Residents and visitors have a new COVID-19-friendly way to explore the city of Montpelier, Vermont through a walking tour that highlights several green infrastructure practices at or near businesses and schools.

A free map of the tour route includes a suggested 3.1-mile loop with an optional extension and brief descriptions about each of the seven sites where green infrastructure has been installed to slow the flow and clean stormwater runoff before it reaches the Winooski River. The map also highlights the connection between the river and Lake Champlain, including historic flooding in the city.

Colin Brown, a University of Vermont (UVM) Rubenstein School of Environment and Natural Sciences graduate, led the project, which was made possible thanks to a partnership among the Montpelier Conservation Commission, Friends of the Winooski River, Winooski Natural Resources Conservation District, Lake Champlain Sea Grant, and UVM Extension.

Printed copies of the map are available at the Montpelier VSECU branch, Hunger Mountain Co-op in Montpelier and from any of the project partners. The map also can be downloaded from the Lake Champlain Sea Grant website along with green infrastructure maps for the cities of Burlington, Rutland, and St. Albans, Vermont.

"Urban areas have greater amounts of impervious surfaces than natural areas," explained Kris Stepenuck, Extension leader with Lake Champlain Sea Grant. "That results in increased pollutants reaching local waterways as stormwater runoff flows rapidly over those hard surfaces, rather than being absorbed into the ground, leading to erosion damage and sediment and contaminants entering waterways.

"That is," she added, "unless interventions such as the installation of green infrastructure practices, which mimic natural conditions in urban areas, are installed to minimize stormwater runoff into local water bodies."

Rain gardens are one of the most common types of green infrastructure installations found in Montpelier, according to Page Guertin, a Montpelier Conservation Commission member.

"These landscaped depressions slow stormwater flow, filter out sediment, replenish groundwater, and contain plants that are aesthetically pleasing, and they take up and treat stormwater on-site," Guertin said.

The Conservation Commission recently partnered with VSECU to install a rain garden on the corner of Bailey Avenue and the Siboinebi Trail, one of the sites featured on the map. Other sites include a bioretention basin on State Street; a riparian buffer, curb cuts and other installations at the Transit Center, and rain gardens at Hunger Mountain Co-op and Union Elementary School, among others.

"The Montpelier map provides a unique option to get some exercise, learn about positive environmental actions in Vermont communities, and explore a local community," Stepenuck said.

Printing of the maps was sponsored in part by Lake Champlain Sea Grant and a grant awarded to the Montpelier Conservation Commission by the Great Lakes Fishery Commission to NEIWPCC in partnership with the Lake Champlain Basin Program.

Today’s Mo Monday blog focuses on another barrier to mowing lawns to 3 inches that was expressed by some who completed the survey carried out the #RaiseTheBlade campaign was being developed. That barrier is longer grass that could allow weeds to take over the lawn.

In fact, the opposite is true, at least in places where cool season grasses are grown – such as here in the Lake Champlain basin. Both Kentucky bluegrass and various varieties of fescues (that are all cool season grasses) maintained to higher heights supported fewer crabgrasses. This was reported in a 2003 review of research studies by Philip Busey. In addition, according to Minnesota Extension, long grass shades weed seeds, preventing them from germinating. Conversely, shorter grass provides weed seeds with additional light, enhancing the probability they will germinate and grow successfully.

You might wonder then, what does cause your lawn to be weedy? Weed growth is influenced by a variety of factors, including drought, insect predation, and diseases, which cause injury to grass plants, allowing weeds to become established (Busey 2003). For example, one study cited by Busey found that tall fescues were quite sensitive to spring drought, which resulted in those grass stands becoming weedy without use of herbicides.

