In 2016, as part of Vermont’s Clean Water Act, the Agency of Natural Resources outlined a plan to reduce pollution in the state’s lakes, rivers and streams.
The Clean Water Initiative Project has since poured $194 million into improving water quality in Vermont, according to the Clean Water Performance Report, released this month.
The annual report, part of an accountability requirement for the costly initiative, tracks all of the state’s efforts to curb the pollution that lands in Vermont’s waterways.
“We’ve made significant progress over the past five years in Vermont,” said Julie Moore, secretary of the Agency of Natural Resources, in a statement. “Since 2016, the state of Vermont has ramped up funding and regulatory programs, and we anticipate results will continue to increase considerably.”
State officials and partner agencies have used 81% of that $194 million to implement clean water projects. In fiscal year 2020, the state spent $58.2 million, the most since 2016. Pollution reduction grows cumulatively each year as new projects come online, adding to a list of existing projects implemented over the last five years.
Still, the state’s progress for the year represents a small chunk of what it has set out to achieve in a 20-year period.
Statewide, the funds have touched all land use sectors, including 90,000 acres of farmland, 200 miles of roadway and 332 acres of pavement or hard surfaces, such as rooftops. The money also contributed to restoration of 290 acres of wetlands and shoreline, and conservation of 1,200 additional acres.
In the past several years, state scientists have improved their ability to estimate the amount of pollution that a given project has eliminated.
Many of the projects are aimed at reducing phosphorus, a nutrient that is naturally occurring but, in excessive levels, feeds harmful blue-green algae blooms. Those blooms, which are common in Lake Champlain and other water bodies around the state, choke ecosystems by soaking up available oxygen, and exposure can be harmful to people and deadly to wildlife and pets.
The nutrient is commonly found in human and animal waste, so the presence of phosphorus sometimes coincides with the presence of other harmful pollutants and bacteria, such as E. coli.
The state government has invested the most money in the wastewater sector, a total of $61.2 million over five years, followed by agriculture at $48.6 million.
State auditor Doug Hoffer has criticized the state for investing too much money in sewage treatment, which does not typically yield a significant “bang for the buck.” While investing in agriculture, which accounts for 40% of the state’s phosphorus pollution, is more cost-effective, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency requires the state to continue to upgrade sewage treatment plants.
The 182-page performance report also explains how external factors, such as climate change or the price of milk, affect water quality. Decreasing milk prices, for example, mean that farmers have less money to spend on often expensive water quality projects.
Algae blooms become more prolific in warmer temperatures, and as storms become more intense and less predictable, runoff from roads and fields may increase. That means climate change “is expected to increase opportunities for cyanobacteria growth in Vermont,” the report says.
28.2 metric tons blocked in Lake Champlain
While the Lake Champlain basin is just one of four watersheds targeted in the state’s Clean Water Initiative Program, it’s by far the largest. Since 2016, the state has awarded more than $120 million to projects in the Lake Champlain basin, $54.8 million in the Connecticut River basin, $12.5 million in the Hudson River basin and almost $7 million in the Memphremagog basin.
Lake Champlain’s total maximum daily load, which establishes pollution reduction targets, estimates that 631 metric tons of phosphorus flow into Lake Champlain every year. The pollution runs off agricultural fields and developed land, and also comes from sewage treatment plant overflows and a variety of other sources.
The maximum daily load requires Vermont to reduce that number to 417 metric tons per year by 2038.
In the first year of the program, clean water projects, educational outreach and regulatory programs prevented about 10 metric tons of phosphorus from entering Lake Champlain. In fiscal year 2020, that number increased to 28.2 metric tons, 13% of the final goal.
That number, 28.2 metric tons, is a measure of projects’ performance, rather than an indicator of what’s happening on a day-to-day basis. It would take time for the report to reflect an unexpected overflow of a sewer plant, for example.
“When a barnyard is deemed fully compliant, meaning there is no direct discharge — the waste is being separated from runoff water — then that barnyard gets a pollutant reduction credit,” said Emily Bird, director of the Clean Water Initiative Project. “If the Agency of Ag later goes back and finds that that barnyard is no longer compliant, then that credit goes away.”
These findings are eventually worked into the phosphorus reduction measurements in the performance report.
More programs on the way
Bird predicts that the state will be able to reduce pollution more effectively in the years ahead because of forthcoming programs, which have already been established through legislation.
“The last five years were really the start of a lot of the programmatic building blocks that are going to drive clean water project implementation,” she said.
The state has been working with industries and municipalities during that time to establish regulatory programs that are only getting started, she said. One permitting program, for example, requires communities to upgrade drainage systems on roads to prevent runoff.
Another, the Three Acre Stormwater General Permit requires landowners with more than 3 acres of impervious surfaces, such as rooftops or parking lots, to take on water quality projects that will reduce runoff. Landowners have until early 2023 to plan adjustments to their properties, and then will have five years to implement those plans.
The Clean Water Service Delivery Act, passed in 2019, will establish funding to achieve pollution reduction in municipalities within non-regulatory programs. The law, which takes effect July 1, 2022, designates funds in the Lake Champlain and Lake Memphremagog basins for designated “service providers” who will work with municipalities to improve local water quality standards.
“So there’s a pretty comprehensive suite of funding programs that are going to really increase our momentum with being able to make some real measurable progress here,” Bird said.