program again called ask the experts and this evening we have an expert on lake champlain and lake champlain scientist mike winslow welcome mike is the staff scientist for the lake champlain committee and has been that since two thousand and one and he's the author of the book lake champlain and natural history and he hails from virgin's we're here on the topic of shoreline protection and appreciate the fact that you have quite a bit of expertise in that so thank you for coming to the program and i guess before we get right into shoreline protection maybe you could just give us the high level of what the lake champlain committee is short the lake champlain committee is a nonprofit organization that's been around for fifty years we're actually celebrating our fiftieth anniversary this year and we worked on pretty much every major issue that's affected lake champlain in that time the group started off back in one thousand nine hundred sixty three trying to prevent the lake from becoming an international seaway there was a proposal at the time to allow ships to come from montreal to new york city by like champlain remembers didn't like that idea so they organized to fight it they stuck around they fought off a proposal to build a nuclear power plant on the shores of lake champlain they worked to pass the  legislation that removed from phosphorus from laundry detergent more recently i've worked on legislation to pass did to get rid of one cost for us from dishwasher detergent and limited sale and lawn fertilizers and we deal with pretty much we spend  most of our time going to base a species phosphorous management and also recreational access to the like we've got a staff of three people operating out of burlington regions and how are you funded or how selection thank me most of our funding comes from membership support donations of thirty forty fifty dollars something like that we also solicit grants from federal and state government and private entities let's just dive right into what does the development of shorelines do to there's a broad literature out there that tells us that development shorelines development shorelines has an impact on lakes both water quality and the biota of the lakes and just a couple of the studies to highlight bass will preferentially avoid areas that are developed when they're building their nests and go to undeveloped sites best in developed lakes take a year and a half longer or a season and a half longer to reach the size that can be harvested the new bass in undeveloped lakes trout receive up to ninety percent in undeveloped lakes trout receive up to ninety one hundred percent of their food from for estradiol insects and sex coming off the trees in the shrubs and developed lakes that can be as low as two percent of the maximum was two percent in the one study i'm thinking of as a result they have half the energy half the daily energy intake in developed lakes as they do in undeveloped lakes there's been a wide variety of studies showing that macro invertebrate abundance and diversity decreases in  developed lakes as opposed to undeveloped lakes in the macro front of the macro inverter or another source of food for the fish it's part of the reason that they're having less energy in intake all this is a result of having less haven't had diversity near the shoreline meaning no or very low plants and that means fewer insects coming into the water and also shoreline development increases sunlight into the water which is going to raise temperatures it's going to promote  desirable plants like al and algae to grow leads to less woody input to the lakes so there's less structural diversity in the habitats there so we definitely know that developing shorelines has negative impacts on the lakes in terms of water quality one hundred foot of vegetated buffer is going to absorb seventy three percent of what runoff coming comes off the land whereas a bare grass lawn absorbs only eighteen percent so there's more pollution getting into the lake  clear choice line has eighteen times more sediment five times more runoff and seven times more phosphorus to a lake than does the shape of what it shoreline has a clear there's clear evidence from the lit literature the developing shorelines impacts the quality of likes so it seems like it's kind of a balancing act like human beings like to live on the lake have a new exhibit here and the fish we want to have a good healthy habitat so the legislature this year proposed a shoreline protection bill which actually got a little bit of traction and some support and then kind of stalled because there was opposition to it and people have been wrestling with this question of how much to regulate or not regulate or write could use speak to the idea of regulation and i think one of the examples was in maine how they have some regulations  don't have and the difference in there only forty years ago vermont actually passed a shoreline protection bill that's similar to the one that's being debated in the legislature now but it was subsequently repealed meanwhile maine and new hampshire went on and used that vermont legislation as a model passed it and have kept with it they maintain that the bill through the time so maine's depended on a legislative approach to the issue of doing shoreline development and  smarter way whereas vermont relied only on local control and education and there are clear differences in the state of our lakes between them and eighty percent in maine eighty percent of the lakes have low stress and twenty percent moderate stress and stress a measure of how much of the shoreline is developed and how close that development is to the lake meanwhile in vermont twelve and a half percent of the lakes are low stress