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Report On State Of Lake Champlain Issued

Lake Champlain Basin Program

Every three years the Lake Champlain Basin Program releases a report assessing the quality of Lake Champlain’s waters.  The latest report indicates that despite continued efforts to lower phosphorus levels, they continue to increase.

The 36-page State of the Lake reportassesses phosphorus, human health and toxins, aquatic invasives, flooding risks and the impact of climate change on the 100-mile long lake.  It includes an Ecosystem Indicators Scorecard intended to provide an objective summary of the present-day condition of Lake Champlain.

Lake Champlain Basin Program Director Bill Howland notes that it attempts to  answer the most frequently asked questions.  He says the biggest question is also the most complicated:  is the lake getting better or worse?     “Although the water quality trends in the lake are a cause for concern it’s important to know that more than 85 percent of Lake Champlain’s water is consistently excellent. Another 13 percent is usually in very good condition. The remaining 2 percent of the lake has conditions that are seasonally alarming. The most compromised parts of the lake are St. Albans Bay and Mississquoi Bay. That’s no surprise. Where excessive nutrients cause algae blooms.  Also the southern part of the lake tends to be muddy and has also high phosphorus levels.”

The report delineates water quality in the five sections of Lake Champlain. Howland says phosphorus is increasing in all areas of the lake.   “Unfortunately there’s no significant in-lake reductions of phosphorus  concentrations in any part of Lake Champlain.  We have turned the corner in what some of the tributaries are bringing into the lake.”

Vermont DEC Director of the Watershed Management Division Pete LaFlamme found no surprises in the report.   “The takeaway is there are a lot of challenges. One of the largest being the precipitation driven, or so-called non-point source, run off.  Run off from farms, from urban areas, from forests, from roads.  It’s no longer limited to what are referred to as point sources, the wastewater treatment facilities, which the report shows are a very small percentage of the total load. It’s everything else. It’s the watershed as a whole where that work needs to be done.”

Lake Champlain Committee Staff Scientist Mike Winslow finds both positives and negatives throughout the State of the Lake report.  What concerns him is that while phosphorus has long been the focus, new threats to the lake ecosystem are emerging.   “I’m nervous now about nitrogen.  There’s more research coming out of the Great Lakes about the role nitrogen might be playing in ways that we hadn’t anticipated.  The other thing that’s a challenge is invasive species. We’ve got more measureable changes in the lake as a result of alewives and zebra mussels than anything else.”

Vermont Governor Peter Shumlin just signed the state’s new Water Quality Act.  Winslow says it’s designed to provide $7 to 10 million in funding for additional regulatory authority and manpower to address water quality.   “The big step forward is providing more boots on the ground to do enforcement actions to provide education and outreach.  It’s something that’s really been lacking. The water quality bill creates a framework to keep that going.  There’s a lot of other things in there that will be improvements – new municipal stormwater, builds for roads and such.  A lot of those are tweaks. The big news is the increase in funding.”

The Basin Program’s Bill Howland admonished that everyone is responsible for the state of Lake Champlain.   “If there is a smoking gun it’s all of us. All of us!  We all are part of the landscape and we all are who is going to have to clean up the lake. When there is legislation that provides money, state or federal or local, to clean up Lake Champlain I have a kind of an anxiety that we are going to as a culture think that once we pull the money together all we have to do is go out and spend it and buy a clean lake.  It’s not going to work that way. It’s only going to happen when everybody pitches in to clean up.”

Over 50 technical experts worked with the Lake Champlain Basin Program on the State of the Lake report.

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