EPA presses Vermont over farm runoff
Environmental advocates in 2008 petitioned the Environmental Protection Agency to compel Vermont to develop a more robust Clean Water Act oversight program. Among a litany of concerns, the advocates highlighted poor control of polluting discharges from so-called concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs), especially large dairy farms in the Lake Champlain watershed.
A 2013 agreement between EPA and Vermont to settle the petition included a plan to ensure the Vermont Agency of Natural Resources would regulate and issue permits to the state’s CAFOs. Vermont never established that permit system, according to an EPA letter sent to the state this fall.
The same advocates again petitioned EPA in 2022, this time focused specifically on Vermont’s CAFOs oversight, alleging Vermont agencies failed to protect Lake Champlain and other lakes and rivers across the state. Now, EPA says Vermont is out of compliance with its Clean Water Act obligations and is pushing the state to improve.
“The flaws in this program are preventing Vermont from adequately controlling phosphorus discharges from (the farming operations), which contribute to severe water quality problems in Lake Champlain,” EPA Region 1 Administrator David Cash wrote in a September letter addressed to Julie Moore, secretary of the Vermont Agency of Natural Resources.
More to come on this as Vermont moves forward on its multi-year corrective action plan.
Notable job postings
A pair of interesting job listings that went up in recent weeks stood out to me.
The six-month job will run May through October, paying just under $30,000, and coordinate visitors to the research preserve.
Second: The job description for executive director of the Adirondack Watershed Institute is on the institute’s website. It’s been many years since the job was widely opened after a pair of internal candidates held the post after longtime former director Dan Kelting moved into the president’s office at Paul Smiths College. AWI leads the park’s largest boat steward program and sits at the heart of the region’s most critical long-term water monitoring efforts.
This position plays a key role in driving the research and monitoring agenda for waters across the park and has served as a platform to showcase key environmental threats, such as road salt pollution, climate change and more.
Top photo: Black Creek — a wetland are near St. Albans Bay, Vermont — shows the effects of phosphorus pollution in Lake Champlain tributaries. Photo by Armand Messier/northernvermontaerial.
This first appeared in Zach’s weekly “Water Line” newsletter. Click here to sign up.
Its such a terrible deflection of huge causes to the water quality of Lake Champlain. Every big storm Burlington dumps raw sewage, all of Lake George village dumps below the bridge. Ticonderoga dumps the Lachute like its going out of style. These are real problems that can actually be fixed. Always bashing the farms is the wrong direction. An honorable mention dhould go to the countless sailboats from Canada or from the south that anchor all summer and never go to a pumpout.
Nobody fought the powerline, does anyone think that that is natural, there is cable wrapped in conduit made from some chemical wrap, combined with an unatural buzz, ailt and sediment that has not moved for 10,000 years fluffed up. The fact that the power comes from a coal burning powerplant in Canada to go to NYC. I love these shitty articles of nonsense you children write about the wrong issues
Nobody fought the powerline, does anyone think that that is natural, there is cable wrapped in conduit made from some chemical wrap, combined with an unatural buzz, ailt and sediment that has not moved for 10,000 years fluffed up. The fact that the power comes from a coal burning powerplant in Canada to go to NYC. I love these shitty articles of nonsense you children write about the wrong issues
Pick a pseudonym please. Avoids confusion.
It isn’t a publication’s job to fight anything. It can lean one way or the other in its editorial content. BUT it is up to CITIZENS to fight for causes. Write appropriate content, and I can almost guarantee it will be published here.
If one is really concerned with large scale pollution and environmental hazards, look at the heinous Casella landfill in Coventry! The leaks and seepage have gone down into groundwater and the company just pays off fines and keeps on polluting!! All the way up Lake Memphrenagog!!
If you read many articles in the Almanac you Will certainly be amazed at the nonsense and lack of knowledge of Forrest ecology their so called experts have. This also pertains to most articles on environmental matters.
Rather than address the problem or refute the reported facts/science, just attack the reporting. Very logical. I am sure AA would welcome articles addressing all of the other issues noted above. Document your sources and submit them.
Bigger is not better. Small dairy is what made this state great.
Nicole,
I remember this very well in South Starksboro VT. In the early 1960’s with six family farms, then the bulktank was required that ended all the dairy farms. By the way, we had a one room school house, grades one thru eight, with one teacher.
My sources are Chestnut-sided,Morning Warblers,Golden-winged warblers, Spruce,Ruffed grouse and American Woodcock just a few of the early successional species that are being lost on the Forest preserve lands due to all even age forrest on Park lands. I am not against old growth forrest but the Protect groups influence and the ADK Explorer being owned by these groups does not lead to what is in the best interests of our wildlife just what people perceive thru the one sided perception of these Identities.Could site many other examples of misleading info.
