In the ongoing debate about allowing recreational ATV use on Vermont state wildlife management areas, forests, and parks it seems that hikers and rare, threatened, and endangered forest plants and animals aren’t the only ones who need to worry about getting run over.  The Sunday front-page article titled “State Biologists Worry About Wider ATV Use” written by Burlington Free Press reporter Candace Page details how Agency Secretary Jonathan Wood put the pedal to the metal on his proposal to open state lands to ATVs even as scientists and field experts from his own agency staff raised serious concerns about the negative environmental impact ATVs are already having in Vermont.  Here’s one representative comment from an email written by a Fish and Wildlife Department Ecologist regarding the first proposal to open legal ATV trails on state lands:

“I am concerned that development of this piece of state land for ATV travel will open the door to more trails on other wildlife management areas, state park and state forests…Illegal ATV trails are now a pervasive feature on public lands and I have had the opportunity to walk many of them.  In a majority of cases, ATV riding has a clearly negative impact on the natural resources we steward.”

ATV “mudding” causes water pollution and degrades sensitive wetland habitats

The article was based in large part on internal agency communications obtained by Conservation Law Foundation through the freedom of information process and that were shared with the Free Press as well as other members of the media and legislative leaders who will have to vote later this summer on whether to approve the Agency’s proposal to allow construction of ATV trails on state lands.  You can see more excerpts from these public records by reading our comments on the proposed rule.

In addition to ANR scientists, CLF and its coalition partners have been joined by hundreds of Vermonters who also filed comments opposing this environmentally irresponsible proposal, outnumbering supporters of the proposal by a nearly 3-to-1 margin.

A recent 3-part investigative report from the Minnesota Star Tribune titled “Renegade Riders” demonstrates that the scientists and other field experts in Vermont are justified in their concern over the decision of political appointees at the agency to open state lands to ATV trails.  Minnesota state officials opened public land in that state to legal ATV trail riding several years ago.  Ever since, the Minnesota agency has been struggling to get a handle on the environmental destruction and out-of-control illegal off-trail riding that exists despite the ample opportunities ATVers have on legally designated trails.  If you want to see what these powerful machines can do to sensitive forest habitat, spend a few minutes watching the hidden camera video shot by the reporters for the Star Tribune.

Later this summer, 8 members of the Vermont legislature “joint committee on administrative rules” have a chance to stop this scientifically unsound policy in its tracks.  Please contact CLF if you’d like to help make sure that happens.

This year marks the 400th anniversary of the “discovery” of Lake Champlain by the French explorer Samuel de Champlain. Of course the Lake’s been there for more than 400 years and de Champlain was certainly not its first human “discoverer.”  Putting aside the anthropological and historical debates, we here at CLF think it’s always a good time to celebrate the many important roles that water bodies such as Lake Champlain–one of the largest freshwater lakes in the country–play in our lives.

Phosphorus pollution causes blue-green algae blooms, like this one that appeared in Lake Champlain's Missisquoi Bay in 2007. (Image Source, Vermont Department of Health)

Alas, there hasn’t been much to celebrate when it comes to water quality in many parts of Lake Champlain that are plagued annually with “blooms” or “scums” of blue-green algae caused by excess phosphorus pollution.

This pollution comes from a variety of sources including manure and other agricultural wastes, polluted storm water runoff from parking lots, rooftops, streets, and other developed areas, and from sewage treatment plant discharges.

Last week, the Vermont Health Department posted its first health advisory of the summer, warning of blue-green algae sightings in Lake Champlain’s Missisquoi Bay, Shelburne Bay, and even traces of the scum were spotted in the water off Red Rocks Park–a popular swimming location in Burlington.

As the Health Department’s advisory warns, blue-green algae can do more than just make the water look nasty.  When blue-greens are blooming the Health Department advises as follows:

• Avoid contact with algae-contaminated water.
• Do not swim or bathe in the water. Remember that children are considered to be at higher risk because they are more likely to drink the water.
• Monitor water intakes for private residences. If you see algae present near the intake, switch to an alternate safe source of water.
• Do not use algae contaminated water to prepare meals or brush teeth. Boiling water will not remove toxins.
• Do not allow pets in algae-contaminated water.

