Soil Builders - Education for Action
Explore the connections: Soil Builders: Education for Action | Healthy soil. Cleaner water. | Restore soil. Protect water. | Healthier lawns. Healthier lake. | Working soil. Working landscapes. | Weather extremes. Grounded solutions. | Resilient basin. Resilient lake.
Resilient Basin. Resilient Lake.
Resilience starts upstream
Lake Champlain’s health is shaped by the land that surrounds it.
Water moving across farms, lawns, roads, and communities carries sediment, nutrients, and pollutants into the lake.
Changing those outcomes starts with soil.
Building resilience across the Basin
Healthy soils—rich in organic matter and biological life—can:
Absorb and store water
Reduce runoff and erosion
Filter pollutants
Support recovery after disturbance
As more land adopts soil-building practices, the entire system becomes more stable.
The work is already happening
Across the Basin, compost and soil-based practices are being used to:
Restore floodplains
Stabilize streambanks
Improve agricultural soils
Strengthen public landscapes
These efforts demonstrate that soil health is a practical, scalable solution.
Measuring progress
Long-term monitoring tracks changes in:
Phosphorus levels
Chlorophyll concentrations
Dissolved oxygen and temperature
These indicators help determine whether land-based actions are improving water quality.
A shared effort
Resilience is built through coordinated action across:
individuals
farms
municipalities
agencies
organizations
No single action is enough—but together, they add up.
What you can do
Support soil health practices in your community
Participate in local projects
Share ideas for where compost and soil solutions can be applied
Partner with organizations working on these issues
Raindrop impact on bare soil can trigger erosion and soil loss through runoff.