BURLINGTON — Vermont state senators and conservationists hope to sink a plan to turn a century-old Lake Champlain ferry into an underwater diving destination off the Burlington shoreline.
The Lake Champlain Transportation Co. announced last year that it would give the retired ferry Adirondack to the state so the vessel could be turned into an artificial reef off the Burlington waterfront. The boat, which was built in 1914 and has ferried passengers between Vermont and New York since 1954, would require expensive renovations to keep running.
The company argues that “reefing” the boat in Lake Champlain, where divers could peruse it and the water would preserve it, is preferable to scrapping the historic vessel. But after a state office granted a permit in late March to move ahead with the plan, conservation groups that work to maintain the lake’s health expressed worry that the sunken boat could harm delicate underwater ecosystems.
Some lawmakers agree.
“I don’t want Lake Champlain to end up as a junkyard,” said Sen. Brian Campion, D-Bennington. “So when people start talking about sinking things in the lake that might contain contaminants, it doesn’t feel right to me, that’s for sure.”
The cleanliness of Lake Champlain is a perennial focus of Vermont politicians. And although the lake is inhabited by some 300 shipwrecks, boat owners rarely sink vessels there on purpose — meaning the Adirondack plan poses fresh questions about environmental ethics during a time in which the lake’s future health faces many challenges.
In the Senate Committee on Natural Resources and Energy last week, environmentalists voiced concerns that lead paint and cancer-causing polychlorinated biphenyls in the Adirondack’s structure could seep into the lake if the boat is fully submerged.
Lake Champlain already has fish consumption advisories in place because of PCBs. And the effects of chemicals on water quality often do not become evident until long after they have been present in a body of water, said Lauren Sopher, director of science and water programs for the Lake Champlain Committee.
“We see no reason to put Lake Champlain at risk through the sinking of a vessel with lead paint, PCBs and other contaminants,” Sopher told lawmakers.
70 feet below
The state’s Department of Environmental Conservation and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers granted separate permits to the ferry company last month to move ahead with the plan to sink the vessel. The Adirondack was originally set to be reefed this summer, but the plan was stalled by Covid-19-related setbacks, said John Paul, the company’s port engineer.
Now, the company, which is owned by the Pecor family of Burlington, hopes to sink the vessel by the spring of 2022 in roughly 70 feet of water about a mile west of the Burlington waterfront.
Oliver Pierson, who manages the Department of Environmental Conservation lakes and ponds program and oversaw the permitting process for the reefing plan, believes that worries about PCBs and lead paint were properly addressed in the company’s permit application.
The permit his office granted lays out that the ferry company will follow detailed best practices on how to properly reef a boat as established by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. After protocols are followed for clearing the vessel of chemicals, Pierson said, the Adirondack will “essentially be an inert piece of steel” by the time it hits the lake floor.
But environmental groups are not satisfied that the plan will protect the lake. They argue that even trace amounts of chemicals in the boat’s structure could contaminate fish habitats, swimming areas and drinking water — and that the plan could set a dangerous precedent for sinking other vessels in the lake in the future.
“I’m wondering how many of these ferries we’re going to sink and what’s going to be the cumulative effect of doing that,” said Jon Groveman, policy director for the Vermont Natural Resources Council. “The state says, ‘Oh, we don’t think we’ll do this again.’ But there’s no policy that determines how and when you cross that line.”
Lake Champlain Committee director Lori Fisher said that a vessel has not been intentionally submerged in the lake since 1970, when a barge was used to create a breakwater in South Hero. The state pointed to that case as setting a precedent for vessels being intentionally sunk in the lake as it considered the ferry company’s permit.
“But that sinking was 50 years ago, when the practice was more common,” Fisher told VTDigger. “It was before the federal Water Pollution Act of 1972 and the Clean Water Act of 1977. We know a lot more about environmental protection now, and we see this plan as being in conflict with the stewardship of our water resources.”
Lawmakers, including Campion and Sen. Chris Bray, D-Addison, the natural resources committee chair who raised the issue in committee last week, are not sure what — if any — authority they have to halt the plan. But Groveman said that the natural resources council may appeal the state-granted permit.
Beyond the plan’s environmental impacts, Campion isn’t convinced that the boat is historically significant enough to merit sinking it to the bottom of the lake. And he wonders how many people will actually get to enjoy the boat once it’s there.
“Diving is not something that everybody and their brother does in the state of Vermont,” he said. “So I think this raises the question of, ‘What is the benefit to Vermonters to have this happen?’”
Once-in-a-lifetime opportunity
Paul, who’s been working on the plan since 2018, finds the opposition disheartening.
He said the ferry company has taken all the steps necessary to make sure the sunken ship does not harm the lake. Archiving the Adirondack on the water’s surface would be costly and may actually lead the historic old vessel to deteriorate faster than it would underwater, he said.
The ferry company has been working with a consulting firm to make sure the gutted boat aligns with the EPA’s guidelines when it sinks, Paul said. Trace amounts of PCBs and lead have been found on the vessel to-date, he told VTDigger — around 10 pounds of lead paint in total and PCBs in paint chips that amounted to 15 parts per million. The EPA’s guidelines for boat reefing says the acceptable maximum PCB level for a vessel is 50 parts per million.
According to Pierson, the lakes and ponds program manager, the boat will undergo another state inspection to ensure it meets EPA standards for PCB and lead paint levels before the reefing plan earns final approval from the Agency of Natural Resources.
Paul, who worked on the Adirondack for 40 of the 66 years it spent on the lake, said he believes that sinking the vessel is the best option for preserving it. Putting the boat on the bottom of the lake is a “once-in-a-lifetime opportunity,” he said.
“We have a vessel that ran here for 65 years. It’s 107 years old. It’s carried millions of passengers,” he said. “And we can put it in a place within about 60 feet of where it used to run. Sure, it’ll degrade over time, but divers will still be able to tell what it is, what size it was, its structural form and everything.”