A great way to combat weeds is to plant grass in a manner that allows it to become quickly established and provide good ground coverage – keeping those pesky weeds from having space to become established. Four tips (all from Busey’s paper) for accomplishing this are:

1. Select a grass variety that is suitable to your climate and the types of weeds in your yard. While the tall fescues mentioned above allowed more growth of crabgrass after spring drought, blue fescues and hard fescues were observed to host fewer weeds even without use of herbicides.
2. Plant grass seeds densely. An example provided reported that Kentucky bluegrass planted at about 80 pounds/acre instead of 40 pounds/acre reduced weed coverage by about 20%.
3. When you initially plant your lawn, keep the soil moist to prevent evaporation from the soil. This can be done using some types of mulch, alfalfa hay, or even grass clippings.
4. Plant a grass mixture that includes quick growing perennial or annual ryegrass, and then initially mow short a few days to a week after initial sowing to promote growth of the Kentucky bluegrass or tall fescue in the mixture. This gives you grass coverage early on and continuing in time to keep the weeds at bay.

Read more Mo Monday blogs on Kris Stepenuck's blog page "Mo: A Mower With a Purpose."

The Lake Champlain Sea Grant (LCSG) Institute attracted additional federal funding from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) for research, outreach, and education to benefit the Lake Champlain basin.

A blue-ribbon review panel convened by the National Sea Grant program in NOAA lauded the LCSG for addressing the concerns of communities on both sides of Lake Champlain and supporting research that contributes to the knowledge base in the region.

“Time and again the review team heard strong endorsement of the Lake Champlain Sea Grant Institute from a range of stakeholders, who indicated that Lake Champlain Sea Grant Extension staff are providing them with actionable information and, in the case of educators, instructional resources and professional development that meet the requirements of their school districts,” wrote Jonathan Pennock, director of the National Sea Grant College Program, in his congratulatory letter.

Lake Champlain Sea Grant scored in the upper third of the 34 Sea Grant programs nationally, earning it a permanent increase to its base funding. Beginning February 1, 2022, Lake Champlain Sea Grant will have an operating budget of $1,279,000 per year. In 2018, the funding level for this program was $400,000 per year.

“This is impressive growth by a high functioning team,” said Kirk Dombrowski, vice president for research at the University of Vermont.

“I am proud of the outstanding work of the Lake Champlain Sea Grant program as reflected by this excellent peer review, and I offer my congratulations and thanks to Sea Grant staff at both UVM and SUNY Plattsburgh,” said Senator Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.), who was instrumental in establishing the Lake Champlain Sea Grant program. “Keep up this good and important work!”

Established in 1999, Lake Champlain Sea Grant supports and conducts education, outreach, and applied research to maintain and improve the economic and environmental vitality of the Lake Champlain basin. It has strong partnerships with communities, businesses, and schools as well as state governments in New York and Vermont. Through Lake Champlain Sea Grant outreach, education and research, individuals , businesses, and communities build knowledge of watershed science, land use planning, sustainable development, and hazard resiliency. In turn, these audiences take action to protect and improve water quality.

Since the inception of Watershed Alliance, the Institute’s flagship education program, in the early 2000s, Watershed Alliance has reached over 15,000 K-12 students and teachers from urban and rural areas in the basin. In fiscal year 2019, Watershed Alliance reached 3,500 K-12 students and teachers, including over 1,000 students visiting the Rubenstein Ecosystem Sciences Laboratory or its research vessel, the Melosira.

The Lake Champlain Sea Grant Institute is a cooperative effort of the Rubenstein School of Environment and Natural Resources at the University of Vermont (UVM) and the Lake Champlain Research Institute at the State University of New York College at Plattsburgh. It operates through partnerships with UVM Extension, state and local government agencies, and numerous other local organizations.

You might recall from when Mo’s blog began that as the Lawn to Lake team was planning its outreach focused on promoting healthy soils (that ultimately became the #RaiseTheBlade outreach campaign), we surveyed landowners in the Lake Champlain basin about their lawn mowing practices. One of the questions we asked allowed respondents to share barriers they faced to cutting grass to 3 inches. In the next few weeks, as the mowing season winds down, Mo’s blog will address some of those barriers.

