[T]he Conservation Law Foundation has given the state of Vermont a D+ for poor progress toward a cleanup of Lake Champlain. Issuing its annual Lake Champlain Report Card on Monday, the environmental watchdog said, “The near-failing grade is the result of a consistent pattern of missed deadlines, weak treatment standards and a lack of investment in clean-up programs.”
The foundation’s grade is in marked contrast to the self-evaluation by Anson Tebbetts, the state secretary of Agriculture, Food and Markets, who issued a statement earlier in April saying the state had been given “all A’s” for its efforts so far, by the Environmental Protection Agency.
The EPA report card, issued in early April, in fact gave Vermont only a “provisional pass” because the state had not yet reached a number of milestones the EPA had set in its pollution reduction order for Lake Champlain. They included long-term funding for clean water as well as plans for treating stormwater runoff in certain cities and towns and from large-area developments.
The EPA issued an order to limit additional phosphorus pollution in Lake Champlain in 2016, following the passage of Act 64, Vermont’s Clean Water Act. To comply with the EPA order, the state must report annually to the EPA on its progress toward achieving the limits, referred to as the Total Maximum Daily Load.
Instead of A’s the EPA gave the state one year to fulfill three conditions of the federal pollution-reduction order that are currently overdue.
Missed deadlines also figured in the Conservation Law Foundation’s report card, in particular the state’s failure to come up with long-term funding, which the EPA had ordered by the end of 2017. For this failure the state received an F.
The CLF is backing S.260, the bill currently before the Vermont Legislature, committing to identifying long-term funding.
The grades, in what can only be described as a terrible report card, include the following:
- F for failing to meet the end-2017 deadline to identify a source of long-term funding.
- F for failing to meet another December 2017 deadline, to establish a permit for stormwater runoff from large paved areas, such as parking lots. Not only did the state fail to establish the permit, it sought to weaken the standards for treating water pollution in some parts of the state.
- D- for failing to update the existing permit for how certain cities and towns handle stormwater runoff and sewage.
- D for completing three months after the deadline regulations governing Required Agricultural Practices, another requirement of the TMDL, and failing to include important protections for the state’s public waters, such as pollution-management plans for farms.
- D for failing to establish rules for pipes aiding in subsurface drainage from farm fields.
- D for failing to update in a timely fashion an agreement reached by the Agency of Natural Resources and the Agency of Agriculture, Food and Markets for managing agricultural runoff.
There were also some C’s and B’s, the latter for rules addressing the release of raw sewage into Lake Champlain. There is a rule in place, but it doesn’t go far enough, the report said. Other B’s are for the development of a tracking and reporting system for lake pollution limits, which was described as “a helpful tool” but also insufficient, and the development of a permit for managing stormwater runoff from city and town roads.
“Getting to clean water is about more than just checking off boxes on a list,” the CLF said in a statement released with the report card. “Successful clean-up relies on effectively-run programs and stringent permit requirements.”
The CLF statement said the foundation will be closely tracking the state’s progress. “We’re not just looking at the milestones required in the TMDL, however, but also the promises made in the Vermont Clean Water Act – all through the lens of whether the State’s actions measure up with current science-based solutions for how to combat water pollution,” the statement said.
“While the State has indeed made progress in some areas, it is failing in far too many others. Those failures are putting the entire lake at continued risk.”
“Vermonters deserve a safe Lake Champlain, and the state must drastically improve its cleanup efforts,” said the foundation’s Lake Champlain lakekeeper, Rebekah Weber. “Toxic blue-green algae threatens both the health of the lake and the people who enjoy it. Our elected officials must pass legislation that invests in this iconic resource.”
