Chittenden Reservoir Cleanup Day

Chittenden Reservoir Day set for Sept. 18

Chittenden Reservoir Day, the annual cleanup and celebration of the lake, will be held Sept. 18.

The event will run from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m., with cleanup in the morning hours and a hotdog cookout in the afternoon. Vermont Adventure Tours will give guided canoe tours of the reservoir, and the Green Mountain National Forest will be on hand to provide general forest information and maps.

Free T-shirts will be given to the first 200 participants.

Chittenden Reservoir took two years to build and began providing renewable energy in 1909. The 750-acre reservoir and land below it is owned by Central Vermont Public Service, along with the parking area and boat launch.

Besides its role as CVPS’s largest hydroelectric facility, the reservoir is one of Vermont’s most pristine recreation sites. Seventeen square miles of mountainous terrain drain into the reservoir, creating spectacular habitat for dozens of species of birds, amphibians, reptiles, fish and mammals. Home to bald eagles and ospreys, moose, beavers and loons, the reservoir is one of Vermont’s most undeveloped mountain lakes.

“I paddle at the reservoir two or three days a week during the summer and fall, and I can’t think of a more perfect place to enjoy Vermont,” CVPS spokesman Steve Costello said. “From the dam to the farthest reaches of the water, there is something new around every corner, and there’s always enough room for solitude, even on the busiest days of the year.”

The reservoir level has been at late-summer levels since spring due to work at a generating station downstream. The low water created miles of sandy beaches that thousands of people have enjoyed over the course of the summer.

“The use of the reservoir appears to be at an all-time high this year,” Costello said. “That’s great, but the low water also means there has been foot access to areas where people seldom walked in the past, and there is more litter around the lake than in years past. That makes this year’s Chittenden Reservoir Day even more important.”

Volunteers will fan out on land and water to scour campsites, isolated beaches and wetlands. Since Chittenden Reservoir first began in 2002, several tons of trash has been picked up and deposited in dumpsters provided free by Casella Waste Management, which is co-sponsoring the event again this year, as it has every year.