Hello LSC.
At the end of each season, we like to take some time to recap the efforts of the Lake St. Catherine Association (LSCA) and our partners during the year. This work is performed on behalf of the lake community and our membership as we endeavor to fulfill our mission of the preservation, protection, and maintenance of Lake St. Catherine.
What you’ll read below are short summaries of the projects and activities from 2024, but we encourage you to visit our website and click on our Blog to read more detailed accounts of all these efforts.
So, as we get ready to head into the new year, grab a beverage and read on for our 2024 Year In Review!
Membership
Thank you to everyone who contributed to the LSCA this year through memberships and donations - we have a great community of lake stewards who are invested in preserving, protecting, and maintaining beautiful Lake St. Catherine! Your contributions are critically important to help fund our numerous lake management programs which you’ll read more about below.
As of this writing, we have 376 members who contributed a total of $77,239, giving us an average contribution of $205.42. While our total members were slightly lower this year, we did receive just about the same amount in contributions that we did in 2023.
Can we crack the 400 member mark next year? This will again be our goal as we continue to reach out to LSC property owners, and hope to expand our reach with membership levels for family members of property owners, renters, and those who use the lake for recreation.
We’d also like to thank camp owner Andrew Gioulis for his fantastic design of our 2024 Membership gift, this beautiful 3" x 3" iron-on patch depicting one of LSC’s nesting eagles. We are so happy that our members are enjoying the patches! Andrew has also designed the 2025 patch (which looks fantastic!), and we’ll unveil it when the 2025 Membership Drive kicks off in the new year.
Thank you for your support!
Volunteering Around Lake St. Catherine
We’d like to thank all of the volunteers that participated in the various lake related activities this season! Here is a quick summary of a few of the volunteer opportunities around Lake St. Catherine this year.
Green Up Vermont Day: Green Up Vermont Day is a state-wide volunteer cleanup day of Vermont's roads and waterways which takes place on the first Saturday in May. As Green Up Vermont's website says: "We know it isn’t your litter but Vermont needs our help to be beautiful!". Building on the success of our previous efforts, we worked to organize volunteers to cover ALL the roads around Lake St. Catherine this year, including additional roadways in Wells & Poultney! We estimate that we had up to 40 volunteers around the lake this year. On the morning of Green Up Day, volunteers met at the Wells Lakeside Park to kickoff the day with coffee and muffins from the Wells Country Store, thanks to the Town of Wells. Volunteers picked up Green Up Day trash bags, fueled up, and headed out to get to work. By the end of the day, the roads around the lake were cleaned up, and lined with filled Green Up Vermont trash bags. Thank you to the town crews from Wells and Poultney for picking up the bags. We’ll do it again in May!
Other volunteer efforts included two Vermont Invasive Patroller (VIP) paddles, milfoil cleanup, storm debris cleanup, and support for our loons - more on these later on. Thanks to all the good folks working hard to make Lake St. Catherine such a wonderful place!
Lake St. Catherine Watershed Action Plan
In May of 2021, the LSCA earned a grant from the LCBP to help fund the creation of a Lake Watershed Action Plan (LWAP) for Lake St. Catherine.
From the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), a Lake Watershed Action Plan is described as:
“Watershed planning helps address water quality problems in a holistic manner by fully assessing the potential contributing causes and sources of pollution, then prioritizing restoration and protection strategies to address these problems.”
Field work began in May 2023, and has included assessments of current conditions in the LSC watershed, including: in-lake, shoreline, roads & culverts, tributaries, wetlands, and forested land. The LWAP team is also evaluating and considering the unique characteristics and special needs of areas of the Lake like in our bays and channels - and everything in-between, from the Lily Pond, through the Big Lake & Little Lake, to Lake's End.
Work on the LWAP is nearing completion, and we anticipate the report being finalized in 2025 which will result in a long-term lake management plan for Lake St. Catherine.
