For the 2024 season, the Lake St Catherine Association was awarded a DEC-ANC Grant-in-Aid through the Department of Environmental Conservation for $25,926 to support our AIS (aquatic invasive species) prevention and control programs which include our Boat Launch Greeter Program, and our Diver Assisted Suction Harvesting (DASH) Program. This funding is crucial to supporting our seasonal programs for prevention and control of AIS at Lake St Catherine.

2024 Greeter Program:

Each year Greeters are trained to identify AIS - including Eurasian watermilfoil, spiny waterflea, golden clams, water chestnut, starry stonewort and zebra mussels (and many others) - to stop them from entering LSC at the Fish and Wildlife boat launch in Wells. They also educate boaters about the importance of looking for these invasives, cleaning their boat, trailer, and live wells so they are not contributing to the spread to LSC or another lake. This year we had a great team of 9 greeters trained in the spring along with several other volunteers many of them taking a day long in person course hosted in Wells by the DEC. They were on duty from Memorial Day through Labor Day - working on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, and also covering holidays and fishing tournaments. Over 1,000 vessels were greeted, 970 were inspected, and 451 had AIS debris removed. We are grateful for the leadership that Trustee John Belnavis has provided, coordinating, scheduling, and hiring our seasonal greeters. After many years, John will be retiring from his formal role as Trustee and Greeter Coordinator. We are always looking for interested people to become part of our team to greet and engage lake users to Lake St. Catherine. Please contact us for more information.

2024 Milfoil Control Program:

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 1980’s. Knowing that eradication may never be possible, milfoil management is ongoing and necessary.

While this funding is great news, it is only a fraction of our budget for these programs this year. Other sources of our funding for these programs come from our lake community through membership dues, additional contributions, donations, and support from the towns of Poultney and Wells. We are a volunteer organization that works hard for the good of the lake and its environment. We are thankful for the partnerships and support we receive.

Visit us at: www.lakestcatherine.org to find out more.

On Wednesday, October 30th, the DEC approved the LSCA's Aquatic Nuisance Control permit application which we submitted in late March. You can read our permit application and the DEC's draft decision on Vermont's Environmental Notice Bulletin (ENB) website here. 

As part of the process, the DEC will be holding a public meeting on Wednesday, November 20th from 4:30 PM to 6:30 PM at the Wells Town Hall. The meeting will also be available online. All the meeting details, including the online link to the meeting are listed here in the DEC's notification PDF.

At the public meeting, after introductions, the LSCA will give a short presentation about our Milfoil Control Program. Next, the DEC will outline their role in the project, discuss the technical review of the application, and review the draft permit and permit compliance. The remainder of the meeting will be open for public comments and questions from in-person and online attendees, concluding with the DEC outlining the next steps.

So, we are reaching out to our membership for your support. To demonstrate that support for the LSCA and our Milfoil Control Program, we'd encourage you to:

• Attend the public meeting, preferably in-person if you are available, and
• Submit a comment of support in-person or online during the meeting, or
• Submit a comment using the online form available on the ENB website before 12/2/24

To submit a comment online, click here to visit the ENB page for our permit, and click on the green Comment button and type in your comment in the form.

We anticipate that there will be opposition to the DEC's final approval of our permit, so we hope you can lend your voice of support during the meeting, or via the online comment form. 

As there continues to be misinformation pushed about milfoil, milfoil control, ProcellaCOR, and the permitting process, we welcome the opportunity for this public meeting. 

The LSCA has always employed evidenced-based decision making when evaluating lake related issues, and we continue to do so with our Milfoil Control Program. Working with the State and lake scientists & experts, following the science and the data, and evaluating the results of our efforts show that we are doing the right things for the long-term health of Lake St. Catherine.

Please consider attending the public meeting in person to show your support, or please take a moment to submit a comment of support on the online form.

Please reach out to us with any questions you may have by emailing us at info@lakestcatherine.org - and we'll get right back you.

You can learn more about our Milfoil Control Program on our website.

Thank you for your support!

THANK YOU to everyone who stopped in to the Art & Nature Libraries Love Lakes event on Saturday!

What a fun & beautiful day on the lake!

A huge thank you to Gina from the Wells Village Library (awesome job Gina!), the Town of Wells for use of the Park, Nic for showing off the (work-in progress) LSC watershed model, Nan (the WVL mascot), Joe from Earth and Time & the Wells Historical society, Peter Huntoon, and all our attendees. We hope you had a great day!

We'll be working with Peter to make prints available of his painting of the lake today.

Libraries Love Lakes (librarieslovelakes.org) is an outreach project pairing libraries with lake scientists to provide collaborative programming emphasizing the importance of lakes to our everyday lives. The ongoing partnership between the Wells Village Library and LSCA is funded by education and outreach grants through the Lake Champlain Basin Program (lcbp.org).

Thanks all!

Here are some photos from the day:

Hello LSC, we have some exciting lake news to share.

The LSCA would like to congratulate the fantastic staff at the Lake St. Catherine State Park for being recognized as the Region 2 Vermont State Park of the Year!