thirty seven and a half percent moderate stress and fifty percent are high stress and these are lakes not even including lake champlain lake champlain also would probably be in the high stress category but it's such a big lake there's other forces acting as well and some of this would be mass there if you go to a mainly and you were to study the aquatic habitat off of a developed and an undeveloped site you'd be hard pressed to find differences because their development is done in accordance with the regulations that past forty years ago so even if a developed site has shoreline buffers in vermont if you go to a developed in an undeveloped first you have a hard time finding the undeveloped sites but the developed sites are showing those macro invertebrate losses those loss of woody debris less more and more sunlight input the things that i described earlier  diabetes out there and go out and sample you can sift through the muck to collect insects you count the pieces of wood you debris in a plot you have these little parabolic mirrors to count sunlight coming down in the lake and that so critical to not allowing people the ability to just do what they want with their short when i go centrally what we have is private ownership of property impacting the public resource of the lake so not everybody is going to be wealthy enough or fortunate enough to have private lake shore property but all of us from otters can enjoy the lake itself and so when their private property is impacting on the public resource we're all paying and i think the least that the owners of the public property could do is manage it in a way that limits their impact on the lake because it means the laws don't say development can't happen they just say when you develop a shoreline you have to meet these criteria you know and those criteria are sufficient that they develop sites are indistinguishable from undeveloped sites you know so it's a balance it is a balancing act and that's ultimately what we're trying to get at is what is the right balance now but to say big massive lake like lake champlain and the little small lakes if we if we really just focus on lake champlain what is the shoreline protection initiative going to do for lakes him playing if i remember correctly i think it's thirty eight percent of lake champlain shoreline remains low the rest has already been developed within that development there will there's always attempts to convert camps to bigger camps or to get on to him and i think those can be done in a manner that's respectful of water quality  there has been one study it's not completed but there is one study of whether lake champlain is near shore habitat is similar to smaller ponds in terms of how it responds to shoreline development that studies suggest that yes it is but it's really difficult on champlain because there are these other influences we have a much larger watershed so you've got everything from running from quebec to well beyond rig up into callus down larger than anything going on in the smaller lakes and that will also that that will affect the shorelines too but some of champlain smaller base will probably act just like these small cattle ponds in the mountains just so if i lived on the lake really is how you manage your vegetation on your property yeah shrubs trees are going to be better for the lake than his grass grass does has no ecological value really if you're expanding or developing an undeveloped property keeping it as far away from the lake is as possible given a lot size that's really important just pushing it further away matters and then also controlling access to the lake so if you have one path or one stairway to the lake to a dock that will allow the vegetation and other areas to develop and grow and provide the insects provide the filtration capacity that the lake needs and still allow the homeowner to have access to the lake and i not going to help the shoreline is going to be one where there's a tree or a beach there to prevent wind didn't wave erosion of the shore so the vegetation will prevent erosion which is another form of pollution coming the shore the four development is going to be right up on the lake is going to be close to the lake you're going to have long down to the lake it's lawns that really dry they're not adding any ecological value to the lake when you think back on it when people used to build cabins on the lake it was a summer retreat they were only there in the hottest part of the season and so they wanted the trees around them to provide shade and keep the house cool and now we have air conditioning so with the advent of air conditioning people are more inclined to cut trees and tearin trees and that's part of the reason i think that the grassy areas have become more prevalent whereas before the you know these old cabins that fit in along the shore they they weren't having a big impact but the big mansions with lawns and no trees around them they are having so there was some significant objection to the shoreline protection bill that was in the legislature in this area and so the action out of that was to kind of pull back from actually moving that bill through the through the legislature to doing some community outreach could you talk about that a little bit are you involved in those i haven't been yet the there's only been one meeting so far and but there are over the next couple weeks there will be every thursday meeting in a different part of the state to talk about the shoreline bill to hear questions from the public about their concerns and perhaps try to address the concerns and in the d c will be making the case that i just did about why shoreline protection is necessary what what development does to the shorelines and how