Subsequent grants will be applied for to implement as many projects as possible and create a culture worthy of emulation that positions Lake St. Catherine for future funding that rewards water quality improvements including phosphorus load reduction. These efforts will continue for the balance of the decade and be the most important contribution all those who love being at Lake St. Catherine can make to distinguish its future beauty and health.
Lay Monitoring - Water Testing
The LSCA has participated in the Vermont DEC's Lay Monitoring Program since its inception, and has assisted in collecting four decades of water data on LSC. LSCA Trustees collect bi-weekly water samples from Big Lake and Little Lake from Memorial Day to Labor Day each season which are sent to the DEC for testing. The water is tested for phosphorus, clarity (secchi depth), chlorophyll-a (algae), and as of 2023, caffeine. You can review the data from the Big Lake (since 1979) and Little Lake (since 2009) by visiting the Lay Monitoring Lake Water Quality Data website. When on this page, select 'Wells' from the 'Select Town' dropdown, and Big Lake and Little Lake data will be available to view.
Greeter Program - Boat Launch Monitoring
Our Greeter Program is very important to the health of Lake St. Catherine. Our Greeters have been trained to identify aquatic invasive species (AIS) - like spiny waterflea, golden clams, water chestnut, starry stonewort and zebra mussels - to stop them from entering LSC at the boat launch in Wells and the State Park in Poultney. They also educate boaters about the importance of looking for these invasives on their boat or trailer so they are not spread to LSC or another lake. Each year, they do a fantastic job checking vessels and educating the lake community on the dangers of invasive species for Lake St. Catherine. They are on duty from Memorial Day through Labor Day - working on Friday, Saturday and Sunday. They also cover holidays and fishing tournaments. Our Greeter Program is partially funded by a grant from the Vermont DEC and contributions from our membership.
In total, our Greeters greeted over 1,000 vessels, 970 were inspected, and 451 had AIS debris removed.
Thank you to our Greeter team! They work hard each season to keep AIS out of Lake St. Catherine.
LSC’s ‘Territorial Pair’ of Loons Return, Nest, and Have Chicks!
Last year, we told you about a pair of loons that had started nesting activity in the Channel. Although they were unsuccessful in creating a viable nest, loon biologist Eric Hanson from the Vermont Center for Ecostudies (VCE) told us to expect this pair to return this year to try again. So, this April, Eric came to LSC and we worked with him to build a nesting platform for the loons, which was placed in the area they attempted to nest last year.
As Eric predicted, our loons returned, and they were active in the Channel again. Then, in early May, lake residents Dawn & Joel observed the loons making a nest on the shoreline of the Channel - forgoing the deluxe accommodations we had provided for them.
With the help of Dawn & Joel, we immediately jumped into action to place the loon nesting area signs that Eric left for us which created a buffer zone for the loons.
After an anxious month of waiting, on June 18th, Dawn and Joel observed the loons with a chick… then a short time later, another chick was observed - two loon chicks! Later that evening, the loon family was observed heading under the bridge and off into the Big Lake.
After a few days of observing the loons on the Big Lake, it was clear that one of the loon chicks did not survive - which Eric explained is unfortunately fairly common for only one chick to survive.
Throughout the summer, the surviving chick thrived, and the proud loon family was the talk of the lake. It was fascinating to see the loon chick (or the ‘Loon Prince’ as he was nicknamed in the Lake St. Catherine - Vermont Facebook Group) mature from a small puff-ball riding on its parents back, to full-sized ‘sub-adult’ loon in such a short time.
As for the future of this loon family, Eric and Eloise from VCE explained:
"The parents will leave before the chick to start their migration on the New England coast and the chick migration will follow later on before the lakes freeze. The chick will stay between 2 to 4 years at the coast before returning in a range of 40 miles from his natal lake. It will then try to establish a territory to start breeding but that can take a few years before it is successful."
So, our loon parents will be back here at LSC next year, while their chick will remain on the ocean along the east coast for a few years. It will then return to our area on a waterbody within 40 miles of LSC (but will not return to LSC) to try to establish its own territory.
