St Lawrence River - Lake Champlain Watershed

[Gloria]

Here in Chicago we sit on a continental divide. With the water shed to the west heading into the Mississippi river and floodplain ,south into the gulf waters.
But east the water of the Great Lakes area heads out to the Atlantic Ocean, through the St Lawrence River and Champlain Lake watershed.
This is the direction I have been looking.

A Nature Conservancy Conservation Report

http://east.tnc.org/east-file/64/STL_report.pdf

Protecting landscapes on an ecoregion level.
areas unified in climate,topography,geology,
and vegetation.
Plan for the U.S. portion of The St. Lawrence-Champlain Valley
ecoregion.
Conservation Goals...
continued existence of four matrix communities
Northern Hardwood Forest
Rich Northern Hardwood Forest
Valley Clayplain Forest
Floodplain Forest

Lake Champlain Basin Program: Home

St. Lawrence River

St. Lawrence River and Seaway

Great Lakes Areas of Concern (AoCs): St. Lawrence River | Great Lakes | US EPA

map
http://www.epa.gov/glnpo/aoc/stlawma...e_Approved.pdf

File:Grlakes lawrence map.png - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Map of St Lawrence seaway
Seaway System

New York section and watershed.
St. Lawrence River Watershed Map - NYS Dept. of Environmental Conservation

Timeline maps
st lawrence river map - Google Search

[Gloria]

Eastern Great Lakes lowland forests

This ecoregion contains numerous rare ecological or evolutionary phenomena. Pronounced is the mosaic of freshwater marshes and dunes, bogs, and fens, hardwood and conifer swamps as well as the rare and unique alvar communities (also called pavement barrens) restricted primarily to this ecoregion in North America. These alvar communities support a suite of prairie species that reach the eastern edge of their range here. These alvar communities are the most extensive in the world, and represent a habitat type that is globally endangered.

The Eastern Great Lakes lowland forests are highly fragmented, with effectively no connectivity in most areas and little core habitat due to edge effects.
The individual fragments and clusters that remain are highly isolated, and the intervening urban and suburban landscape precludes dispersal for most taxa.

Degradation due to pollution, however, is a more serious concern.
The St. Lawrence is one of the most polluted waterways in North America, with high levels of mirex, PCBs, DDT, and its derivatives.
In spite of this, the area still supports a diversity of faunal populations including breeding populations of common and black terns, caspian terns,
and least and American bittern.
The shoreline of Lake Ontario and the St. Lawrence is important migratory bird habitat including land birds, shore birds, and waterfowl.

[Gloria]

Valley Clayplain, clay and fine silt soils of the Champlain Valley that were deposited when the valley was a large lake.
http://www.vtfishandwildlife.com/lib.../Clayplain.pdf

Lists of common natives, invasive non native and rare species.