News

RACC Intern Events - Summer 2012

RACC Intern Sendoff Barbeque August 3rd at Saint Michael's College

Grand Isle, Vt - The Lake Champlain Basin Program's 2012 State of the Lake and Ecosystem
Indicators Report was released today. The report, produced every 3-4 years, informs citizens and
resource managers about Lake Champlain's condition and provides a better understanding of
threats to its health and opportunities to meet the challenges ahead.
"We use scientific data to determine what kind of progress is being made on the management of
Lake Champlain water quality and habitat health," said Bill Howland, LCBP Program Manager.
"Again, in 2012, we share both good and not so good news, depending on which issue and which
lake segment is being discussed. Certainly the Lake is not meeting phosphorus concentratios
targets, but each jurisdiction remains diligent and active in their efforts to decrease loads."

Leahy calls for action to stop invasive species
WCAX
There is a new generation in the summertime every two weeks, so population increases can be pretty dramatic once it gets established," said Mary Watzin of the Rubenstein School of Environment and Natural Resources. The fleas are about a half inch long ...

and more »

Scientists plead for closure of Champlain Canal
BurlingtonFreePress.com
Biologist Mary Watzin, dean of the School of Natural Resources, said she hadn't been asked to add her name. In an email, she described the invasion of the water flea as a “very serious matter, with the potential to cause significant ecological change ...

and more »

The Vermont EPSCoR Streams Project Website gets a new look.

BURLINGTON, Vt. -
This isn't your average sand castle competition. That's because these aren't your average kids. They represent some of the brightest scientific minds from high schools across the country -- 77 are from our region.

"It's really funny to compete with the other teams to see if we can get a better design and how theirs works and see if we can implement that in ours," said Conner Pike a student from Maryland.

The 94 aspiring engineers are participating in a week long camp run by the Governor's Institutes of Vermont. The latest challenge -- to build a stable sand arch.

7-24-2012 - ISCO sampler installation at Allen Brook. Katie Chang, Saul Blocher, Elizabeth Oliver and Henry Schmid

Vermont Public Radio
Blue-Green Algae: We're Swimming In It
Vermont Public Radio
We talk to Louis Porter, Lake Champlain Lakekeeper at the Conservation Law Foundation, and Mary Watzin, dean of the Rubenstein School of Environment and Natural Resources at UVM, and a long-term researcher on Lake Champlain, about the health of ...

Dr. Alan Betts knows you’ll probably skip this story on his study of Vermont climate change if he waxes scientifically about his nearly half-century of scholarship on meteorology and theoretical physics. That’s why he’s instead serving up weather-defying kale from his Pittsford garden.

When the 66-year-old atmospheric researcher moved to the state in the late 1970s, he wouldn’t leave any fruit or vegetable outside during winter. Instead, he harvested everything before frost took a bite each fall.

The climate, in a sense, is a living
machine. The component parts
of the machine include energy
(heat and light) from the sun, water in
its various forms (crystal, liquid, vapor),
carbon dioxide, and of course life. Their
interplay sets forces in motion. That, in
turn, sets the course of the machine.
For the past several decades
their interplay has increasingly been
influenced by humanity’s affect upon
the environment – a teeming swarm
now of seven billion people whose
capacity for consuming and emitting
has been magnified a thousand-fold by
industry and technology. Consequently,
the machine has been churning out
warmer, shorter winters in Vermont, and
measurably longer growing seasons.
The latter has its benefits, but they
come with a price.
In his address to the Washington
Electric Cooperative members who
attended WEC’s Annual Membership
Meeting on May 24, titled “Climate
Change—What’s in Store for Vermont,”
Dr. Alan Betts, of Pittsford, Vermont, did
not use the analogy of the machine.
Yet his more scholarly term, “climate
feedback processes,” conveyed a
similar impression of forces set in
motion which fuel themselves and rev
the engine of climate change.

Our environmental challenges are tractable if they are openly and honestly discussed. A heated topic right now is the 20-turbine wind project installation proposed for the ridgeline known as Grandpa’s Knob, which spans the towns of Castleton, Hubbardton, West Rutland and Pittsford.

Twenty years ago, in a flush of enthusiasm at the end of the cold war, participants at a United Nations conference in Rio forged the Convention on Climate Change to protect the Earth. This led to the Kyoto Protocol to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Unfortunately the U.S. Congress refused to sign this protocol, and it proved ineffective.

Algae blooms hit Champlain in wake of record phosphorus runoff
Addison County Independent
Although the two-year average — which the Water Management Division uses to track trends — for 2011-2012 phosphorus loads may drop if readings are lower in 2012, last year was nothing short of “extreme,” as division Director Eric Smeltzer put it ...

We are looking forward to seeing you at the Annual State Meeting scheduled on August 16, 2012 at the Sheraton Hotel and Conference Center in Burlington, Vermont.

We are looking forward to seeing you at the Vermont EPSCoR Grant Writing Workshop on August 17, 2012 at the Sheraton Hotel and Conference Center in Burlington, Vermont.

By taking a multi-faceted approach Dr Lesley-Ann Dupigny-Giroux hopes to create new openings for minority students from high school to graduate levels who wish to study climate sciences.

Photos of the deployment of the RACC Bouy Profiler

Johnson State College announces new science scholarship
vtdigger.org
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE June 11, 2012 Contact Dr. Leslie Kanat JSC Department of Environmental & Health Sciences 802-635-1327 orLes.Kanat@jsc.edu.

The New York State Energy Research and Development Authority has awarded a contract totaling $1.2 million to MicroGen Systems, Inc. to commercialize its proprietary technology. The company, a spin-out from UVM’s Office of Technology Commercialization, specializes in the use of vibrational, microenergy harvester technology to power autonomous and wireless sensors, helping to monitor and reduce energy consumption, among other applications.

BURLINGTON, Vt. -
It might look like all fun and games as employees play foosball, but workers at Draker Laboratories in Burlington are getting down to business. Draker makes technology to monitor and fix problems at renewable energy projects, from smaller developments like a Ferrisburgh solar farm to bigger projects in Japan.