The state has unveiled its crisis response plan for the troubled waters of Lake Carmi in Franklin County, as required by S.260, the “clean water funding” bill approved in the 2018 legislative session.
The agencies of Natural Resources and Agriculture, Food and Markets, presented a draft of the Lake Carmi crisis response plan at a public hearing in Franklin last Thursday.
Declaring the lake in “crisis” — and providing the mechanism to set in motion the state response plan, which was due by the end of the summer — was nearly all that remained of the bill, initially introduced to identify long-term funding for addressing the state’s water pollution problems. By the time it was signed into law in May by Gov. Phil Scott — as Act 168 — the “clean water funding” bill had been stripped of all funding proposals and most of its original intent.
But the law did contain a section granting the secretary of the Agency of Natural Resources authority to designate bodies of water with particularly poor water quality as being in “crisis.” The law gives ANR, in conjunction with the state’s agriculture agency and VTrans, 90 days to develop a clean-up plan.
Lake Carmi had the distinction of being the first lake in Vermont designated as “lake in crisis,” following a year of back-to-back blooms of cyanobacteria that have blanketed the lake’s waters with a thick, green and potentially toxic, scum.
A “perfect storm of factors” had led to a particularly bad year for the 1,375-acre lake, the response plan said. Heavy rainfall early in the year resulted in runoff that was laden with nutrients. And then an unusual cold spell in August caused the water in the lake to turn over earlier than normal — a phenomenon normally associated with autumn, when air temperatures drop, and the cooled surface water sinks — releasing phosphorus from deep in the lake. The lake water turned over again in October, leading to blooms through November. The toxic blooms forced the closure of beaches and a local state park for weeks, due to public health concerns. Camp owners, residents and environmental advocates converged on the Statehouse during the recent session, demanding action.
“The Lake Carmi folks raised holy hell,” said Rep. David Deen, former chair of the House Natural Resources Committee in an interview at the time.
The plan is part of an ongoing effort to improve water quality in the Carmi watershed. Lake Carmi has been plagued for decades by phosphorus pollution, largely from agricultural runoff. It has been classified as “impaired” under state water quality standards. The excess of phosphorus is associated with overgrowth of cyanobacteria and other issues.
The state is under an order by the Environmental Protection Agency to set a daily limit, or TMDL, for phosphorus entering Lake Carmi. The Lake Carmi TMDL, approved in 2009, called for a 40 percent reduction in phosphorus across the watershed. The passage of the state’s Clean Water Act in 2016 put a spotlight on the lake, and provided funding for cleanup efforts in the watershed.
“It’s hard to see the difference when the algae blooms,” Marli Rupe, an ANR agricultural water quality specialist said at the meeting. “But there is a difference when we’re calculating the numbers and the phosphorus reduction.”
The lake in crisis response plan sets a target phosphorus concentration for Carmi at 22 parts per billion — a level that, based on past monitoring data, would allow residents and visitors to swim, boat and otherwise enjoy the lake. “Obviously Carmi is not maintaining those uses right now,” said Rupe.
Perry Thomas, head of DEC’s lakes program, said in an interview on Thursday that environmental managers often are forced to choose between in-lake or watershed level solutions for polluted waterways, due to limited funding. Under the crisis response plan, however, Vermont will be doing both for Lake Carmi.
The state also is studying how best to keep the “legacy phosphorus” at the bottom of the lake from migrating to the surface, where it gives cyanobacteria “an extra nutrient charge to just take off,” said Thomas.
ANR settled on a $1.6 million aerator that will continually mix water throughout the lake, preventing any sudden release of phosphorus from the lake bed. “It keeps the whole lake column oxygenated,” said Thomas.
The response plan also addresses reducing the amount of phosphorus entering the lake.
Earlier this year, the Lake Carmi State Park overhauled its wastewater treatment plant, installing a “zero discharge” system that mimics wetlands.
Other projects underway in 2018 include:
- testing for phosphorus loading from groundwater by camps along the lake
- installing larger culverts on Route 120 and Route 236
- planting trees along streams to reduce erosion
- hiring an agronomist to work with farmers in the watershed
A study of Lake Carmi in 2009 found that farming was the source of 85 percent of the phosphorus pollution in the lake. New practices implemented since then on 1,500 acres of farmland — including introducing cover drops, no-till farming, and riparian buffers — have resulted in significant improvements.
However, the Agency of Agriculture recently faced criticism from the state auditor for not adequately tracking phosphorus reduction resulting from the new practices. Many attending the meeting expressed frustration over the lack of available information.
Ryan Patch, deputy director of water quality for the Agency of Agriculture, said in an interview Thursday the agency needs to better communicate to the public about work that has been done already, to improve water quality in the watershed. One of the agency’s charges in the crisis response plan is to create a database of on-farm improvements by the state as well as other partners, like the University of Vermont Extension Service, and the Natural Resources Conservation Service, to better calculate annual phosphorus reduction.
Patch said the lake in crisis designation has been an opportunity to investigate and “to adopt technologies that weren’t available in 2009,” when the initial Lake Carmi water quality improvement plan was developed. For example, UVM extension recently purchased from the Netherlands a grassland manure injector for farmers to use to inject manure directly into hayfields, where it is less likely to run into the lake. Most of the agricultural land in Carmi is in hay production, Patch said.
Some residents expressed appreciation for the collaborative process that has resulted from the attention paid to Lake Carmi. Said one, “there’s been a lot of tension between lake folks and farmers, and it’s going to take everybody a little while to get over that.”
