[T]he state’s Agriculture Agency this week finished removing phosphorus-laden sludge from a pond in the Lake Carmi watershed and said the move would slightly but meaningfully improve the lake’s condition.
Lake Carmi is in the throes of a toxic bacterial bloom, caused by excessive phosphorus from nearby farms, that has turned much of the water green and unsafe for recreation.
Nearby residents have grown frustrated with what they say is an inadequate response from the state.
In a sign of escalating tensions, regulators were criticized for bringing armed officers to control a small meeting last week on Lake Carmi’s water quality.
The sludge removal will make a small but important contribution to reducing the severity and frequency of future bacterial blooms, state officials say.
“It’s a project we believe will help improve the water quality of Lake Carmi,” said Anson Tebbetts, secretary of the Agency of Agriculture, Food and Markets. “We’ve had a lot of meetings, but this is actual action on the ground.”
The sludge will be spread on farm fields more than 800 feet from Lake Carmi, and pollutants will be broken down by organisms in the soil, said John Roberts, a water quality specialist at the Agency of Agriculture.
Clean-water advocates welcomed the news but said it falls dramatically short of what’s needed to make the lake safe.
“What’s happening in Lake Carmi right now is an environmental tragedy,” said Chris Kilian, director of Vermont’s chapter of the Conservation Law Foundation. The group has repeatedly sued the state, accusing it of failing to maintain Vermont’s public waters.
“We need comprehensive action to stop the pollution,” Kilian said. “We’ve known for a long time where it’s from. It’s unfair to tell (nearby residents) that it’s going to take decades to correct it.”
The state has been under a federal order since 2009 to dramatically reduce the amount of phosphorus from nearby farms that pollutes Lake Carmi. These farms — Roberts estimated they number in the single digits — contribute 85 percent of the phosphorus responsible for annual toxic cyanobacteria outbreaks.
Contractors removed 140,000 gallons of polluted water and eight truckloads of sludge from the pond, which measures 120 feet by 14 feet. The pond was as deep as 4 feet in spots, Roberts said.
The work cost $60,000, all of which was paid for by the state, Roberts said. It took more than two years to persuade the farmer who owns the pond to allow the work, he said.
“We’ve been working with this farmer to persuade him to let us drain and clean the pond,” Roberts said. “There was some indication that maybe the high phosphorus was from manure that had been stacked above the pond in years past.”
Roberts described both the volume of water and the amount of sludge as “modest” — especially in comparison to a manure pit, which can contain hundreds of truckloads of sludge.
“In the great realm of things, in the great realm of manure pits that hold over a million gallons — I don’t know the phosphorus content of a manure pit, but my educated guess would say it’s way higher than this pond was — we’ve made, hopefully, all of this is a bit of a guessing game to a degree, but my educated guess is that long-term we’ve done a benefit to Lake Carmi by removing what was a significant source of phosphorus,” Roberts said.
Manure pits, barns, silos and other farm structures are exempt from the state’s land-use law, Act 250, which applies to almost all other types of large-scale development in Vermont.
Legislators on Wednesday asked the Agency of Agriculture and the Agency of Natural Resources to write a report explaining whether the agriculture exemption from state land-use rules contributes to the phosphorus pollution that impairs Lake Carmi, Lake Champlain and other Vermont water bodies.
“I don’t know for sure, but I’m inclined to think that all these exemptions … have contributed,” said Sen. Brian Campion, D-Bennington. Campion sits on a committee charged earlier this year with evaluating Act 250’s effectiveness and suggesting improvements.
Lake Carmi’s condition is worse this year than perhaps at any point in its history, Roberts said. The lake bloomed with cyanobacteria to the point that authorities issued a “high alert” and closed it to swimming in mid-August. The lake’s high alert status had not let up as of Sunday, according to the state Department of Health cyanobacteria tracker website.
Residents near the lake say authorities give special treatment to the worst polluters.
