Paul Smith’s College Adirondack Watershed Institute Expands the Adirondack Region’s Largest Community-Science Lake Monitoring Program

Volunteers with the Adirondack Lake Assessment Program are trained to use scientific equipment, like a Secchi disk, to collect data as part of the regional water quality monitoring program. (Photo provided, AWI)

Volunteers are encouraged to join the effort

The Paul Smith’s College Adirondack Watershed Institute (AWI) recently announced that it has been awarded a grant from the Lake Champlain Basin Program to expand the Adirondack Lake Assessment Program (ALAP) and further safeguard waterbodies across the Adirondack region.

ALAP is the largest community-science lake monitoring program in the Adirondack region, run in partnership between AWI and Protect the Adirondacks. Operating since 1997, community members volunteering through ALAP collect water samples and other data on 90 lakes in the Adirondacks. The results help uncover the impacts of road salt, understand recovery from acidification, and address other challenges to Adirondack lakes. The recent grant funding expands opportunities for additional community members to contribute toward this effort.

Despite the wide reach and success of ALAP, many of the Adirondacks’ 3,000+ lakes and ponds have not been surveyed for water quality in more than two decades, and some have never been assessed. The lack of long-term data and regular assessments present many challenges to the protection of these important resources. On the New York side of the Lake Champlain Basin, just 32 lakes are monitored regularly.

“We’ve done an excellent job of monitoring Adirondack lakes at a regional scale but often lack the data necessary to make informed decisions about individual waterbodies,” says Dr. Brendan Wiltse, senior research scientist at AWI. “Adirondack lakes are facing stress from climate change, road salt, harmful algal blooms, failing septic systems, and invasive species. If we’re going to guard our lakes against these threats, we need current data to prioritize action.”

AWI and Protect the Adirondacks are recruiting volunteers to help monitor at least an additional twenty lakes within the Lake Champlain Basin. Volunteer training and lake monitoring begin in spring 2022. Funds from the Lake Champlain Basin Program cover monitoring equipment and the first year of lake membership fees.

“Our success at monitoring so many Adirondack lakes over the past twenty-four years lies in the hands of the hundreds of community members that have lent their time and energy to the program,” says Peter Bauer, executive director of Protect the Adirondacks. “We encourage anyone who wants to participate in protecting their waterbodies to join ALAP.”

Dr. Dan Kelting, executive director of AWI, says “Clean water is the legacy of the Adirondack Park. We’re excited to have the opportunity to engage more people in the science that helps protect that legacy.”

A map of eligible waterbodies and more information about volunteering are found at adklakes.org/lcb.

This project is funded wholly or in part by the United States Environmental Protection Agency under assistance agreement (LC-00A00707-0) to NEIWPCC in partnership with the Lake Champlain Basin Program.

The Adirondack Watershed Institute (AWI) is a component of Paul Smith's College (PSC). The program started in 1989 as a local-scale water quality monitoring program called the Adirondack Aquatic Institute (AAI) and expanded in 1999 to include invasive species management. PSC started the Watershed Stewardship Program (WSP) in 2000 as a separate initiative that focused on local-scale invasive species prevention activities. These two programs expanded over the years as separate efforts, in 2002 the college recognized the synergy of linking these programs and thus merged them to begin the AWI. The AWI has since grown into a regional-scale water quality monitoring and invasive species management program.

The mission of the Adirondack Watershed Institute is to protect clean water, conserve habitat and support the health and well-being of people in the Adirondacks through scientific inquiry, stewardship and real world experiences for students.