Eric presented a year-end loon report at the end of September, which you can view here. Listen in at the end of the presentation when Eric talks about loon stats for 2024 as he gives the Lake St. Catherine community a shout-out for all the work and support we've given to our visiting loons, leading to nesting success this year! Great job all!
Milfoil Control Control Program
Each season, the LSCA implements a Milfoil Control Program to keep milfoil in check in Lake St. Catherine using a combination of spot herbicide treatments and DASH (Diver Assisted Suction Harvesting).
The LSCA’s Milfoil Control Program consists of four components:
1. ‘Stop The Spread’ education and outreach. Our ‘Stop The Spread’ campaign educates boaters and property owners on best practices to limit the spread of milfoil. Each year, the LSCA holds a lake community meeting to discuss the control plan for the season, answer questions, and hand out a flyer with best practices for lake users to limit the spread of milfoil.
2. Volunteer milfoil cleanup. Throughout the season, we organize volunteers to collect detached floating milfoil from the lake and deposit it on our designated drop off platforms. The milfoil is then picked up from the platforms and disposed of. We also encourage boaters and property owners to remove any milfoil they see in the lake while boating or on their shoreline.
3. DASH - Diver Assisted Suction Harvesting. Our DASH crew suits up in scuba gear and hand-pulls milfoil by the roots from the lakebed. In sections of lower milfoil density, they will swim the area and hand-pull with mesh bags. In higher density areas, they will set up the DASH equipment which allows them to suction the hand-pulled milfoil up through a tube to a catch table on a boat. Milfoil is then placed in 17.5 gallon buckets for transport off the lake.
4. Herbicide spot treatments with ProcellaCOR EC. In order to maximize our DASH crew’s time, effectiveness, and number of acres covered, one of our control methods includes spot treatments with the herbicide ProcellaCOR EC
5. Water quality improvement programs. Although not directly related to Milfoil Control, the LSCA's work on Lake Wise on LSC, the LSC Stormwater Master Plan, and the LSC Watershed Action Plan all help to limit phosphorus and other nutrients from entering the lake which can contribute to excessive plant growth, and improves overall water quality.
Our Milfoil Control Program continues to consist of a pragmatic, multi-faceted approach, focusing on the areas of milfoil regrowth as noted by our spring and fall surveys. The spring survey was conducted on April 26th, and along with the fall 2023 survey, and input from our DASH team, a map was created to show areas where DASH and spot treatments would take place. This map was submitted to the DEC and approved for our 2024 program.
Our DASH contractor, Sinclair Commercial Dive Services began hand-pulling in June, with full DASH operations starting on July 1st, covering over 51 acres, and collecting 269 17.5 gallon buckets of milfoil. Our DASH team was encouraged to see light to moderately dense areas of growth which led to the least amount of material removed in over 10+ years.
An application of ProcellaCOR EC was used in 7 areas with a total of 34.55 acres covered. Limited ProcellaCOR treatments, along with the other components of our Milfoil Control Program, have been the most up to date and successful management techniques permitted and used. Without this program, it would be a very short time to see the lake back to the difficult conditions of the pre 2000’s. Knowing that eradication may never be possible, milfoil management is ongoing and necessary.
These efforts led to another successful year of milfoil control on Lake St. Catherine. Also, and just as importantly, we continue to see many species of our native aquatic plants that have been suppressed by milfoil have increased in frequency of occurrence - which is also backed up by the data. The Vermont DEC recently informed us that a study of LSC’s aquatic plant data shows that our native plant species richness (the number of different species represented in the lake) has increased during the years of the milfoil control program - which was great to hear. You can view our Aquatic Vegetation Management Reports dating back to 2001 here.
These results are exactly what we want to see!
Lake St. Catherine has over 30 native aquatic plants which are important and necessary to sustain a healthy lake ecology. Our efforts are focused on reducing the amount of milfoil in the lake so that these native aquatic plants can grow as they normally would. Keeping milfoil under control is helping to return the aquatic plant environment to conditions before milfoil was introduced in the 1970s. Because of our milfoil control efforts, we again have a complex and diverse native aquatic plant community.
