2024 Weekly Cyanobacteria Emails to the Community

Week 10 was busy for the LCC cyanobacteria monitoring team as Lori announced her upcoming retirement (12/31/24), Alexa got married, Lindsey headed off to trek for a week in the wilds of Montana and Alberta, and Eileen wrapped up a big project on native aquatic plants. On the cyanobacteria beat, blooms dominated the scene in some Quebec portions of Lake Champlain’s Missisquoi Bay and parts of St. Albans Bay.

It was another week of highly variable conditions depending upon where you were. Monitors filed 240 reports during week 9 and 19% were of blooms. The majority came from northern sections of Lake Champlain. Some blooms persisted for days and continued into week 10. The many bloom reports also delayed the compilation and sending of our weekly email. LCC does roughly 90% of the report vetting and follow-up with monitors so our report to you goes out later during high traffic weeks.

Some extensive and persistent blooms were experienced in northern sections of Lake Champlain and various inland waterways including the Poultney River during week 8 of monitoring. Big thanks to all the community science volunteers who are chronicling conditions. Cyanobacteria monitoring will continue through the fall so click here if you’d like to join the 2024 cyanobacteria monitoring team.  

While most monitors reported generally safe conditions during their week 7 site rounds, those that did observe blooms often found them widespread. And blooms certainly weren’t restricted to Lake Champlain – VT inland waterways of Lake Carmi, Shadow Lake, and the Moore Reservoir all had significant blooms. In this email you’ll find details on weekly conditions, resources to help you recognize cyanobacteria, along with photographs of Gloeotrichia sp.; spinach smoothie look-alikes; bloom gloom at Lake Champlain sites at Venise-en-Québec QC, Philipsburg QC, Macomber Point in the Inland Sea VT, Niquette Bay VT;  and inland lake VT sites at Lake Carmi, Shadow Lake, and Shelburne Pond;

While many monitors reported bloom-free conditions during week 6, where cyanobacteria did show up it sometimes persisted for several days. In this email you’ll find details on weekly conditions; resources to help you recognize, avoid and report cyanobacteria; and photographs of week 6 bloom zooms, high alerts at Stephenson’s Point VT and Philipsburg QC, a low alert at Lake Carmi, khaki-colored blooms, clumps of blooms, Gloeotrichia sp. – a colonial cyanobacteria, tools of the trade, clear water scenes, and parting shots tracking a bloom.  

Monitors weathered another week of IT challenges as the tech issue that shut systems down worldwide also affected the cyanobacteria tracker. It’s the reason you’re getting this weekly compilation of results much later than usual. Many LCC monitors had to delay filing reports due to the IT problem so there was a backlog of assessments to enter and vet once the tracker was working again.

It was eerily familiar last week as floodwaters wreaked havoc on infrastructure, communities, and ecosystems, exactly a year after the historic July 2023 flooding. We hope you didn’t personally endure damage but know everyone in the watershed is affected as we witness the devastating effects of another high intensity storm. Some monitors were unable to access their sites due to washed out roads and some sites are closed due to damage.

Hot weather during the 4^th of July holiday led to a burst of blooms and the cyanobacteria tracker went down over the weekend making for a challenging week! Please read on for  June 30 – July 6, 2024 monitoring results and resources to help you recognize, avoid and report cyanobacteria. Click on the links to view a dense bloom along the Philipsburg QC shoreline; high alert conditions at Lake Champlain lakeshore sites in South Hero, and Charlotte, VT; low alert Lake Champlain VT blooms at Alburgh Dunes State Park and Burlington’s North Beach; Vermont inland lake blooms; a cyanobacteria series; a bloom breaking down; a graph of three weeks of Lake Champlain reporting results; clear water conditions; and a parting shot from Week 3.

Happy summer! Thank you for signing up to receive the Lake Champlain Committee (LCC) Cyanobacteria monitoring reports! Each week we’ll send you an update about conditions monitors are finding on Lake Champlain and at select inland Vermont lakes. Monitoring began the week of June 16 and will run through early fall. This week’s report covers results from Sunday, June 23 through Saturday, June 29, 2024. If you missed the first week’s report, you can find it at this link.

Thank you for signing up to receive the Lake Champlain Committee (LCC) Cyanobacteria monitoring reports! Monitoring began the week of June 16 and will run through early fall. Each week we’ll send you an update about conditions monitors are finding on Lake Champlain and at select inland Vermont lakes. This week’s report covers results from Sunday, June 16 through Saturday, June 22, 2024. If you’d like to learn more about cyanobacteria or join our monitoring team please sign up here.