we can develop in a more benign way but then the legislature has to take that and balance it with the concerns about property rights and figure out how to protect the shorelines well still respecting those rights because if it's the end you will if all goes as i hope it will you will have some sort of requirements for shoreline bridges vegetation for new properties for trees for shrubs for limiting access you will have a piece of legislation limits how close to the water you can be in forces any new development to be further away from the water so if there's an existing structure and you're going to add on to it you don't come towards the lake you move away from it that's what the sort of sort of things i would be advocating for i'd also don't have a strong partner in a fortunate dish or on a property so i can't say that i can articulate all the concerns that people will raise about the bill but what i would say is we know developed shorelines affect the lake in a negative way and we want to be able to do something better than we've been doing to protect the lake so what are the the real key things that that from their own shoreline owners perspective that need to be protected let us know those but realize we need to do something better than we have been doing we've been relying on public education and local zoning only twenty percent of vermont towns have any sort of shoreline protection in the and so it it just hasn't work some towns are doing a fine job about it shelburne scott pretty good regulations i think sure a lot in fares burkhead regulations i don't always know how well they're enforced but but they exist there and they're in pretty good shape but a lot of towns just have done nothing and public education hasn't been a nuff either we're certainly seeing a lot of conversion of small camps to your own residences and frequently when that happens you end up with the logs and it's the lawns and the bigger properties that are causing cha for the lakes so i think you talked a little bit about maine in that comparison with mean that they've so for forty years they've been regulated and they have a different outcome for that's right the quality of right in the lake in fact vermont is the only state in the new england region that doesn't have any what sort of state wide regulation is lake shore new york doesn't have state wide but it does have regulations in the adirondacks parks as a result only seventeen percent of vermont's lake shores are considered to be in good condition where is in the northeast appalachian region which is what has been can compared to forty two percent of lake shores are considered to be in good condition and even nationally it's thirty five percent so vermont is well behind both the national and regional average which suggests that our public education and local control roach has not been successful like shores  health and quality of life in the lake and then there is the individual private landowner rights they own property on the lake and they would like to develop it the way they would like and that there are there is a fine there's a tension there there is a lot of tension between regulating anything and of course for no regulation but this is one that i think there was strong enough feedback to the legislature this year that there was an interest in sort of backing up and saying ok let's have more of a dialogue about why this is what it is what is it that you landowners are looking for a need in this conversation and how can  we how can we figure it out together so that it's not just kill you're coming down with a big hammer and saying here it here there are regulations and i hope we can get to that point i hope we can have landowners engaging in this discussion and recognizing that the development of shorelines has an impact on the lakes in just articulating given that what needs to be protected what are the limitations there is always that tension but what i am advocating for and what i'm interested in is the public side of that the public resource something that we all owe the waters of the state that are being degraded by the actions of a few i mean we go around the lakes and i can point out examples of good shoreline development houses that are talkback just like we'd like to see them but they're going to be sitting right next to some place the is sitting right on top of the water and then building a massive wall to protect the the structure that shouldn't be that close to the water to begin with and we definitely saw going the two thousand and eleven we had the massive floods on lake champlain those places that were set back from the water experience less damage than those that were right on it so we're trying to get  shore properties more desirable whereas if everybody just builds their lawns up to it then you've got nothing but a storm water detention pond in front of you and it doesn't have the same rights that i can amenity values an interesting idea so the lake shore connection which we talked about this a little bit earlier that kind of when i think of lake champlain and think of like lake health and the shoreline protection as one aspect of the lake how thank you this is this is one sort of initiative effort that's happening right now within the legislature and yet it is scientists like you that are promoting really protecting that shoreline yes it is it is one piece it's certainly the shoreline when you look at some of the other lakes in vermont to se shoreline protection is a much bigger deal there because they have these smaller watershed so what happens on the shoreline is the main impact it's almost everything that's going on in the lake where champlain drawing development does have an impact but so does everything else that