In August, our contractor Arrowwood Environmental performed a comprehensive lake-wide aquatic vegetation survey taking place over several days to both evaluate the performance of our milfoil control efforts, and to assess the overall state of aquatic plants in Lake St. Catherine.
The full report can be read here: 2024 - Aquatic Vegetation Management Report. We encourage you to take a few moments to read through the whole report.
In early May, the lake will again be surveyed for milfoil growth. Using the data collected during this survey, and the data from the fall survey, areas that need to be addressed will be identified, and a plan will be created.
Sponsor Spotlight
We’d like to thank the 15 businesses who were LSCA Business Sponsors in 2024!
Our $200 Business Sponsor membership includes a listing on the Sponsors page of our website, a listing in our spring and fall newsletters, and a Sponsor Spotlight in June on our website and Facebook pages.
Thank you: A-1 Sewer & Drain Service, A113 Productions, Bird Dog Home Inspection, Burns Insurance Agency, Catherine Capers, Haun Welding Supply, Lake St. Catherine Cottages, Lake St. Catherine Country Club, New England Lakeside Realty, Owens Plumbing Services, Rathbun's Maple Sugar House, Realty One Group Lakes & Homes, Ross, Wehse & Kinney Insurance, Thomas Auto & Marine, VT Lakehouse.
If you’d like to become a Business Sponsor in 2025, please let us know!
Lake Markers and Buoys
The LSCA places and maintains no-wake zone and marker buoys throughout the lake. In 2024, the Lake Safety Committee continued to deploy multiple new markers to replace the aging ones, and a few more will be replaced in 2025. An additional no-wake buoy was placed in the Channel near the loon nesting area, and new buoys were purchased and placed at Sunken Island. Thank you to our ‘Buoy Buddies’ around the lake who assist us each year with the spring installation and fall removal of the markers and buoys.
We’d also like to thank our Game Warden Justin Turner who provided the lake community with updates throughout the season - keeping us informed of Warden activity at the lake. Thanks Justin!
The Lake Wise Program
It was the 6th season for Lake Wise on Lake St. Catherine!
Lake Wise is a program developed by Vermont’s Lakes and Ponds Program to recognize outstanding efforts by homeowners who live along a lakeshore to protect the water quality and habitat along the shoreline and within the near-shore area of the lake.
This season, the LSCA again earned a grant from the Lake Champlain Basin Program (LCBP) to perform Lake Wise assessments, and to help property owners with projects on their land to mitigate stormwater runoff into the lake. The LSCA was happy to again partner with the Poultney Mettowee Natural Resources Conservation District (PMNRCD) on this project.
The PMNRCD crew completed a tremendous amount of work in support of the Lake Wise Program this season. They were also able to leverage their Lake Education Action Program (LEAP) program, which pairs student and community lake education with the implementation of small planting projects for shoreline owners to increase the amount of projects completed.
8 new properties were assessed, 4 properties were reassessed, and 5 Lake Wise projects were implemented (8 additional LEAP projects were also implemented). There were 3 award winners this season!
- Kimberly Thomas, West Lake Road, Wells
- Robin Barley-Waegener, Little Lake East, Wells
- Jerremy Jones & Carrie Armenio, Cones Point Road, Poultney
Also, numerous other property owners have been working hard with PMNRCD, and are close... With the guidance and assistance of the PMNRCD, these properties, and properties assessed in previous years, will have the opportunity to earn the award in the future.
Thank you to all the participants for the work they have put into their property in an effort to become Lake Wise. This work represents a model of what all LSC lakeshore owners should strive for, as these projects are both beautiful and lake friendly.
If you would like to participate in 2025, or have your property reassessed, email us at info@lakestcatherine.org.
The 12th Annual LSCA Boat Parade
We had another great boat parade this year!
14 boats participated, and over 250 people voted online for their favorite boats in our 4 categories: most patriotic, funniest, most original, best overall.
