Lewis Creek group focuses on McCabe’s Brook water quality

McCabe’s Brook has poor water quality. The brook originates near Charlotte Central School, passes through Charlotte and east of Earthkeep Farmcommon. It is visible as it passes under Route 7 in Shelburne near the Vermont Day School and it parallels the Ti Haul Path before draining into the LaPlatte River just upstream from its mouth in Shelburne Bay.

Runoff — stormwater discharges and stream erosion near the Shelburne Village, combined with upstream agricultural runoff and stream erosion — has led to phosphorus levels in McCabe’s Brook that exceed the state criterion.

The Vermont Department of Environmental Conservation and U.S. Environmental Protection Agency have deemed McCabe’s Brook as “impaired” in its downstream stretches by excess nutrients, as it does not adequately support aquatic life.

To help address this problem, Lewis Creek Association received a grant to help reduce nutrient levels in the brook and to develop designs for three projects.

The engineering firm SLR, in collaboration with the towns of Shelburne and Charlotte, the Vermont Department of Conservation, as well as private landowners, will develop and prioritize the list of projects. The total list of more than 30 projects included everything from floodplain restoration and tree plantings to rain gardens, dam removal and swirl separators to remove sediment and some phosphorus from water.

The project team ultimately chose three projects — two swirl separators and a series of settling basins — to remove sediment from water before it reaches McCabe’s Brook.

To learn more about the problem and what landowners can do to improve water quality, watch a 17-minute presentation on Lewis Creek Association’s website at bit.ly/lca-wq-videos and bit.ly/lca-aots.

This project has been funded by an agreement awarded by the Great Lakes Fishery Commission to New England Interstate Water Pollution Control Commission in partnership with the Lake Champlain Basin Program.