CLF Takes Another Major Step Towards a Cleaner Lake Champlain
After a two-year process, CLF and the VT Department of Agriculture have reached an agreement to help curb polluted runoff from local farms.
Today marks the end of a two-year process CLF initiated to address farm runoff to Lake Champlain. Vermont Secretary of Agriculture, Chuck Ross, has signed the revised decision that lays out the framework for farmers to implement Best Management Practices to help meet our clean water goals.
The new program negotiated by the Agency of Agriculture and CLF is critical to achieving the unprecedented phosphorus reduction targets set out in the pollution budget for Lake Champlain. It also provides a timeframe of implementation that allows farmers to plan ahead for any steps that they might have to take to reduce runoff from their operations.
Click here to read more about the new agricultural program negotiated by CLF.
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Nice job, but I am a farmer and know that the new RAPs totally miss the point. They place burdens on the small farms, (5 cows? Really?). I travel extensively around the state, and know that real problem is liquid manure applied on continuous corn land. The new RAPs focus on where manure can be stacked, but only the very small farms stack. It is the farms of about 100 cows and up that are the problem. In truth, what needs to change is to focus on all farms which use liquid manure.
I am concerned that by setting the threshold at such a small number of animals, the new laws will be disproportionately burdensome to the very small VT farms who supply our farmers’ markets, and not address the issues of crop and soil management on the larger farms.
You’re doing the Lord’s work. My family used to have a cabin up here and I was terrified of this lake because of the Nessie-type monster my grandmother convinced me was in it.