While this depressing news can give lake lovers the blues, there is cause for hope.

Earlier this month, the Vermont Environmental Court struck down a permit issued by Vermont’s Agency of Natural Resources (ANR) to the City of Montpelier’s sewage treatment plant, reasoning that the permit–which would have allowed the City to more than double its load of phosphorus pollution to Lake Champlain–violated the federal Clean Water Act.

This is a major victory for CLF and the Lake Champlain Lakekeeper in the broader efforts to reduce pollution in the lake at a time when Vermont is exceeding its legally-required pollution reduction targets by more than 100 metric tons each year. This news report does a good job of summarizing the decision, which can be read in full here.

Instead of redesigning the permit to actually decrease pollution as the Court has ordered, state lawyers have already started the process of appealing the decision to the Vermont Supreme Court (how sad is it that our tax dollars are funding a legal position that favors adding more pollution to a lake suffering from health-threatening algae blooms like those shown above???). I hope for a day when Vermont officials will follow the law without the need for a judge ordering them to.  Until that day comes, CLF will continue to fight for better pollution control permits that prevent pollution increases and help achieve rather than undermine the Clean Water Act’s goal of waters that are safe for swimming, fishing, and drinking.

It’s our way of trying to cure the blue-green algae blues.

According to an April 2008 National Science Foundation press release discussing the findings of a Russian/American scientific collaboration, even the world’s largest freshwater lake–Siberia’s Lake Baikal–is feeling the effects of a changing climate and not in a good way.  Drawing on sixty years worth of data collected under grueling weather conditions (negative 50!) throughout the tumult of 20th century Russia, researchers document long-term warming trends that are changing the lake’s pristine waters and unique habitat. We’re talking about global warming affecting the health of a 25-million year-old lake that contains 20% of the world’s fresh water and 2500 plant and animal species that make their home there but nowhere else.

Global climate change threatens the pristine waters of Siberia's Lake Baikal--the world's largest freshwater lake. That's bad news for much smaller and less-resilient lakes like Lake Champlain. (Image source National Science Foundation, Nicholas Rodenhouse)

Closer to home, CLF has been making the case that global climate change is aggravating pollution and food web problems in Lake Champlain–one of the ten largest fresh water lakes in the United States.

For decades, many agencies of the United States government including the Environmental Protection Agency have produced studies warning that global climate change will likely make water pollution problems worse because we can expect:

• “warming water temperatures to change contaminant concentrations in water and alter aquatic system uses”
• “new patterns of rainfall and snowfall to alter water supply for drinking and other uses leading to changes in pollution levels in aquatic systems, and” (editor’s note–this summer sure seems like we’re seeing a new rainfall pattern in New England)
• “more intense storms to threaten water infrastructure and increase polluted stormwater runoff”

–EPA National Water Program Strategy Response to Climate Change

The Lake Baikal study is further confirmation that global warming and water quality issues are deeply intertwined.  It should serve as a wake-up call to government officials charged with cleaning up and preventing pollution because “[t]his lake was expected to be among those most resistant to climate change, due to its tremendous volume and unique water circulation.” If climate change is affecting Baikal, it’s certainly affecting Lake Champlain and other freshwater bodies throughout New England (not to mention the major impacts on our Oceans).

While we must do all we can to slow down and reverse the worst of what global climate change will bring–an effort CLF is leading in New England–it’s long past time to start factoring the reality of ongoing climate change into predictions about water pollution and decisions about pollution prevention and cleanup.

EPA had that chance when it reviewed and approved Vermont’s proposed phosphorus pollution cleanup target–or Total Maximum Daily Load– for Lake Champlain in 2002.  It had plenty of its own research that could have and should have shaped important decisions regarding:

• the amount of pollution reduction needed
• the likely effectiveness of different proposed pollution cleanup activities
• the likely cost of cleanup and prevention activities

Despite all the global climate change studies EPA and the U.S. Government had created with your tax money–EPA failed entirely to factor climate change into the water quality equation for Lake Champlain. That’s why CLF has filed a lawsuit in federal court to hold EPA accountable for this failure before it’s too late for Lake Champlain.  What good is scientific research if you don’t use it to shape decisions in the real world?  Click here to read a copy of the complaint and stay tuned for updates as the case moves forward.