We have all these species with the only exception being the spruce grouse in The Morrison Place/ Steven’s Block in the Camel’s Hump State. Their are numerous patch cuts with forest openings with lots of softmast vegetation, aspen and alder regeneration, red Oak plantings and conifer release sites. Removed only three species of trees, maple, ash and gray birch on about 100 acres. Project started in 1987 and is still ongoing, all by volunteers. Many species of warblers on this site with buffers around all wetlands and streams. The Adirondacks old growth forest does not exists, because it will take 300 to 500 years to develop and even then you may not get the desired result. The best forest for the majority of wildlife in the northeast USA is a managed forest or one disturbed by wind or fire events.
Have you seen an areal view of the private working forests that surround the Preserve? Especially the conservation easements in the northwest portion of the park? There are hundreds of acres of regen cuts there, and plenty of early succession habitat in the area. The lack of spruce grouse is due to climate change. NYDEC has a program where staff go to Canada and bring Spruce grouse back to the park. To my knowledge it has not been very successful. But your argument doesn’t take in the full picture of forest management within the park boundaries.
What scientific data do you have to support your statement that the lack of Spruce Grouse is because of climate change? Here is what the actual facts are based on the science:
From the DEC website.
“The reduction and fragmentation of spruce-fir forests in the Adirondacks (45 to 50 percent) due to historical logging and the maturation of remnant stands is probably most responsible for decline of this species.
Factors currently limiting spruce grouse populations in New York State include:
the distance between patches of suitable habitat and the absence of potential movement corridors between these patches
reduction in occupied habitat quality due to natural succession of lowland boreal plant communities
small population size.”
I don’t even see climate change on the bottom of the list.
The new mantra is to just blame everything on climate change. This limits our ability to find real solutions based on science.
Tanner
Yes I am aware that there is some forrest regeneration cuts on private land within the park. Just that the couple million acres of state land and the pressure to add more with no thought of wildlife that need early successional Forrest seems like we are not looking at the whole picture. I certainly encourage the state purchasing more land inside of the park and elsewhere.
“Vermont Department of Environmental Conservation (VDEC)
Vermont Department of Environmental Conservation is the primary state agency
that develops, implements, and enforces state and federally authorized
environmental laws and regulations that may apply to livestock operations. It is one
of three agencies that fall under Vermont’s Agency of Natural Resources.”
“Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food and Markets (AAFM)
The Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food and Markets is the primary agency for
development and oversight of NMPs, and is involved in annual reporting,
recordkeeping, and inspections.”
https://sraproject.org/wp-content/uploads/Vermont-CAFO-Guide-2022.11.19.pdf
The AAFM has not fulfilled it task of regulating the CAFOs. The EPA is requesting that the VDEC run the program completely. Across America at the dual regulatory CAFO agreements between the state agriculture departments and state environmental departments fail due to regulatory capture of the agriculture departments.
If Vermont cannot get organized to run the CAFO program to standards, the feds (EPA) can take the lead and enforce the required standards.
Should a Clean Water Act citizen suit be filed to protect the lake’s water quality, things would go nuts with monstrous daily penalties for not just actual pollution but for paperwork violations…
Todd,
Watch carefully what is going on the in the NutHouse. The 2025 manifesto Trump “knew nothing about” is already being set in motion. The EPA will likely be gutted soon, so we shouldn’t rely on federal pressure to enforce water standards much longer. As The Don said recently, “We have plenty of water!”.
Stop with the tin foil hat lunacy. You live in a democrat controlled state, and VT is the same. The state agencies and bureaucrats are the problem.
Fixes to the system are nearly totally dependent upon federal grants of some type. Those grants are not likely to be continued by the new federal administration. States don’t have the resources to carry out clearly necessary federal standards to improve water quality. State agencies and the regulators are subject to regional politics including struggles to maintain the agricultural economy and still meet the NPDES standards.
What’s your fix?
Exactly. This is why we have federal agencies. Even Richard Nixon realized the importance of clean water.
Nixon wanted the votes. According to William Rucklehaus, first director of the EPA, Nixon did not value environmentalists or anti-war activists, they “reflected weaknesses of American character.”
You may recall, Nixon also “normalized relations” with one of history’s most prolific mass murderers.
Not all is as it appears.
So correct!
In the 60s and early 70s the feds were using injunctive relief via the DOJ to enforce environmental issues, especially in interstate enforcement actions. This was the real hammer that industries hated. The EPA was the far smaller hammer.
Nixon was not an environmental hero, or a hero of any type…
Regardless of motivation, he didn’t veto the legislation. I didn’t mean to imply he was heroic.
brian joseph,
We are talking about a Federal Agency that is in the crosshairs of the new administration. Tell me how that is state related – especially regarding shared waters? Are you saying VT is more bureaucratic than NYS?? Who is the lunatic?