Survey Says News Media, Lawn Fertilizer Reduction Program Remain Important for Lake Champlain Public Education
A recent public awareness survey found that, even with ever-present digital media, television and print news media outlets are still important sources of information about the health of Lake Champlain to local community members.
The survey results also suggest that partners in the “Don’t ‘P’ on the Lawn” public education program should reinvigorate that effort to help reduce the use of phosphorus fertilizers.
From June to October 2021, Lake Champlain Sea Grant, University of Vermont (UVM) Extension, UVM Center for Rural Studies, and the Lake Champlain Committee collected responses from nearly 1,700 people in New York, Vermont, and Quebec to gauge the public’s knowledge, attitudes, and behaviors related to water quality in the Lake Champlain basin.
In partnership with the Lake Champlain Basin Program (LCBP), the project team sought to assess the effectiveness of outreach efforts and help determine where the public gets information about Lake Champlain issues. The results will help target audiences, messaging, and communication outlets around water quality in the Lake and its watershed.
Other highlights and impacts from the survey include:
- Residents in the Lake Champlain basin place a high value on clean water. Nearly 96% of respondents agreed that addressing water quality issues should be a priority for communities.
- Respondents identified agriculture and runoff as the most serious challenges to water quality.
- Respondents ranked wastewater treatment facilities (WWTFs) as more significant sources of phosphorus than developed land. (Scientific data suggests the opposite, with runoff from developed land contributing nearly three times as much phosphorus as WWTFs in the Lake Champlain basin.)
- Opportunities exist for watershed programs to highlight efforts intended to protect or improve water quality in local communities.
- Partners that provide community education programs should identify individual practices that are predicted to have the greatest impact and target specific audiences to promote adoption of those practices.
The survey team developed an Action Index to broadly measure the public’s engagement. The index includes responses to six questions about whether residents had taken certain stewardship actions in the previous three years. The responses were tallied to produce scores from one to six, with six being the highest level of action. An average score of 1.9 suggests there is opportunity for more engagement by individuals.
The “Don’t ‘P’ on the Lawn” initiative, launched in the early 2000s by a group of local partners, calls attention to the fact that most lawns in the region do not need additional phosphorus. Stormwater runoff carries phosphorus to the lake, where it is a primary cause of cyanobacteria blooms. Laws in New York and Vermont require a soil test that indicates a lawn needs the nutrient before phosphorus fertilizer should be applied. The initiative has been inactive in recent years, and the Lake Champlain Committee recently received an LCBP grant to help rejuvenate it.
This survey serves as a baseline of the public’s knowledge of watershed issues and engagement in stewardship activities. The LCBP expects to repeat the survey periodically to track the effectiveness of communication and outreach efforts over time.
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Lake Champlain Sea Grant, UVM Extension, UVM Center for Rural Studies, and the Lake Champlain Committee conducted the survey and data analysis under contract with the Lake Champlain Basin Program. An advisory group of representatives from nearly 20 watershed and other partner organizations provided input during the development of the survey. The project was supported with funding awarded to NEIWPCC on behalf of the Lake Champlain Basin Program by the Great Lakes Fishery Commission.