Today, we’ll tackle what turned out to be an easy barrier to address. Someone responded to the survey and indicated they cut their grass shorter than 3″ because their spouse believes that long grass hides snakes. 

While very long grass can hide snakes, luckily, grass that is cut to 3″ isn’t so long that snakes are easily hidden. Recall that another part of the #RaiseTheBlade guidance is that only 1/3 of the length of the grass blades should be cut during any one mowing. That means that the longest your grass should grow is to about 4″ and then you should cut it back to 3″. This promotes rapid decomposition of the cut blades by soil microbes and swift nutrient cycling back to the grass. If you are able to follow this best practice (like Mo does), your grass won’t grow to such lengths as you might see in an un-grazed pasture, and as a result, snakes should be fairly easily observed if present.

Giving further credence to this concept, just last week, while sitting on our patio, I observed something lying in the grass about 10 feet (3 meters) from where I was sitting. I asked my husband, “Is that a snake?” Expecting him to say no, and to share with me what it was he had placed on the lawn, I was surprised when he answered, “Yes.” Upon hearing his positive response, I grabbed my phone to try to capture a photo of the snake. This proved challenging as my movement alerted the garter snake that it had been spotted, and it was moving away from the area as quickly as possible to find shelter. The snake we saw (shown above) was the most common snake in this area – the common garter snake.

For those who may be more familiar with poisonous snakes from other regions of the nation or world, another important thing to know about snakes in the Lake Champlain basin (that includes parts of western Vermont, northeastern New York, and southern Quebec) is that there are only 11 kinds of snakes that live here, and most are beneficial and not harmful to us. The Vermont Fish and Wildlife Department website has some valuable information about the various species of snakes that call the Lake Champlain basin home.

Read more Mo Monday blogs on Kris Stepenuck's blog page "Mo: A Mower With a Purpose."

Although COVID-19 put a lot of activities on hold this summer, for 124 students from seven states and two Canadian provinces, the pandemic created an opportunity to get to know the watery world of Lake Champlain—virtually.

"Our traditional Lake Adventure Camps are one of the best times of year for all of us, staff and campers alike," said Elizabeth Lee, the Museum's director of education and interpretation. "When we realized we couldn't come together as planned this summer, our goal was to find a way to recreate even a piece of that joy of being outside, learning from experts, and trying new hands-on activities. Thanks to our sponsors, we were able to make the camps free and available to everyone."

With financial support from the Lake Champlain Sea Grant Program, Lake Champlain Maritime Museum in Vergennes offered six free, week-long online summer camps. These Virtual Lake Adventure Camps engaged youths in Grades 2-12 in themed learning opportunities. 

Campers received a kit in advance by mail that included supplies for hands-on projects and safe outside activities. During the daily 90-minute sessions, they met professional blacksmiths and crafted copper wire trees and tin lanterns, learned about local fish species, and built their own fishing rods. They also became virtual nautical archaeologists, exploring underwater environments and designing ROVs (remotely operated vehicles) and habitats. 

"These camps gave youths who may never have had an opportunity to get to know Lake Champlain a chance to explore it and generated an interest in science and recreation related to water resources," said Kris Stepenuck, Extension program leader with Lake Champlain Sea Grant, a cooperative effort of the University of Vermont (UVM), UVM Extension, and the State University of New York Plattsburgh. "If anything good can come from a pandemic, I think this is a great example of a success."

In addition to Lake Champlain Sea Grant, sponsors for these virtual camps included Reinhart Foodservice; Cabot Creamery Cooperative; Community Bank, N.A.; and IPJ Real Estate.

About Lake Champlain Maritime Museum: Founded in 1985 with the mission to preserve and share the cultural and natural heritage of the Lake Champlain region, Lake Champlain Maritime Museum is building a healthy future and community for Lake Champlain. Through education, exhibits and historic boats, research, and collections, the Museum connects people to the region’s history, ecology, and archaeology and creates opportunities for hands-on learning that will last a lifetime. Year-round education programs serve more than 2,500 K-12 students, as well as hundreds of educators locally and nationally. Learn more about the Lake Champlain Maritime Museum.   

