Lake Champlain Basin Program: Working together today for tomorrow

Lake Champlain is the sixth largest freshwater lake in the USA. Lake Champlain’s watershed is shared by Vermont and New York in the USA, and Quebec in Canada. The lake’s remarkable drainage area to surface area ratio is 19:1. More than 600 000 people live in the Lake Champlain basin and millions visit each year. The lake’s relatively healthy natural resources sustain a thriving economy. The three most challenging environmental issues facing the Lake Champlain basin are reducing phosphorus pollution, preventing toxic contaminants from entering the lake and managing invasive aquatic species that are not native that threaten native flora and fauna. To effectively address these issues, the Lake Champlain Basin Program (LCBP) believes that all decisions about the lake must be based on accurate, ongoing scientific research and that citizen involvement and inter‐jurisdictional cooperation is vital. The programme has worked hard to identify all citizens and organizations that have a stake in Lake Champlain and draw them into a cooperative, sustainable management process. A 1990 Act of Congress (Public Law 101‐596) established a coordinated framework to study and understand the diverse systems of Lake Champlain and its basin in order to develop a comprehensive management plan to protect and restore lake and watershed resources. A 31‐member multi‐stakeholder board was established to develop the plan, a process that took 5 years and included numerous public meetings. Today, a Steering Committee oversees the implementation of the plan and the activities of the LCBP.