happens in a much larger watershed so there are there are bigger issues on champlain than just shoreline development but nonetheless it is an issue that affects the lake and has a negative impact on the fishery on the water quality and i asked a few people you know before the program to give me their questions in case we didn't get any collars and one of them was you know is just planting like putting a berm in and planting some blueberries and not does it have to be like a major renovation of your property to get it to the level of protection that you want the well the bill that the legislature has considered his would i believe have grandfathered anything that's already existing so we're dealing with development of new properties and expansion of properties more than what's already there so that said any structural diversity any change in the increase in the height of the vegetation along the shoreline is going to have a positive effect on the fisheries on the wildlife so blueberries would be a good start trees would be better from my perspective but i think that again i don't know all the limitations of the shoreline owner but increasing the height of the vegetation the hired is the better it's going to be for the shoreline so the trees that's an interesting point too that i don't know where i have about the that the trout for example that their food source really comes from the land you know this is a study that came out of the pacific northwest that a graduate student went out and sampled a number of different lakes out there had undeveloped lakes and developed lakes and they were able to use differences in the carbon signature of trust real sources of carbon versus in lakes sources of carbon to determine where the food of the fish was coming from and so fish in the undeveloped lakes were showing a really high signal of terrestrial sources of carbon so it's either washing in it's insects or somehow else getting to them but from the land side up to one hundred percent of the food intake was coming from trust real sources and when they went to undeveloped lakes and did the same sort of study only two percent of the carbon in the trout was coming from trust real sources and the implication is that the development of the shoreline has cut down on that food source for yes so you meant to say that developed so the developer just two percent developed a two percent undeveloped is up to one hundred percent yet and  the other result of that is those fish in the developed lakes were ingesting fifty percent less energy per day than were the late the fish in the undeveloped lakes that's going to affect growth that's going to affect reproduction is going to affect the overall health of the fishery dramatically one of the questions i had here was about the lake champlain pledge and i i and i just wanted to kind of circle back to this whole the shoreline protection bill is one aspect but if we did sort of expand that a little bit to wider lake champlain there there are a lot of people that are really interested in the help you have a lake and how it how we're doing and you have to have members of your group that are working hard to protect the lake is there if people are watching this and they really want to get involved in that we should point them to your website and lake champlain committee dot org and from there you'll have a wealth of information about the lake there's a learned section where we post monthly columns that i write about issues and like studies like some of these studies try to digest them for those columns and make them more palatable for general audiences that have a scientific audience  have actions that individuals can take to help the lake have to say the most important one from my perspective is donating to the organization so if you're going in continue dorchen feel your but also writing legislators and telling the shoreline protection is important to me and we also have a lake champlain pledge which is a list of tasks and things that any individual can do around their house around their garden that will reduce their impact on the lake and things from recycling long clippings of you if you do have a lawn or just different ways to manage dorm water making sure your downspouts from your house or discharging to a place where the water can soak into the ground instead of discharging to a driveway where it's going to run off and impact a stream wash a car over the lawn instead of over a driveway so that the dirt and grime doesn't head right off into a stream cleaning off and cleaning up after patz those sorts of tasks are all listed in the lake champla store on our web sites eight hundred ninety five plus shipping it's a short little book of essays about the lake put we pull you published in connection with the two thousand and nine quarter centennial the four hundredth anniversary of the naming of lake champlain it's got sections where the lake comes from the plants the lake the animals of the lake in the future of the lake and the forces that act on the lake and then another section on phenomena things that you might observe on the lake that didn't quite fit into any of the other pieces various things interesting stuff to write one of the things that i'm very aware of we are here in richmond that we sit on and we do ski reverse which is part of  committee dot org web page if you're interested to find out more to learn more to make sure that you're involved if you want to be to join the lake champlain committee if that interests you or to just get more information and to be following bills in the legislature coming up in january we'll be talking a lot about troy and protection and we will be taking that up and if you have an interest in that topic please contact me