Lake Champlain Sea Grant develops and shares science-based information to benefit the environment and economies of the Lake Champlain basin. Learn more about Lake Champlain Sea Grant.

This summer, marinas in the Lake Champlain basin faced unprecedented challenges with numerous COVID-19 capacity and safety restrictions on-site, the Canadian border closure, and an August opening on the locks at Whitehall, New York. Collectively, these challenges kept many customers away from their boats for the entire boating season. Like other tourism-based businesses, marinas made the best of the situation, welcoming those customers who were able to access their boats with both open arms and strict guidelines intended to keep everyone safe.

In an effort to help marinas keep both their staff and customers safe, the Vermont Boat and Marine Association, Lake Champlain Sea Grant and University of Vermont Extension, and the San Francisco Estuary Partnership teamed up to help marinas share COVID-19 safety information. Initially, a succinct list of critical COVID-19 safety guidelines were developed and printed on waterproof signs, as well as on brochures and rack cards. These were distributed to marinas on Lake Champlain, Lake Bomoseen, and Lake George.

Concurrently, the Pumpout Nav App was updated to allow for marina websites to be linked within the app. Depending on user preference, this smartphone application displays a map or a list of nearby marinas with sewage pumpout facilities, along with their costs, locations at the marina, and open times. Adding links to marina websites enhanced the ability of recreational boaters to learn more about space availability at marinas, many of which faced COVID-19-related capacity restrictions. Boaters could also go to marina websites to see COVID-19 safety guidelines specific to marinas that chose to post this information on their websites. Since this functionality of the app will remain, boaters will continue to have easy access to marina details and reservation systems over time.

“All of the marinas on Lake Champlain are unique regarding their location and marketing strategies. As such, the effect due to COVID-19 has impacted the industry in different ways,” said Mike O’Brien, Executive Director of the Vermont Boat and Marine Association.

After signs were distributed to all interested marinas in the Lake Champlain basin, Lake Champlain Sea Grant reached out across the 34-progam National Sea Grant Network to identify marinas in other areas that had interest in displaying the safety signs for their customers. By the end of the summer, signs had been distributed to marinas in Alabama, Florida, Michigan, Mississippi, Ohio, and Washington.

“It was great to be able to share the signs with marinas along the Pacific, Great Lakes, Gulf, and Atlantic coasts, as we want as many people as possible to stay safe during the pandemic,” said Kris Stepenuck, Extension Program Leader for Lake Champlain Sea Grant.

As an unexpected additional positive outcome of sharing the signs, two states are considering adding their marinas to the Pumpout Nav App. The app, originally designed for California-based marinas, is managed by the San Francisco Bay Estuary Partnership. The Partnership worked with Lake Champlain Sea Grant to add marinas in the Lake Champlain basin to the app a few years ago, and the state of Washington adopted the app this summer.

“Seeing interest from other states in its use is fantastic, as it has potential to keep more waters clean and more people safe,” said Stepenuck.

During the #RaiseTheBlade project’s recent mulching mower giveaway, several people shared that they did not know how to raise their mower blades. To address this, today’s Mo Monday blog is dedicated to helping people understand how to raise the blade. The first thing to know about raising the mower blade is that it is done in different ways depending on the mower.

Some mowers, like Mo, have a dial that is simply turned to select the mowing height of preference. Notice the orange arrow near the top of the photo that indicates which height on the dial is selected.

The mower shown at the top of the blog has levers on two of its wheels that are squeezed towards the wheels, then rotated left or right to adjust the mower deck height. Handily, the mower shown indicates which direction to move the lever to set the mower deck to specific heights. 

On the mower below, the height is adjusted similarly, but there is no label on the mower to indicate the mowing height. Instead, the user needs to measure the height from the ground to the bottom of the mowing deck to determine if the mowing height has been set as desired. 

