A natural history of Lake Champlain

By Candace Page, Free Press Staff Writer • June 28, 2009

Can we go back?

Four hundred years have passed since Samuel de Champlain traveled down a deep lake of clear, drinkable water and marveled at the abundance of fish and the lush lakeside woodlands. But it’s been only half a century since we began to understand how we have dealt severely with nature’s legacy.

Those who followed one man have changed the lake forever.

Can this beautiful lake ever be brought back to the original condition as Champlain first experienced in 1609? Is that possible, or realistic?

Then absorb the opinions of two experts, environmental lawyer Chris Kilian and UVM Dean Mary Watzin, who write of a pristine and healthy lake in the coming decades. They collaborate on steps you must take — starting today — to help Lake Champlain thrive.

They have one goal:

Clean the lake.

Lake facts

Lake Champlain is ...

• 120 miles long

• 12 miles wide at its widest point

• Holds 6.8 quadrillion gallons of water

1609
Explorer

Samuel de Champlain travels down Lake Champlain

July 14, 1609:
“The next day we entered the lake, which is of great extent ... where I saw four fine islands. There are also many rivers falling into the lake, bordered by many fine trees... There is also a great abundance of fish of many varieties ...”

1765 First permanent settlement

Town of Addison
“Benjamin Kellogg, one of General Amherst’s soldiers, had been in the habit of coming here to hunt deer for some three or four years before 1762. ... He tried to impress some of his friends in Connecticut with the fine possibility of this location as a place to settle. In the spring of 1765, Zadock Everest and his brother-in-law David Valance came up and started working their respective grants. In the early fall Benjamin Kellogg returned to hunt, accompanied by John Strong. They stayed with Everest and Valance and helped them harvest their wheat ...”
— History of the Town of Addison, 1609-1976, by Erwin S. Clark
• Aftermath: Everest and Valance were the vanguard of thousands of settlers who would clear land, build towns and swell the population of the Champlain Basin. Nearly all changes in the lake in the next 244 years — from algae blooms to alewives — can be attributed to human settlement.
Rowland Robinson sketch, Courtesy of the Rokeby Museum

1787
Dam built by Ira Allen on the Winooski River at Winooski Falls, one of hundreds that will be constructed to power mills and, in the 20th century, hydroelectric turbines.
• Aftermath: Salmon, unable to reach their river spawning grounds, disappear from the lake. Native populations of other fish, including lake trout, sturgeon and walleye, will decline or disappear from the lake in the next two centuries for different reasons, including silting of their spawning grounds and the arrival of invasive species. “It is a notorious fact that when the country was new all our waters swarmed with fishes. Salmon and shad together with the salmon trout, were abundant. With the clearing and settling of the country these kinds of fishes have diminished till (they) have become extremely rare. (They) have been driven from our waters chiefly by the erection of dams across nearly all our streams, which prevent their ascent to their favorite spawning places.”
— Zadock Thompson, “A Natural History of Vermont,” 1853.

1800-1870 Deforestation
Farm settlers begin the denudation of Vermont’s hills, stripping away forests for pasture and cropland. Commercial loggers accelerate cutting. By 1820, forest cover drops from 95 percent of the state to 58 percent. By 1870, bare hills dominate the landscape, with less than 40 percent of the woods remaining; 3.8 million acres of Vermont have been deforested.
• Aftermath: Bare soil invites erosion. Snow melt and rainstorms carry millions of tons of soil from denuded hillsides into rivers and the lake. By 1810 amounts of ragweed pollen — a marker of land clearing — begin to increase in sediment deposited on the lake bottom. Sediment cores indicate that starting in the early 1800s silt was deposited in outer Malletts Bay at the rate of 28,800 metric tons a year. “Legacy” soil, dumped into rivers in the 19th century, continues to make its way to the lake today.

1823 Champlain Canal opens
Merchants, farmers and other residents successfully press for a water link between the lake and the Hudson River to increase trade. Iron ore, grain and lumber ship through the 63-mile canal.
• Aftermath: The canal connects Lake Champlain to the Erie Canal and the Great Lakes, creating a highway for non-native species to reach the lake, permanently altering the lake ecosystem.

