From the Director: Summer sunshine and low water, but what’s next?

By Anne Jefferson, LCSG Director
October 14, 2025

After a beautiful, snowy winter and wet spring, this summer and fall has seen a succession of glorious sunny days. While many of us were enjoying every chance to be in the Lake Champlain basin’s stunning outdoors, drought snuck up on us. Much of the Basin is now in severe to extreme drought. Communities are implementing water conservation measures, shallow water habitats lie exposed, and boaters are experiencing unusual navigation hazards.

Despite the declining water levels, Lake Champlain Sea Grant had a summer of service and success on and around the lake, and now we are taking stock of what lies ahead in 2026.

Summer sunshine for LCSG

Earlier this year, our BLUE program won an award from the Green Mountain Water Environment Association. BLUE offers homeowners in Burlington and Williston, Vermont site visits, recommendations, and design guidance to help them manage stormwater on their property to support lake health and mitigate on-site flooding damage. BLUE is just one of the examples of the technical assistance LCSG provides to support residents, businesses, and communities throughout the Lake Champlain basin.

This summer, we held 6 at-capacity public boat trips on the R/V Marcelle Melosira to teach the public about Lake Champlain's ecology, water quality, geology, and history. Those trips give adults a taste of the learning that our fantastic education team provides to over 2000 K-12 students in Vermont and New York each school year. That education team continued their hard work over the summer, doing professional development with teachers and running a camp with the Community Sailing Center.

We also got the public involved in stewarding Lake Champlain through community beach and lakeshore cleanups, hosted with our partners in the Lake Champlain Basin Marine Debris Coalition. Coalition members also developed a foam identification guide, and LCSG interns have been gathering information from marinas and businesses near the lakeshore about their use of foam products.  

Behind the scenes, we were also busy. In 2025, we ran two competitions to select the research projects we’ll support in 2026 and 2027—stay tuned for information on these projects in an upcoming newsletter. We also completed a site review by the National Sea Grant College Program. It took us months to prepare for an intense week of presentations and questions from the reviewers, and we are deeply grateful for all of our partners who shared stories of LCSG’s impact. We came out of the review with lots of constructive feedback, and a critical re-certification to continue as a Sea Grant program through 2032.

Onwards into 2026

The new water year, which started on October 1, also coincides with the start of the federal fiscal year. Lake Champlain Sea Grant, as part of the National Sea Grant College Program, is fortunate to enjoy strong, bipartisan Congressional support. We received our full fiscal year 2025 funding, which will carry us into 2026. Like federally-funded programs throughout the country, we are waiting for this fiscal year’s budget to be enacted, and to find out what it will mean for funding available to Sea Grant programs.

During the federal shutdown, the Lake Champlain Sea Grant team has been able to keep working with our many state and local partners. LCSG’s Mark Mitchell is one of many people who laid the groundwork for the ongoing Lake Carmi alum treatment that should dramatically improve water quality in one of Vermont’s largest lakes. On October 9, LCSG Associate Director Kris Stepenuck led a Road Salt Education Summit for municipal snowplow crews and contractors. In New York, on October 15, LCSG’s Tori DesRocher is leading a microplastics field day for Beekmantown’s seventh graders, in partnership with Casella Waste Management and Point au Roche State Park. Farther ahead, we’re gearing up for the Lake Champlain Research Conference January 26-27, 2026 and for the Watershed Forestry Partnership meeting in February 2026.

Our top priority for 2026 is strengthening Lake Champlain Sea Grant’s local, regional, and state partnerships. Building and strengthening partnerships and finding ways to pool resources allows us to maximize the benefits for the Lake Champlain basin’s communities, economy, and environment. If your organization would like to partner with LCSG to help meet established or emerging needs in the region, please be in touch! Find the right contact on our staff page.

As the region continues to watch the weather forecast and hope for rain, Lake Champlain Sea Grant will continue to teach people about this incredible lake and watershed, nurture research to help improve its management, and support businesses and communities building resilience and economic opportunity. From low water, new and transformative solutions may emerge.