This mower is set low, as we used it to prepare a site for reseeding.

Be aware to set the back wheel lever and the front wheel lever to the same “tooth” so the mower deck is level. In the image below, some of the “teeth” by the mower wheel are marked with pinks arrows to clarify what I mean by teeth. A hole in the arm of the lever allows it to be locked into position over any of the teeth, depending on what mowing height is desired. 

Below is a great video from Cornell Cooperative Extension that demonstrates how to how to raise the deck of one model of mower and ensure it is at the correct mowing height. 

If you are buying a new mower, many hardware stores will happily teach you how to raise and lower the mower deck on the model you select.

Read more Mo Monday blogs on Kris Stepenuck's blog page.

Vermont Water Resources and Lake Studies Center welcomes proposals focusing on critical water resources science and management needs in Vermont, including the Connecticut River basin and the Lake Champlain basin, from investigators based at an institute of higher education in Vermont. The Vermont Water Center especially welcomes proposals from professionals who identify as Black, Indigenous, or People of Color and from early-career professionals. 

Proposals may support research on physical, biological, chemical, social, or engineering aspects of water quality or quantity or outreach, education, training, and other information-transfer opportunities. Two types of proposals will be considered: Graduate Research and Faculty Research.

Deadline for submission to the Vermont Water Center (julianna.m.white [at] uvm.edu (subject: VT%20Water%20Resources%20RFP) ) is October 23, 2020.

Find the Request for Proposals and more information on the Vermont Water Resources website.

Now that the summer heat has passed, the grass in our yard is noticeably growing again in a waning effort to create and store sugars it will use while dormant during the winter months. At the same time, Mo is dutifully out mowing, and like always, cutting just a small amount of each grass blade, and allowing those clippings to fall to the earth to decompose in place. After the clippings are decomposed by microbes in the soil, important nutrients will once again be available for uptake by the grass. So it goes in this continual cycle of growth and nutrient exchange. 

This week, I am excited to share a short educational video the Raise the Blade team just completed with Kindea Labs. It shares details of this circle of life and connections the cycle has to water quality and to our actions on the land. Check it out on the lawntolake.org website or below. 

Don’t forget to enter for a chance to win a mulching mower and to submit your photos of you or someone else Raising the Blade for water quality by emailing seagrant [at] uvm.edu or posting to Instagram or Twitter with the #RaiseTheBlade hashtag and tagging the Lake Champlain Basin Program and Lake Champlain Sea Grant.

The drawing will be held on Labor Day 2020! 

Read more Mo Monday blogs on Kris Stepenuck's blog page.

One thing I haven’t mentioned in past posts is the doghouse we built for Mo. It’s not something required, but we figured it might help prolong Mo’s life to protect him from the weather. Plus, one of Mo’s features is that he heads to his base station whenever it is raining, as, being electric, he doesn’t like getting wet. (Though, according to the manufacturer, it is technically fine for the mower to be out in the rain in its base station. During thunderstorms they advise to unplug it though.)

To build Mo’s house, we first assessed how tall the doghouse needed to be.

We then cut the boards to size and positioned them into a house with an open side. The house is simply placed over the top of Mo’s base station.

The roof is positioned at a slight angle to help water to run off of it. This is done by having the walls cut to different heights.

To complete the house, we painted the sides and added some roofing shingles.

Mo’s house has worked out quite well to protect Mo from the elements.

Are you raising the blade? Please consider sharing your photos of you or someone you know following #RaiseTheBlade guidelines by emailing seagrant [at] uvm.edu or posting to Instagram or Twitter using the #RaiseTheBlade hashtag and tagging Lake Champlain Sea Grant and the Lake Champlain Basin Program. Plus, don’t forget, there is also still time to enter for a chance to win a mulching mower! Learn more and enter from the Lawn to Lake website.

Read more Mo Monday blogs on Kris Stepenuck's blog page.