An advisory panel has sharply criticized Vermont’s long-running chemical effort to kill sea lampreys, raising concerns about damage to other aquatic creatures and a persistent lack of survey data on the programs impacts on other species.
The Vermont Endangered Species Committee, in a detailed 15-page report to Agency of Natural Resources Secretary Deb Markowitz, recommended applications this fall not be allowed on the Missisquoi and Winooski River.
“The mortalities resulting from the lampricide applications are of great concern to the ESC, “ the panel said in unanimously recommending the permits not be approved.
“There are too many questions unanswered about consequences to other parts of the ecosystem and, more to our responsibility, to other species which are listed (as endangered),” it said.
The panel’s scientists and lay members alternatively called for an extensive list of restrictions, application changes, surveys and data collection that it said needed to take place.
The group acknowledged that its recommendations may be ignored because of the importance of the program to the Lake Champlain fishery.
In the document, Vice Chairman Dr. Bill Barnard, a Norwich University professor in biology, called the information from the panel’s Scientific Advisory Group on fish “a damning report” that highlights the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service and Vermont Department of Fish and Wildlife’s willingness to make its decisions “based on no acceptable data regarding population status, extent of fatalities, recovery of individual organisms and populations, recruitment from other waters to replace takings losses, and more ……. This has got to be resolved. It is worse than bad science, in many cases it is no science.”
Panel members expressed frustration Wednesday and in the report that the panel’s input seems to go nowhere and that a better process for hearing its concerns is needed.
“We take our role very seriously,” said Chairwoman Sally Laughlin and said its review of lampricide use raised “too many questions.”
“We’ve had the same concerns with every other application and they never address this,” said Barnard.
Panel member Ian Worley of Corwall said the panel’s concerns have “been mounting and mounting and mounting” about lampricide’s effect on aquatic life and the lack of study and monitoring.
“That’s the big void for me,” he said
Markowitz, who attended Wednesday’s meeting in Montpelier, said she appreciated the views of the panel but said she had to consider diverse interests considering the importance of the Lake Champlain fishery to the region’s economics and recreation and the damage lampreys do.
“It’s all constantly about balance,” she said, adding that there seems to be support for the lampricide application, which is also done by New York.
“I don’t know there’s the public will to move back from that,” she said.
At the same time, while raising funding as an issue in light of the extensive list of survey recommendations by the panel, Markowitz said she agreed on the need for better communication and discussion of concerns with experts in her agency and other organizations.
An application of lampricide in the Lamoille River in fall of 2009 killed more than 500 mud puppies.
“What I’m looking for is a problem-solving approach,” she said,“Some of what you’re asking is quite reasonable, she said.
Vermont’s lampricide program uses a chemical targeted at the eel-like creatures in their juvenile larval state in rivers. It has been in effect since the early 1990s after parasitic lampreys were introduced into Lake Champlain basin from the Great Lakes water system and began damaging the fishery. Lampreys have been in the Great Lakes since 1958.
Lampreys feed by attaching mostly to trout and salmon species prized by anglers and using a rasp-like tongue to abrade and eat the fish, causing damage or mortality.
Vermont treats the Winooski, Lamoille, Poultney River, Lewis Creek and the Missisquoi River on four year cycles in the fall with a lampricide called TFM, sometimes with an added chemical that enhances its impact. The lamprey are “filter feeders” in their larval stage and are vulnerable to treatment as they spend 5-6 years in rivers before heading out to the lake, said Eric Palmer, fisheries director for the state.
TFM is judged “non toxic” to other species and breaks down quickly and is not bio-persistent, according to the Great Lakes Fisheries Commission. But the Vermont panel’s scientists said there is evidence it does impact some species, and more importantly, there is no way to measure if there is an impact because of a dearth of studies and monitoring data about some of the native aquatic life in Vermont’s rivers.
The panel raised questions about stone cats (a type of catfish), juvenile sturgeon, spiny soft-shelled turtles, native brook lamprey, river mussels and mud puppies, a rare amphibian that grows to 14 inches long.
An application of lampricide in the Lamoille River in fall of 2009 killed more than 500 mud puppies, raising alarms about the use of the chemical. According to the Lake Champlain Basin Program, there are 88 species in the basin, 15 of them non-native. Officials didn’t realize until reports of the mud puppies’ mortality that there was a substantial population in the Lamoille.
The report called for a survey of their population, where they are located and research to show impact pre- and post-treatment in the Lamoille and other rivers.
In calling for a broad range of surveys and data collection, the panel also raised questions about sub-lethal, synergistic and indirect impacts on the waterways’ aquatic life and also long-range impacts, such as what happens over time when there is minor dieback of some species.
Bill Kirkpatrick, a professor at the University of Vermont, said federal and state officials need to assess the impacts of lampricide on a number of aquatic wildlife creatures.
“There’s a lot of still unanswered questions about lampricide on non-target species,” he said.
The “down the road” issues were a concern for Jim Andrews of Salisbury, an adjunct professor at UVM.
“What are the long-term, more subtle impacts that treatment of the rivers is bringing,” he said.
Prof. Barnard pointedly said it was the responsibility of state and federal officials to do the homework to answer such questions.
“I believe the time has come to put a halt to lampricide treatments until it can be shown that there is no effect on the listed species we are charged to protect. I remind you that that is the applicant’s responsibility. We have repeatedly expressed concern that his information is not available.”
Federal officials have become the lead agency in the permit application to use lampricide under a new system that has been developed in the past couple of years.
A public hearing will be scheduled on the application permit before the fall.