1866 First sewer
Early residents of Burlington use a ravine running from north of Pearl Street to the lakeshore south of Maple Street as a place for sewage and garbage. In 1866, a city health officer reports, “The city sewer which commences in Maiden Lane (Union Street) and empties into the South cove is a nuisance from beginning to end.” He calls for action to dissipate pollution of the cove, “which has been for scores of years the common receptacle of filth and garbage.”
This year the city begins the 20-year process of turning the ravine into a closed sewer by installing a culvert under Main Street.
Raw sewage runs directly into the lake. Burlington Bay remains the city’s source of drinking water. Towns along the lake and tributary rivers similarly dispose of raw sewage by dumping in waterways.
• Aftermath: Diarrhea, cholera and typhoid fever — all related to polluted water — are regular complaints.

1880s-present
Reforestation accelerates in the 1920s, when municipal forests are created. Towns hold “planting bees” and in 1927, 17 towns pledge to plant 267,000 trees.
• Aftermath: Runoff slows from reforested land, but its effect on the lake is outweighed in the late 20th century by intense development and intensive farming.

1869 First salmon stocked in lake
Vermont obtains salmon fry from other states, in an attempt to re-establish a self-sustaining population. “We have placed, through the kindness of the U.S. Fish Commissioners, 35,000 of the California Salmon ... into the Missisquoi River on the 27th day of December, 1873,” a fisheries commissioner reports a few years later.
• Aftermath: In 1970s, Vermont begins program of annual stocking of salmon and lake trout. Re-introduction of the fish is followed by an explosion of sea lamprey, a parasite that wounds and can kill salmon and trout. In the 1990s, Vermont, New York and the U.S. government begin lamprey control programs. In 2009, lamprey wounding rates are in decline, but stocking has failed to create self-sustaining populations of salmon and lake trout.

Late 1800s First invasive species reach the lake
Largemouth bass and the faucet snail arrive, the vanguard of 48 exotic species that will invade the basin through the Champlain Canal or other means by 2009. They include plants, fish, mollusks, water bugs and viruses.
• Aftermath: Invasives displace native plants and fishes, interfere with human recreation and may contribute to algae blooms.

1940s Water chestnut
First found near Champlain Canal mouth at lake’s south end. Dense beds alter habitat, restrict boat traffic and interfere with swimming. Nearly eradicated by 1970s, but by 1997 dense beds are found 52 miles north of Whitehall, N.Y. Renewed harvesting and hand-pulling has pushed back the heaviest infestation to Benson Landing.
• Control costs, 1982-2008: $7,919,893.

1962 Eurasian water milfoil
First found in St. Albans Bay, origin unknown. The feathery plant spreads through the lake but is densest along the Addison County shore. Milfoil makes swimming unpleasant or impossible and reduces light penetration, harming fish populations.
• Control costs to date: Nearly $500,000.

After 1993 Zebra mussel
The Asian mussel arrived through the Champlain Canal and spread through the lake. Its razor-edged shell coats water intakes, slices the feet of human waders and displaces native mussels.
• Control costs, 2003-2008:
More than $3 million.

2003 Alewife
Native to Atlantic Ocean. The population has exploded: In 2003 seven alewives are caught in Missisquoi Bay; in 2008, 50 to 60 tons of dead alewives are removed from the Port Henry shore.

1927 Paving the roads
After the devastating 1927 flood the Vermont Legislature votes to pave much of the state’s road system as it is rebuilt.
• Aftermath: By 2009, more than 3,000 miles of paved roadway will crisscross Vermont’s share of the Champlain Basin, making travel easier and the state more accessible, but at a cost. Stormwater runoff from roadways adds to stream pollution, erosion and nutrient pollution that drives algae blooms in the lake.

1936 Dairy farming changes
The federal Agricultural Conservation Program begins to subsidize commercial phosphate fertilizer, one marker of the intensification of agricultural land use in the 20th century. Champlain Basin farmers recall backing their pickups to railcar loads of cheap phosphate to mix with manure in barn gutters or to spread on their fields. “It was disgusting looking back on it,” says Fairfax farmer Ralph McNall. “I don’t know why they darn near gave it away.” Federal government also subsidizes clearing more land to plant crops and the installation of tile drainage, to make soggy fields tillable. Tile drains are blamed by some for speeding the flow of phosphorus-infused runoff to streams and the lake. As century progresses, farmers convert more acreage to heavily fertilized corn land; bareground in spring and fall is more susceptible runoff. Corn land in Franklin County rose from 6,952 acres in 1950 to 26,893 acres in 2002, according to the U.S. Census of Agriculture.
As they try to increase milk production per cow, farmers also begin to feed their cows more and more grain imported from outside the watershed.
• Aftermath: These changes — intense use of fertilizer, conversion of land to corn, tile drains, imported feed — increase the amount of phosphorus that runs off the land, into streams and finally to Lake Champlain. Once in the lake, the plant nutrient fuels weed growth and noxious algae blooms.

