Schedule for February 2010

    With all this local effort to prevent pollution entering Lake Champlain from Vermont rivers and streams, what are the results?

    “The most recent statistical analysis is that we are holding the line,” Moore said before the meeting. “What that says to me is that in addition to all the improvements, all the implementation we are doing, there are a lot of things working against us all the time. . . . and our water quality is relatively constant.”

    In a number of locations, such as Tyler Branch off Duffy Hill Road, however, there were concentrations of 1,600 micrograms, almost eight times the allowable limit at waste water treatment facilities.

    For that reason, Moore wants another year of sampling, but with increased attention to reporting weather events or other factors that would show those wildly different readings.

    Using its professional judgment, the Center has made a short list of new projects that will be up for public comment at the December meeting of the MRBA. The primary move is to restrict phosphorus from entering the lake, since it contributes to murky water and even toxic consequences.

    Moore added, “As our land use has changed and our population has grown and changed over the past 10 years, water quality in the lake is relatively constant. I know … it’s hard to declare that a victory. But at the same time it shows that we are doing the right sorts of things and we should probably be doing more of them.”

    Moore added, “The biggest upward pressure we face is related to development, to new houses, new construction, and new roads. Actually we are developing a revised implementation plan for the Total Maxim Daily Load (of phosphorous entering Lake Champlain. … We identified 13, headings of stress, (like runoffs from development, more corn being planted.)

    There are some hotspots still being analyzed in the local water sampling effort, but past practices also linger when it comes to lake pollution.

    “We call them legacy effects, runoffs from existing developments, riverbank conversion, usually related to farmsteads, cropland and pasture,” said Moore, also pointing to sources such as roads, waste water, forests loss of wetlands, as well as climate change.

Many detrimental practices have been eliminated but their historical footprint remains.

    “Missisquoi Pulp and Paper Mill (in Sheldon) was discharging into the Missisquoi River long before there was a waste water treatment plant to capture and help with that waste stream,” said Moore, citing one example.

The work continues today and leans heavily on public involvement and groups such as MRBA.

“We brainstormed with the public and took in a whole bunch of ideas about potential solutions – things we could be doing and we have used our best professional judgment to prioritize them. We will be looking for public feedback on the job we did (at the December meeting),” said Moore.

    Seven of the local volunteer water samples were present at the meeting here at the Montgomery Emergency Building, including MRBA president John Little and coordinator Cynthia Scott, who led many of the sampling expeditions.

    Over the past two years, some $2 million has been put into pollution-reducing projects across the state, Moore told the group.

    Bob Johnson, of Enosburg, asked whether the group’s samplings led to corrective action. The samples are largely from Missisquoi River tributaries, such as Tyler Branch and Trout River.

    “In conjunction with other data, yes,” Moore said. “We also have in our department a group gathering biological data (on populations of insects and micro-organisms) that gives us a picture of the health of receiving waters.”

    That, along with water samples, helps develop actual projects, she explained.

    On average, the local water samples have shown low concentrations of phosphorous pollution of 45 to 55 micrograms per liter. Lighter doses of pollution are expected in the tributaries than the main stem of the river, which does not account for the findings on Tyler Branch.

    Funding is needed for the lab work done on those samples and in these hard times that isn’t a sure thing, Moore indicated.

“There are about a dozen groups throughout the state like this and it is my understanding it is about a $250,000 proposition to provide the free lab services to these groups,” Moore said.

She said volunteer organizations such as MRBA provide outreach to members of the public and a “snapshot picture of water quality throughout the state, though limited to places where we have volunteers.”

            Moore said Clean and Clear, the state’s primary tool to improve Lake Champlain water quality combines information from MRBA with geomorphic studies that seek to pinpoint the human and natural causes of the topography of a river and its basin.

    She added, “The information these folks have gathered is part of a larger project that is being funded by the International Joint Commission (some 30 percent of the Missisquoi River watershed is located in Quebec).

The real hunt here, she suggested is to find “portions of the landscape that disproportionably contribute phosphorous pollution,” perhaps like those high readings on Tyler Branch on Duffy Hill Road.

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