We reached out to Lake St. Catherine State Park Manager Rachael Marczak to ask if she could tell us more about this award.

From Rachael: 

"Each year, one state park from each of the four regions is recognized as Vermont State Park of the Year. This year, our very own Lake St. Catherine State Park was selected as Park of the Year for the Southwest Region. Recognition is based on several factors including hospitality, safety, facility care, tool and equipment care, and is chosen by regional staff that work closely with each park in the region. The award was presented at the annual statewide end-of-year celebration held on September 5th at Kingsland Bay State Park.

In 2024, Lake St. Catherine State Park welcomed over 35,000 campers and day-use visitors to enjoy the many amenities it has to offer, which was about a 5% increase in visitation from 2023. Whether you’re looking to camp, hold a family reunion or graduation party, beat the summer heat at the beach, play disc golf, visit the Nature Center, or make use of the hiking and mountain biking trails, there are countless recreation opportunities for everyone.

This season, the park notably added its first cabin that became available to rent in July. Park staff and volunteers also refreshed some existing amenities, including the basketball court, beachfront, horseshoe pits, and made considerable progress manicuring their 18-hole disc golf course that was introduced in 2020. The park’s last operating day is Monday October 14th, 2024, and the staff looks forward to welcoming back new and returning visitors when the gates open on May 23rd, 2025."

As the State celebrates 100 Years of Vermont State Parks, we congratulate the beautiful Lake St. Catherine State Park on being named park of the year!

On Saturday, October 19th from 1:00 until 4:00 PM, Wells Village Library in collaboration with the Lake St. Catherine Association is holding an artist event at Lakeside Park in Wells.

Libraries Love Lakes (librarieslovelakes.org) is an outreach project pairing libraries with lake scientists to provide collaborative programming emphasizing the importance of lakes to our everyday lives. The ongoing partnership between WVL and LSCA is funded by education and outreach grants through the Lake Champlain Basin Program (lcbp.org). The autumn gathering is the fourth and final of 2024.

“There’s no better way than through art to form meaningful emotional connections with a resource,” says librarian, Gina Ellis. “We invite studio artists, poets, writers, sculptors, musicians and anyone who’d love to spend a colorful fall afternoon creatively interpreting the lake to join us.” While some items will be available including a limited number of easels, watercolors, journals and more, participants are encouraged to bring their own supplies if possible. Everyone is welcome; you needn’t consider yourself an artist to join the fun. You may sell your work while you’re there!

The first 20 families to arrive will receive a gift that includes on-topic books and materials.  Artists and attendees will get a first look at a newly constructed educational watershed model, meet organizational mascots and enjoy specially designed treats while they last. If needed, the rain date will be the following day.

As mentioned above, we are currently calling for artists to participate. Renowned local artist Peter Huntoon will be joining us!

If you'd like to participate as an artist (visual art, poetry, storytelling, sculpting, music, etc.), please get in touch with Gina (wellslibraryvt@gmail.com) or us (info@lakestcatherine.org).

The Little Lake will be looking beautiful in fall colors at the park - please join us!

Good afternoon LSC.

Back on Monday, September 23rd, Eric Hanson from the Vermont Center for EcoStudies (VCE) hosted a 'Loon Zoom' to talk about loons, and how they have been doing in Vermont.

In recognition of the tremendous support we've received from Eric and the Vermont Center for EcoStudies (VCE) for Lake St. Catherine's loons, the LSCA made another donation to VCE this year, and our lake community was invited to attend this special presentation.

It was great to see lots of LSC folks participating!

If you were unable to attend, or missed the presentation, it was recorded, and is linked below.

As always, Eric is a great presenter, and the presentation was excellent. Check it out below, and listen in at the end 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!

Watch the recording here: 2024 Loon Zoom

Good afternoon LSC.

Thanks to our volunteers & participants today for the Vermont Invasive Patroller (VIP) paddle at the boat launch area of the Lake St. Catherine State Park this morning. This was the 2nd VIP paddle this season.

We patrolled the launch area looking for potential introductions of aquatic invasive species (AIS), and to learn about our native plants that are in that area.

Among others, we found illinois pondweed, robbins pondweed, ribbonleaf pondweed, big-leaved pondweed, eelgrass, and the very interesting seven-angled pipewort (and a few sparse milfoil plants). Check out the attached underwater photos of these plants, what appear to be some heron footprints in the sand, and some photos of our participants.

Alice took some great underwater photos with the GoPro, had lots of great questions, and we looked up plants in the book Aquatic Flora of Northern New England by Donald J. Padgett.

This weekend, we'll file a VIP report about the paddle with the DEC via their online reporting form.

Thanks to Heather and Alice for participating - we hope you had fun!

If anyone is interested in participating in a VIP paddle in early October at the Wells Lakeside Park, please get in touch here on Facebook or at info@lakestcatherine.org. If we have enough interest, we'll schedule one final paddle for the season.

You can learn more about VIP Paddles here on our website: https://lakestcatherine.org/vermont-invasive-patrollers

Facebook Photo Gallery:

Hello there LSC, we have some fun loon related news to share.

