NEWPORT — Canadian officials are floating two ideas for the future of Lake Memphremagog: Vermont should join a caucus on the Great Lakes and St. Lawrence River watersheds and extend the moratorium on Casella Waste Systems’ leachate treatment in Newport.
The first proposal, made by National Assembly of Quebec member Gilles Bélanger, drew interest from the Vermont officials who gathered Monday to discuss the lake.
But the second didn’t garner much of a response.
Those questions and more were posed at a meeting among local, state and Canadian representatives Monday morning in downtown Newport.
Dozens of attendees came to the state offices in the city to discuss the future of Lake Memphremagog and concerns about Casella’s landfill in nearby Coventry.
Bélanger told others in the conference room that he is a member of the Great Lakes-St. Lawrence Legislative Caucus, a binational group of legislators working on policies related to those watersheds.
He said the caucus was receptive to the idea that Lake Champlain and Lake Memphremagog belong to the St. Lawrence River watershed. He asked Vermont officials present to consider joining the caucus, which has tackled the high-interest issues of PFAS and leachate pollution.
“Certainly, we would welcome this opportunity,” Vermont Agency of Natural Resources Secretary Julie Moore said in response, before adding that the proposal might be better addressed by legislators.
Sen. Robert Starr, D-Essex/Orleans, seemed open to the idea.
Starr chairs the Senate Committee on Agriculture, and he said could work on the proposal with his House counterpart, Rep. Carolyn Partridge, D-Windham.
“We could possibly talk with Carolyn and have her promote this even further,” Starr said.
Later, Lisette Maillé, mayor of the small Quebec town of Austin, suggested extending the moratorium on Casella treating leachate in the Newport wastewater plant.
Casella had been sending leachate — contaminated landfill liquid — to the treatment facility, which sits on a tributary of Lake Memphremagog, until a permit agreement barred the company from doing so until 2024.
“Would it be the safest way to go for the next 20 years?” Maillé asked rhetorically.
She said it could be, since emerging pollutants like PFAS are not completely understood and treatment technology usually lags behind. More than 175,000 Canadians use the lake for drinking water, and the leachate treatment poses a risk to them, she said.
In turn, environmental activist Henry Coe — the meeting’s moderator — turned to Casella CEO John Casella.
Coe asked Casella if he believes wastewater treatment plants are currently capable of treating emerging chemicals.
“We’re working in conjunction with the Agency of Natural Resources, and the science that they have, at this point in time, says that there is no health risk to humans or to the environment,” Casella said. “However, we are working as hard as anyone … to look at different technologies to try to come up with a solution that would process the leachate and take out the PFAS.”
Casella also pointed to Canadian water standards, which he said are less strict than American ones, and said protecting the lake “goes to both sides.”
Bélanger, the Quebec assemblyman, brought up the same request as Maillé.
He said the focal problem is that the water in Memphremagog flows into Canada.
“Imagine Quebec having a landfill where we treat leachate and it flows in Vermont,” he said.
“If the treatment of the leachate is — instead of four years — is forever, I think it’s a major accomplishment,” he said.
Vermont officials present did not address the idea.