1952 First shopping center
Developers Antonio Pomerleau and William Hauke build the 10-acre Ethan Allen Shopping Center on North Avenue in Burlington — the state’s first strip mall. The 30,000-square-foot building is surrounded by pavement to park 200-300 cars. Around the shopping center, one of Vermont’s first suburban developments is growing. New streets cut through former farmland, and ranch-style homes spring up by the hundreds.
• Aftermath: Conversion of farm and forest land to development continues. Between 1992 and 2001, conversion transformed 43,000 acres of farmland into homes and businesses, mostly in western Vermont.
Per acre, development contributes four times more phosphorus than farm land. Development now contributes more nutrient-polluted runoff to the lake (46 percent) than farm land
(38 percent).

1953 First sewage treatment plant
City of Burlington completes waterfront treatment plant, the first in the state, to remove solids from wastewater.
• Aftermath: In the following 50 years, governments in the basin will spend more than $1 billion to build 88 wastewater treatment plants, and upgrade them to remove phosphorus. The last community to install primary treatment, the village of Abercorn, Quebec, completes work in 2007. Today, sewage treatment plants contribute less than 10 percent of nutrient pollution to the lake.

1973 First stormwater abatement project
Vermont issues the first stormwater control permit in the Champlain basin. Developers of a suburban subdivision, Biscayne Heights in Colchester, install stormwater catch basins to allow silt to settle out.
• Aftermath: In 2005, South Burlington creates Champlain basin’s first stormwater utility to manage and treat suburban runoff. However, the pace of stormwater cleanup elsewhere remains a contentious issue as retrofitting old highways and developments will cost millions of dollars.

1993 Resolving to act
Vermont, New York and Quebec sign a landmark pact on May 14, pledging to adopt specific, tough standards for nutrient pollution. The agreement ends a nearly 50-year history of failed attempts to work cooperatively on pollution reduction.
• Aftermath: Seven years later, two federal governments, two states and a province agree on goals for phosphorus reduction in the lake, setting a target of 2016 to complete the clean-up. In late 2003, Gov. Jim Douglas announces his Clean and Clear program to move the target date ahead to 2009. Between 2003 and 2009, Vermont will spend $100 million in state and federal money on the cleanup. The administration later acknowledges that cleanup will not hit the 2009 goal, but will take decades of work.

2009 State of the lake
• Land use: Basin remains largely forested, but farmland and development have disproportionate impact on the lake. Forests cover 64 percent of the basin; agriculture, 10 percent; developed areas, 5.6 percent (remainder is wetlands and open water).
• Human population: More than 541,000.
• Fisheries: Good fishing for species like bass, but many game fish species — including salmon, trout and walleye — have declined or disappeared, and the fishery depends on annual stocking.
• Water quality: Varies from place to place. Water drinkable, but requires treatment. Nutrient pollution plagues far northern and southern sections. Main Lake still clear and swimmable. Rampant weed growth in South Lake. Weed and algae blooms interfere with recreation, human enjoyment in St. Albans, Missisquoi and smaller bays of the northern lake.

SPECIAL thanks
to Jan Albers and the staff of the Henry Sheldon Museum of Vermont History, Middlebury; to Jeffrey Marshall and Special Collections at the University of Vermont; to Eloise Biel of the Lake Champlain Maritime Museum; to the Burlington Public Works Department engineering staff; and to Antonio Pomerleau.

Sources: Natural History of Vermont, Zadock Thompson, 1853; History of the Town of Addison, 1609-1976, by Erwin S. Clark; Burlington city report, 1866; Jim Pease, Vermont Agency of Natural Resources, Stormwater Section; The Story of Vermont, A Natural and Cultural History, Christopher Klyza and Stephen Trombulak, 1999; Hands on the Land, by Jan Albers, 2000; “Exotic species in Lake Champlain,” J. Ellen Marsden and Michael Hauser, in press; Ray Godfrey, Natural Resources Conservation Service, U.S. Department of Agriculture