Orleans County contains more lakes and ponds than any county in the state of Vermont. There are 90 inventoried lakes and ponds in the Memphremagog watershed covering 17,660 acres or over five percent of the basin. The Shoreland Protection Act (Chapter 49A of Title 10, §1441 et seq.), regulates shoreland development within 250 feet of a lake’s mean water level for all lakes greater than 10 acres in size. There are 58 lakes and ponds in Basin that are ten acres or greater.

In 2009, the Orleans and Essex County NRCDs launched the NEK Lakeshore Buffering Program. OCNRCD supported many lake shoreland owners in completing buffer plantings and associated stormwater projects. This work is continuing, with 2024 being a busy year of lake restoration work for the District.

We completed over 80 Lake Wise assessments including as a part of the Echo-Seymour Lake Watershed Action Plan, 12 assessments resulting in seven new awards for these two gold-star lakes. The VTDEC Lake Wise program provides us with a great tool for encouraging property owners to adopt shoreland best management practices.

We wrapped up another Lake Watershed Action Plan, this time for the Echo (Seymour) watershed. Over the past three years, we have led FOUR Lake Watershed Action Plans. With the completion of the Echo-Seymour LWAP, we've identified a grand total of 246 restoration opportunities! There is a lot of potential for us to design and implement many more projects in the future to continue to improve and protect the water quality in our beautiful lakes.

We installed three shoreland restoration projects on Shadow and Crystal Lakes, with the goal of managing the flow of stormwater, enhancing shoreland vegetation, and protecting eroding shores to help catch, slow and absorb water. It's been exciting to see these ideas implemented and supported by water quality advocates and property owners.

We are building relationships with contractors. Last year, we began working more intentionally on reaching out to contractors who work on our lakeshores. We began building a list of over 40 excavators, landscapers, designers, and other service providers with the goal of helping folks to get trained in lakeshore BMPs and to generate a solid list of people we can work with or refer to property owners. To augment this effort, we hosted a hands-on workshop in September at Crystal Lake. We were able to share our knowledge of lake shoreland restoration with over 25 contractors by showing the work in action.