Public beaches on Lake Champlain in Burlington have begun to reopen after a toxic bloom that looked like “pea soup” earlier in the week dissipated Thursday as a cool front moved in. Meanwhile, the head of the local Chamber of Commerce expressed concern the closings are sending a bad message beyond the state’s borders.
Lake Champlain Regional Chamber of Commerce CEO Tom Torti said the beach closures were not only bad for locals trying to beat this week’s heat — he said the alerts send a bad message to tourists thinking of visiting the state.
Because Vermont’s economy depends heavily on tourism, Torti said, these types of incidents “are not helpful” in the chamber’s attempts to promote the region.
More waterways than Lake Champlain have experienced the toxic cyanobacteria blooms that have closed the beaches, Torti said.
Lake Carmi, in Franklin County, has been under a Vermont Department of Health “high alert” advisory for more than a month now, as a result of cyanobacteria blooms, and Shelburne Pond, Lake Iroquois and others have been put on high alert as well.
“At some point, the cumulative effect… is one we worry about,” Torti said. Such events, he said, “do not contribute to the positive image people have of Vermont.”
“We need to get money to projects that’re ready to go,” Torti said. “We need to be driven not by politics or rhetoric, but where we get the most bang for our buck.”
Torti is one of several prominent Vermonters who back the establishment of a state clean-water utility devoted to remediating surface waters that currently bloom each year with toxic bacteria as a result of decades of pollution.
The outbreaks of cyanobacteria (also known as blue-green algae) occur when weather is warm, calm and sunny, but they’re caused by excessive phosphorus in the water. In Lake Champlain, about 40 percent of the phosphorus comes from Vermont farms, which spread it on their crops in the form of manure and industrial fertilizers. In Lake Carmi, about 85 percent of the phosphorus pollution comes from Franklin County farms.
Vermont farms aren’t the only sources of Lake Champlain’s excess phosphorus. The element also comes from stream erosion, and from municipal wastewater, and from parking lots and a variety of other sources. But Vermont farms in particular eclipse all other sources in the state, and contribute more phosphorus to Lake Champlain than all sources — agricultural and otherwise — in the entire state of New York.
Politicians will need to confront the problem this year, said Senator Ginny Lyons, D-Chittenden.
“We’re reaching a crisis with our water quality issues,” Lyons said.
It’s not just the cyanobacteria outbreaks that’re the problem, however, Lyons said.
This week’s beach closures are unusual not just for their scope, but also their timing, in that late September doesn’t usually bring the 90-degree weather that’s proven so conducive to cyanobacteria blooms, Lyons said.
The late-season outbreaks are a consequence of a warming planet, Lyons said, and Vermonters need to be preparing for similar occurrences in the future.
“We knew this would be happening,” she said. “We need to look at this as a harbinger of things to come.”
Some political lifting will be required of politicians this year, who’ll need to confront both problems — water pollution and air pollution affecting the state, Lyons said.
It appears there’s bipartisan support among legislators to take these issues on, she said. The state is under a federal mandate to reduce phosphorous loads and officials say they are spending millions to confront the problem.
Lyons said this is not the time to shy away from the issue, and Lt Gov. David Zuckerman spoke in similar terms.
Decades of water pollution mean that any near-term measures may not show immediate results, Zuckerman said.
“But we can’t relax our efforts with that excuse,” he said. “We have to accelerate our reductions in the pollutants that cause these outbreaks.”
Some of Lake Champlain’s shoreline communities have been hit harder than others. Burlington saw three beaches close this week, and two more boat launches placed under alert, said Erin Moreau, harbormaster for the city of Burlington.
The worst-affected areas looked “like pea soup,” Moreau said.
“It’s unfortunately becoming more common,” Moreau said. “It seems like now, any prolonged hot stretch we’re fearful we’re going to see it — and too often, we do see it.
“You really don’t want to take a chance with this stuff,” as the toxins these bacteria colonies release into the water can harm children, pets and even adults, Moreau said.
The cyanobacteria bloomed during a string of 90-degree days, but it disappeared from Burlington’s beaches after a cool front moved in Thursday, Moreau said.
The organisms thrive in warm water, and the relative depth of the lake around Lake Champlain’s northern islands have protected some communities from the cyanobacteria blooms that plague St. Albans Bay and Missisquoi Bay.
South Hero Town Manager Jonathan Shaw said deep water in the vicinity has kept the toxic green bacterial colonies at bay, but just barely. South Hero would have needed another few days of warm weather to experience outbreaks similar to those elsewhere in the state, he said.
“It looked like another day or two and we might have, at least where I go in the water, because things were starting to coagulate,” Shaw said.
“We’re usually among the last to be affected,” he said. “As long as we have farms we’ll have algae, and we definitely have farms up here, but we’ve been lucky so far.”