In recognition of the tremendous support we've received from loon biologist Eric Hanson and staff from the Vermont Center for EcoStudies (VCE) for Lake St. Catherine's loons, the LSCA has made another donation to VCE.

Eric has travelled to Lake St. Catherine numerous times over the past several years in support of our increasing loon visits.

Most recently, Eric was here in May for the Libraries Love Lakes Spring Event at the Wells Lakeside Park. He was able to canoe over to the nesting loons to observe them, and he provided a report and a presentation to attendees. You can read more about that here: https://lakestcatherine.org/blog/13362265

Eric was also here in April, and we assisted in the construction and placement of a loon nesting raft. As we all know, the loons found their own nesting area, and successfully hatched 2 chicks in June. You can read more about that here: https://lakestcatherine.org/blog/13340050

Last May, he came to LSC to observe a pair of loons (now mom & dad loon) that had exhibited nesting activity in the Channel. Although they ultimately did not build a nest, Eric knew they would be back to try again - and he was right! You can read about his May visit here: https://lakestcatherine.org/blog/13207383.

Last August, VCE also provided a collection tube that we installed at the boat launch in Wells to collect lead tackle and old fishing line, both deadly to loons. You can read more about that here: https://lakestcatherine.org/blog/13235860

Eric was also at LSC twice in July of 2022 to participate in the first Libraries Love Lakes event, and to present at our Annual Meeting & Dinner. At that Annual Meeting, Eric gave a fantastic presentation about loons, which was recorded - and you can view that here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iUrY1PqirzU.

In 2021, Eric also rescued a sub-adult loon on Lake St. Catherine that had been caught up with a lure and fishing line. You can read about that here: https://lakestcatherine.org/blog/12107471.

We were very happy to receive this nice note from Laura at VCE thanking the LSCA and our members for the donation, and inviting members to a special conversation with Eric about loons - this Monday, September 23rd - and we'd like to share it with you:

"Thanks to you, Vermont’s loons are truly thriving. Not only did the number of nesting pairs increase from 108 last year to 123 this summer, but they also called 11 new territories home!

These tremendous successes showcase the impact of your generosity and dedication. Thank you for supporting loon conservation research, field work, network building, volunteer coordination, and public outreach, and helping us meet our $50,000 matching requirement of this year’s portion of our five-year U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service loon repopulation grant.

I’m delighted to invite you to an exclusive Loon Zoom for 2024 Vermont Loon Conservation Project supporters on Monday, September 23 from 7 to 8 p.m. You’ll get to ask VCE Loon Biologist Eric Hanson your most pressing loon questions and hear the latest loon news and stories."

This is a great opportunity to learn more about Vermont's loons, Eric always gives a fantastic presentation, and we're pretty sure he'll talk about LSC's new loon chick!

To participate, registration is required. 

Click HERE to register.

We hope to see you there!

Good morning LSC. We are planning a VIP (Vermont Invasive Patrollers) Paddle next Saturday, September 21st, beginning at 9 AM at the boat launch area at the State Park in Poultney.

We'll paddle & patrol this launch area (where new invasives are likely to be introduced) looking for aquatic invasive species (AIS).

We'll have underwater viewers to be able to look at the lake bottom, we'll do a patrol, and then we'll report our findings to the DEC.

So, if you like to paddle, would like to learn more about LSC's aquatic plants, and would like to be part of an early warning system for detecting invasive species in LSC, please reach out to us at info@lakestcatherine.org to let us know you'd like to participate on September 21st - and we'll see you there!

You can read a recap of our first 2024 paddle here: https://lakestcatherine.org/blog/13390025

...and you can read more about the VIP Program on LSC here: https://lakestcatherine.org/vermont-invasive-patrollers

Thanks!

Hello LSC, we'd like to share the DASH team's end of season report with you.

Beck and his DASH team began swimming sparse milfoil areas in late June, and were able to hand-pull and clear some of those areas before full DASH operations began on July 1st.

Referencing the attached map, they worked in areas C, D, E (Sandy Bay only), H, H1, I1, I2, I3, and K. The team estimated that they could have worked for 3 more days in area K (Idylwild Bay), but suction motor issues cut that short. We'll need to source and install a new motor on the DASH boat for the 2025 season.

The team collected 269 17.5 gallon buckets of milfoil this season. Last season, they collected 1,057.

Beck reported the team's observations from their work around the lake this season noting that our native plants are looking healthy, and milfoil was at low growth levels - which is great news, and indicative of the lower bucket total this year as compared to last.

Our DASH and Greeter Programs are funded through Vermont's Aquatic Nuisance Control Grant-In-Aid Program, and membership dues and contributions from the lake community. Thank you for your continued support of the LSCA and these important programs.

The LSCA's yearly aquatic plant survey is also underway, with Arrowwood Environmental beginning their work last week. Their report to us will be available in the late fall, and will be posted to our website.

Please join us in thanking Beck and his crew for another great season working to keep milfoil under control at Lake St. Catherine!