Water quality advocates are throwing their weight behind Gov. Peter Shumlin’s initiative to improve water quality ahead of Thursday’s budget address.
Shumlin’s strongest commitment yet to water quality improvement comes at a time when the state is facing a $100 million budget shortfall.
Environmental, farm and business groups gathered at the Statehouse on Wednesday to support Shumlin’s inaugural message on water quality and his commitment to clean up Lake Champlain, among other policy goals. Several said money for the cleanup was among the top challenges ahead.
Just last year, many of the same groups said the governor was not committed to restoring Lake Champlain’s troubled waters. But Shumlin dedicated nearly half of his inaugural address last week to improving the state’s water bodies, including Lake Champlain. While the details of his plan are yet to materialize, advocates are supportive of his message.
Cyanobacteria, often referred to as blue-green algae, has frequently covered sections of Lake Champlain during the summer with a thick green scum for many years. The bacteria thrives on phosphorus, which makes it way to the lake through runoff from farms, cities and roads, among other sources.
“The conditions in Missisquoi Bay this past summer, well the bay might has well been on fire. In St. Albans Bay, we saw unprecedented cyanobacteria outbreaks,” said Chris Kilian, Vermont director of the Conservation Law Foundation.
Some advocates say the key challenge this year will be coming up with enough money and staff to carry out the restoration effort. Shumlin’s capital bill will include about $15 million in state money for water quality efforts, he said at his inauguration, and he is proposing two new sources of state revenue: a fee on fertilizer sales and a per parcel development fee.
Another part of his plan includes slashing tax breaks to farmers who violate water quality laws on land enrolled in the state’s current use program, which gives property tax breaks to owners who continue to harvest the resources on their land rather than sell it for development.
This part of his plan has come under fire from some in the farming community. Tuesday, the Vermont Farm Bureau, a trade association representing more than 4,000 members, said his proposal will devastate the tax program and damage the state’s relationship with farmers.
“Current Use is about keeping Vermont open lands working and Vermonters working on open lands. Anything that adds to or confuses that mission dilutes the integrity of this cherished system of tax equity,” Farm Bureau President Clark Hinsdale said in a statement.
Runoff from farms accounts for 40 percent of the state’s phosphorus pollution in Lake Champlain, according to the Environmental Protection Agency.
Kilian said he would like to see the Farm Bureau offer an alternative proposal for a proper way to enhance enforcement of water quality laws. He said farmers must comply with rigorous land management practices in order to remain in the program.
“Having a reasonable expectation that the tax benefits associated with current use should carry with them basic aspects of stewardship seems really simple and reasonable to me and I don’t know why any farmer would be opposed to that,” he said.
Chuck Ross, secretary of the Agency of Agriculture, supports the governor’s plan to use current use as an enforcement tool. He said the proposal would not take effect any time soon and did not set a date for when the final plan would be announced.
Ross said releasing phosphorus into the state’s water bodies imposes a cost on all taxpayers.
Ross said the state will not penalize farmers in current use upon the state’s first inspection or conversation with the landowner. However, he said the proposal is a signal that the Shumlin administration is serious about water quality.
Ross denied a petition by the Conservation Law Foundation to require farmers to adopt new pollution control practices in Missisquoi Bay this fall. The petition is currently under appeal in Environmental Court.