Our winners were:
Most Patriotic:
Winner: Boat #11 - God Bless America!! - Dave & Lisa
Funniest:
Winner: Boat #5 - Dump Run! - Conine Family
Most Original:
Winner: Boat #7 - Carnival - Hicks Family
Best Overall:
Winner: Boat #9 - Come On Barbie Let's Go Party - Christine Gay
Thank you to all who participated, to those who cheered from their boat and from the shore, and to everyone who voted! We are looking forward to our 13th year in 2025!
LSCA’s Annual Meeting & Dinner
The LSCA held our Annual Meeting & Dinner on Saturday, July 24th, at the Lake St. Catherine Country Club.
We had a packed house of approximately 100 attendees! It was great to see so many folks interested in preserving, protecting, and maintaining beautiful Lake St. Catherine. Thank you to all who were able to attend, and to Hilary Solomon from the Poultney Mettowee Natural Resources Conservation District (PMNRCD) for updating us on the progress of the LSC Watershed Action Plan, and the LSC Stormwater Masterplan! We hope you enjoyed the presentation, your dinner, and catching up with your lake neighbors.
If you were unable to join us, you can view the full presentation on YouTube:
Lake St Catherine Association's Annual Meeting & Dinner - 7/24/24
If you have any questions about the presentation, or would like to share your feedback, please let us know - you can always reach us at info@lakestcatherine.org - and we'll get right back to you.
Thanks to the LSC Country Club and their staff for hosting us - and providing a wonderful dinner, Hilary for her informative presentation, and our State and local government officials: Senators Collamore, Weeks, and Williams, Representative McCoy, and Don Preuss, Tammy Holcomb, and Paul Woodruff from the Wells Select Board for joining us.
Vermont Invasive Patrollers (VIP) Program
After conducting the first Vermont Invasive Patrollers (VIP) paddle on LSC in August of 2023, we were eager to schedule and perform additional paddles in 2024 - which we did! On August 3rd, volunteers performed a paddle around the boat launch in Wells, and on September 21st, volunteers performed a paddle around the boat launch area of the State Park in Poultney.
The focus of this program is early detection of aquatic invasive species (AIS) before they can become established in a waterbody.
From the DEC: The VIP program was established by the VTDEC in 2007 to focus on early detection of all known and potential aquatic invasive species (AIS). Although VIPs now emphasize aquatic invasive plants more broadly in their surveying efforts, they are trained to identify both aquatic invasive plants and animals that are either established in Vermont or in nearby states and pose the greatest threat to Vermont’s water bodies.
During the paddles, we used underwater viewers to find and identify many of our native plants, while keeping an eye out for invasive plants or animals. Patrolling boat launch areas is a focus, as it is a high-risk area for invasive species introduction.
As part of this Vermont DEC program, we filled out a report with our findings for the two days.
If you enjoy paddling, and would like to learn more about LSC’s native plants, and help to keep an eye out for new invasive species, we hope you’ll join us. If you'd like to learn more about this new program on LSC, please visit the VIP page on our website: https://www.lakestcatherine.org/vermont-invasive-patrollers. Let us know if you’d like to participate next season by emailing us at info@lakestcatherine.org. This is a GREAT addition to our invasive species control and prevention initiatives which includes our Greeter Program.
LSCA Sponsors Teen For Junior Warden Weekend
The LSCA was happy to sponsor a teen from Wells in Fish and Wildlife’s Junior Warden Program, which took place in late July at Edward F. Kehoe Green Mountain Conservation Camp on Lake Bomoseen.
Participants learned how Fish and Wildlife Game Wardens contribute to conservation in Vermont, and spent the weekend fishing, hiking, exploring mock crime scenes, and seeing K-9 units in action. Teens stayed in the cabins and enjoyed campfires, s’mores, swimming, and other camp activities during their stay.
