[S]T. ALBANS BAY —A rubber black bumper squeaked in between two bobbing boats as leaders in Lake Champlain cleanup efforts explained to Rep. Peter Welch, D-Vt., how wind patterns can impact blue green algae blooms.
Missisquoi National Wildlife Refuge director Ken Sturm recalled a decades old wastewater slogan: “Dilution is the solution to pollution.”
“That’s not really what we like to talk about though,” he said. “The solution to pollution is stopping pollution.”
Welch toured the bay on a two-boat flotilla, with the head of the Lake Champlain Basin Program, a representative from U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and a handful of life-jacket-sporting reporters.
Over the past few years, the area has been plagued with smelly, harmful breakouts of blue-green algae, now regular occurrences through the late summer and early fall.
The bay was clear Friday afternoon. But greenish specks floated near the surface of the murky water, harbingers of algae blooms to come.
With a little less wind, conditions could be right for a bloom to start later that day: warm water, calm winds and plenty of nutrients from runoff into the lake, said Eric Howe, director of the Lake Champlain Basin Program. A bloom would temporarily shutter the nearby public beach.
Welch, sitting on the bow of a Vermont Game Warden boat and sporting a St. Albans Cooperative Creamery hat, said the tour of the area reminded him that lake water quality is an “all hands on deck” situation.
While Welch said he feels it’s important to crack down on bad actors, the bigger challenge is changing practices that lead to water pollution upstream in watersheds.
“I think the long-term approach is not about penalties, it’s about practices,” Welch said. “We want to adjust things so that the way we develop, the way we plow our roads, the way we do our agriculture — those systems have to be ones that respect the obligation all of us have for a sustainable planet.”
Earlier this week, Welch and Rep. Elise Stefanik, the Republican congresswoman who represents the New York district on the other side of the lake, secured a higher appropriation in next year’s House spending bills for a program that supports lake cleanup.
After the Trump administration proposed stripping funding for the program, the House Appropriations Committee had proposed $4.4 million for the Lake Champlain Basin Program.
Stefanik and Welch successfully offered a bill that bolstered funding to $8.4 million, matching the amount appropriated for the current fiscal year.
“And that would never have happened I don’t think had there not been a Republican and a Democrat doing it together,” Welch said.
The Senate Appropriations Committee also rejected the administration’s proposal to cut the program. In a spending bill the panel passed last month, the program’s funding is increased to $11 million, with about an additional $1.5 million going to support the lake in other ways, like for sea lamprey control, according to an aide to Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt.
Once both proposals make it through each chamber, a final bill will be hashed out in a conference committee later this year.
Welch said one of the primarily roles for the federal government in addressing water quality issues in Lake Champlain and other waterways is providing resources. However, he also sees a need for policy changes.
“I do see that we should in the farm bill be talking about agricultural practices that have the capacity to be better for the environment and more nutritional for Americans,” he said.
Farms surrounding Vermont’s lakes have been blamed for much of the escalating pollution problem, largely due to fertilizer that seeps into watersheds, however, stormwater runoff, municipal wastewater, and lakefront development are all contributing to the problem of increased nutrients that cause algae blooms.
The federal farm bill, which authorizes federal agriculture programs every five years, is in the conference committee in Congress. Welch did not vote for the House version of the bill, which advanced on party lines in part because of a controversial proposal to impose stricter eligibility criteria on food benefits.
The Senate version of the bill passed with bipartisan support, including from Vermont’s delegation. It did not have the food benefits cuts that were in the House bill, and made a slew of changes to dairy programs and other initiatives celebrated by Leahy’s staff.
Howe, who heads up the basin program, said the increased funding in the current fiscal year had a big impact on the program’s capacity. It doubled its outreach efforts, and expanded grants that fund projects around the watershed.
Howe said tackling water quality problems needs to be “a multipronged approach,” involving federal support, state-level regulation and community-based awareness and projects.
He sees a need to communicate with locals about the value of the lake. “Even if they’re right on the lake or accessing the lake, anybody who lives in the watershed has some impact on the lake,” Howe said.
Ken Sturm, of the Missisquoi refuge, said the area is key to waterfowl, including state endangered species like the black tern, and other animals like soft shell turtles.
Wetlands are known as being good for stormwater storage. However, he sees a situation where one of the most important wildlife areas in the watershed is receiving a “tremendous amount” of nutrients from both the lake and the Missisquoi River.
“There’s a certain point where that wetland area can’t continue to absorb those nutrients,” he said.
For now, Sturm is optimistic about efforts to protect the refuge.
“I’m sure we’re not there yet,” he said.
However, he has seen conditions in Missisquoi Bay get to the point where they can cause mass deaths of fish or native mussels.
“That hasn’t happened on the refuge yet, but directly adjacent to it,” he said.
If a bloom were to happen in the refuge, it could have repercussions for the wide variety of species that currently rely on that environment, Sturm said.
“You have a nice yard and somebody comes in and starts dumping trash right next to your house, you worry how that’s going to affect your house,” he said.
