has assembled a series of important building blocks as a springboard to prepare us to be successful in launching our Watershed Action Plan over the next three years. These include: a state of the art herbicide program with dramatic results towards AIS reduction; a mature and robust Diver Assisted Suction Harvesting Program; a joint planning effort for AIS control and prevention; a Greeter boat inspection program with the highest standards and training, recently expanded for high traffic events; a valued partnership with the Lake St. Catherine State Park and a second site for education and inspections; a wildly successful Lake Wise program for pollution prevention with expansion in 2022; an emerging strategic partnership focused on Little Lake; a collaborative and healthy relationship with the Lakes and Ponds leaders at Vermont DEC.

The Lake Wise program at our Lake had been operated since 2019 in collaboration with the Poultney Mettowee Natural Resources Conservation District and has enjoyed three years of support from the Lake Champlain Basin Program. We have close to 60 properties that have undergone Lake Wise assessments and project implementation. In 2021 we had a targeted effort to help Little Lake and in 2022, we have a bold program to recruit the highest impact properties throughout the basin, as we seek to reduce phosphorus load via runoff across homeowner properties. We are thrilled that a new partner, the Natural Sciences Dept. at Castleton University will provide interns and program oversight and evaluation as we pursue gold level status for Lake Wise.

It is not an overstatement to note that none of this highly valuable work could have been achieved without the leadership of Amy Picotte and the commitment of Lakes and Ponds Division of DEC in encouraging Lakes such as ours to develop best management practices. The Lake Wise office has always been available to us, as we have matured in our understanding of pollution prevention. Amy met with us systematically to review our processes and protocols and we benefitted greatly from her insight as we elevated our performance in recruitment, program implementation and evaluation.

The return on investment of the Lake Wise program is clear to us now and we can ill-afford to have the program less than fully funded at DEC. We are leveraging its success to maximize our chances at developing a Watershed Action Plan over these next three years that we hope to be a template worthy of emulation. Each strategy must pull together whether water quality testing, tributary analyses, storm event evaluation, road protocols, patency of culverts, evaluation of forestry and wetlands. We recognize how much we need a liaison at the state level to teach us the best practices, lessons learned, mistakes and mid-course corrections essential to maximizing the contribution of Lake Wise to our overall watershed.

We respectfully add our voice to sincerely request that the Lake Wise function at the state level be fully funded and receive continued investment to experience growth to keep up with the need to look at the causal effects of both in-lake and watershed interventions. We rely on it and we thank you in advance for advocating for its support, as we work hard at the local level to make the most difference in distinguishing Vermont in addressing nonpoint source pollution.