Lake St. Catherine Stormwater Master Plan
In 2018 and 2019, extensive field work by the PMNRCD and Fitzgerald Environmental Associates took place in the LSC watershed. The goal was to identify sources of increased stormwater runoff and associated sediments and nutrients flowing into the lake. Phosphorus reducing projects are of particular importance given the water quality concerns within the watershed. The work involved identifying sources of stormwater, prioritizing sources based on various environmental, economic, and social criteria, and designing projects to mitigate those sources. This resulted in the creation of the Lake St. Catherine Stormwater Master Plan (SWMP). 50 potential sites were identified, and as of today, 6 projects have been implemented.
As part of a $50k grant earned from the LCBP, 12 projects from the SWMP were selected by the lake community at a meeting in September 2023, and Fitzgerald Environmental has been working on designs for these projects. When completed, we’ll work to submit grant applications to our region’s Clean Water Service Provider for implementation funding. Projects areas include: Clayton Tract, RT 30 (near Cluckin’ Chicken), the end of Cones Point Road, Lochlea Lane, West Lake Road, (south of the Lighthouse), West Lake Road (near Idylwild), Channel Drive, and a grouping of issues on Ferncliff Road.
You can read more about the SWMP, and view an interactive map with the identified sites by visiting our Stormwater Master Plan page.
LSCA & PMNRCD Interviewed For Public Affairs Show Catamount Community Connection
The LSCA was happy to be asked again to participate in the public affairs show hosted by Senator Brian Collamore called Catamount Community Connection. This edition featured an interview with the Lake St. Catherine Association (LSCA) and Poultney Poultney Mettowee Natural Resource Conservation District (PMNRCD) and it aired the morning of July 14th, on 98.1 WJJR Rutland.
Thank you to Senator Collamore and to Catamount Radio for this opportunity to speak about these important topics for the lake community and all in the Poultney Mettowee conservation district.
You can listen to it here on YouTube: Catamount Community Connection - WJJR - July 14th, 2024.
Sediment Core Sampling
In late August, members from the Vermont DEC, our limnologist Emily Porter-Goff, and Trustees of the LSCA boated to the deepest area on the lake and took a deep core sediment sample.
The sample was then divided up into smaller samples (cookies), and prepped to ship off to two different labs for testing. One lab will date the samples, and the other will perform a taxonomy of the diatoms in the samples.
This will give us an idea of how the lake has processed phosphorus in the past and will inform future phosphorus reduction goals that would be part of the Lake St. Catherine Watershed Action Plan.
You can read more about diatoms here: https://diatoms.org/what-are-diatoms
Data from the samples will be available in 2025.
LSCA Newsletters
Our traditional Spring and Fall newsletters were posted digitally on our website, and printed copies were made available at Wellsmere Farm in Wells and the Cluckin’ Cafe in Poultney. If you missed them when they were released, you can read them here:
Keeping You Up-To-Date Via Our Website & Facebook Pages
When we have Lake St. Catherine news, we like to inform the lake community as soon as possible by posting it on our website Blog, and on our Facebook page. So, keep an eye on these sites for all the latest information on LSC. We also send out news summaries via email updates to our members who have shared their email with us - so please be sure to provide your email address when you become a member!
If you are not a Facebook user, you can still view our Facebook posts on the homepage of our website.
Libraries Love Lakes
The LSCA and the Wells Village Library were excited to earn another grant from the LCBP to continue the Libraries Love Lakes Program in 2024. This grant funded 4 seasonally themed events, a watershed model of Lake St. Catherine, and a LSC mascot (both of which will be completed soon). Libraries Love Lakes is an outreach project which pairs school and public libraries with lake scientists to provide collaborative programming emphasizing the importance of lakes in our everyday lives.
The winter event took place in March and brought the the Giant Lake Champlain Watershed Map experience to the Modern Woodmen of America Hall in Wells. Educator Meghan Hill from the Lake Champlain Maritime Museum (LCMM) spoke with visitors about numerous topics as they explored the accurate and detailed 35’ x 27’ giant map. Meghan also gave a presentation entitled "Climate Change and Our Lakes".
