BURLINGTON — After state lawmakers determined there was little they could do to stall the scuttling of a century-old ferry in Lake Champlain, two conservation groups are asking a court to revoke a state-granted permit that would allow that plan to proceed.
If upheld, an appeal filed Friday in the environmental division of the Vermont Superior Court would revoke a permit granted by the Vermont Agency of Natural Resources to the Lake Champlain Ferry Company. The permit gives the company permission to sink the M.V. Adirondack a mile off the Burlington waterfront. The vessel has carried passengers between Vermont and New York since 1954.
The Vermont Natural Resources Council and the Lake Champlain Committee filed the appeal notice. After a notice period of 20-30 days, the two groups will present their arguments against the permit to the court, according to Jon Groveman, Natural Resources Council policy director.
Groveman said in an interview Friday that the appeal will question the permit’s determination that the sinking of the Adirondack falls within “the public good” of Lake Champlain as defined by state law.
“I don’t think this meets the public good,” Groveman said. “And if you meet the public good test, then you have to show that there won’t be adverse effects of a plan like this. And we’ll be raising in court points that are wrong about the potential adverse effects on water quality and boating in particular.”
The Lake Champlain Ferry Company’s plan to “reef” the ferry in the lake originated in 2018 but first drew attention in March 2020 during the public comment period for the permit request. The ferry company did not immediately return a request for comment Friday evening.
The 107-year-old vessel would be costly to preserve above the water and costlier to keep running, the company has argued, and sinking it to the bottom of the lake offers a chance to preserve it for divers to peruse. The state’s diving community lauds the plan as a way to fashion Burlington into a newly popular freshwater diving destination.
But after the natural resources agency’s Department of Environmental Conservation granted the ferry company the permit last month, conservationists cried foul on the plan’s potential to harm Lake Champlain’s underwater ecosystems. Their protests drew support from some lawmakers in the Vermont Senate Committee on Natural Resources and Energy.
Lawmakers and the conservation groups were worried about trace amounts of cancer-causing polychlorinated biphenyls and lead paint from the vessel.
This week, the natural resources committee drafted a proposal that would establish parameters around how and when to sink vessels in Lake Champlain in the future. Through discussions, the panel had determined that taking legislative action against a previously granted permit, such as the one given to the Lake Champlain Ferry Company, would violate state law.
“We weren’t satisfied with the current law because it didn’t address this situation. But we needed to work looking forward, not looking back,” said Sen. Chris Bray, D-Addison, the natural resources committee chair.
In contrast to the legislative proposal, the permit appeal’s backers say their effort constitutes an immediate way to stall a plan that would itself set a harmful precedent for the lake’s future health if it were to move forward.
“We don’t need to sink a steel-hulled vessel in outer Burlington harbor in order to create additional underwater historic preserves,” Lake Champlain Committee Director Lori Fisher said.
Oliver Pierson, director of the Department of Environmental Conservation’s Lakes and Ponds Division, which granted the Adirondack permit, previously told VTDigger that his office determined through the permitting process that the boat would essentially be “an inert piece of steel” by the time it reaches the lake bottom.
The boat will undergo another state inspection to ensure it meets EPA standards for PCB and lead paint levels before the reefing plan can earn the final approval from the state Agency of Natural Resources, according to Pierson.
The environmental groups “are fully within their rights to submit an appeal, and now this in the hands of the environmental court,” Pierson said Friday.
