Krista Hoffsis, Program Coordinator, Lewis Creek Association
Gully and culvert enhancement to mitigate stormwater at Mack Farm and town-owned East Thompson’s Point Road. Courtesy photo.
Lewis Creek Association (LCA) is currently finalizing plans and funding to do a focus study on water quality in Thorp Brook and Kimball Brook during the 2017 field season. These small watersheds host many acres of open farmland and a local road network that is impacting the water quality of Lake Champlain. The association, through South Chittenden River Watch, currently monitors this Champlain valley landscape at five existing stream stations and is planning to add three more stations along Thorp Brook to learn more about the effectiveness of recently installed water quality improvement practices. The new practices include on-farm and town right-of-way installations that were designed to slow flows, reduce erosion and improve water quality in Thorp Brook and Lake Champlain. Lewis Creek Association, its sister group, South Chittenden River Watch, and others are facilitating this work as part of the regional Ahead of the Storm program.
In March LCA and Chittenden County Regional Planning Commission will be attending the Leahy Summit at the ECHO Leahy Center for Lake Champlain in Burlington on behalf of the LaPlatte River watershed towns of Charlotte, Hinesburg and Shelburne. At the summit, they will continue an inter-town water quality master planning discussion that explores new improvement strategies that use an inter-town, watershed-based approach. Resulting projects may likely be eligible for implementation funding.
In other news, LCA just secured funding to make a completely new website that will go live around March. The website will be more modern and user-friendly and will include all LCA’s data and reports for easy access and downloading capability.