The spring event took place in April at the Wells Lakeside Park on Little Lake and focused on birds of Lake St. Catherine. Up first was loon biologist Eric Hanson who arrived early to canoe over to observe the nesting loons, and then arrived back just in time to kick off the presentations with a real-time loon report! Next, Kathleen Guinness from the Rutland County Audubon Society (RCAS) spoke about birds you can see at LSC, including many you may have heard, but have never seen. Kathleen explained that there are over 99 different bird species that visit Lake St. Catherine!
The July event took place in July at the Lake St. Catherine State Park. Kids and their families got to enjoy all the Lake St. Catherine Park has to offer, and they got to go swimming, get a treat at the snack bar, and participate in the fun educational activities with the educators that were on hand. PMNRCD staff set up their stream table to demonstrate runoff and erosion, Meghan Hill was back from the LCMM with the outdoor version of the Giant Map, and State Park Interpreter Jeff Ormsbee & ‘Captain’ Martha Pofit took kids and their families out on the lake. The kids tested for dissolved oxygen, and took secchi disk and temperature readings. They also saw one of the eagles, the eagle nest, and the loon family! They had quite a boat trip.
The fall event took place in October at the Wells Lakeside Park on Little Lake with a focus on nature and art. Attendees were given art and journaling supplies and they were able to interpret the beauty of Little Lake through their creations. Joe Capron from Earth and Time & the Wells Historical Society, and local artist Peter Huntoon were also on hand - Joe displaying historical photos of the lake, and Peter painting a beautiful scene of the lake. Nic Stark also showed off the work-in-progress watershed model of the lake that he is creating.
Thank you to Wells Village Librarian Gina Ellis for her vision and work on this fantastic program for the lake community! We are looking forward to more Libraries Love Lakes events in 2025.
Grants - Woking To Bring Funds To LSC
The LSCA has been working hard throughout 2024 to bring grant funds to Lake St. Catherine for 2025.
In 2024, we earned grants for AIS Prevention and Control from the State of Vermont’s Grant-In-Aid program to help partially fund our Greeter and DASH programs, and for Lake Wise (in partnership with PMNRCD) & Libraries Love Lakes (in partnership with the Wells Village Library) from the LCBP.
For 2025, we have already applied for the Aquatic Invasive Species Spread Prevention and Management grant from the LCBP, and we will again be applying for the State of Vermont’s Grant-In-Aid program to help partially fund our Greeter Program and our DASH team. We will also be applying for two other grants from the LCBP. The first is an Organizational grant to purchase water testing equipment, and the second will be an Education and Outreach grant which will help to fund the continuation of the Libraries Love Lakes collaboration with the Wells Village Library. We’ll let you know how we do!
Thank You For Your Support
Finally, some thank yous... Thank you to all those in the lake community who showed their support of the LSCA in 2024 by being a member, or making a donation, or volunteering, or participating in Lake Wise, or attending meetings & events, or helping to clean up milfoil - there are so many ways we can all contribute! We hope you found our efforts in 2024 for Lake St. Catherine to be worthy of that support.
Please also join us in thanking our partners who are also contributing in numerous ways for the benefit of Lake St. Catherine. To the PMNRCD and their excellent staff, Fitzgerald Environmental, Emily Porter-Goff, the Towns of Wells & Poultney, the Wells Village Library, the LSC State Park, the Vermont Center for Ecostudies, the LCBP & NEIWPCC, all the departments under the Vermont Agency for Natural Resources, and the Federation of Vermont Lakes and Ponds - thank you all for your efforts!
2025 is going to be another busy year, and LSCA Trustees are hard at work getting ready.
Be on the lookout for our Membership Drive which will begin in the New Year. We hope to earn your support in 2025 so we can continue to all work together to preserve, protect, and maintain beautiful Lake St. Catherine.
Happy Holidays & Happy New Year! We’ll see you at the lake soon,
- The Trustees of The Lake St. Catherine Association
