Nutrient pollution running off farms and into waterways is a national issue, from Lake Champlain on the border of New York and Vermont to rivers in California. But Vermont took an approach to cleaning up its waterways that could well serve as a model for other states, especially now that the federal government is in regulatory retreat under Trump, Paul Greenberg writes in FERN’s latest story with EatingWell magazine.
The story, titled “Troubled Waters” in the July/August issue of the magazine, tells how Lake Champlain suffered from decades of neglect as farms and other sources leached pollution into the popular body of water for decades. “This persistent ooze of waste has been steadily rising over the last century, changing the lake’s ecology and stimulating the growth of blue-green algae, which can prove fatal to dogs and toxic to humans. Beach closures have become an annual summer event,” Greenberg writes.
These issues of farm pollution travel far beyond Vermont – just consider this year’s projection of a Dead Zone in the Gulf of Mexico the size of New Jersey.
But Vermont worked with various constituents to address the problem, coming up with new requirements for farms to reduce run-off. “The resulting water-protection rules have been exemplary. If the Trump administration succeeds at rolling back federal water regulations, Vermont and Lake Champlain may well serve as an example for other states that want to clean up their local waters while keeping farmers solvent.”
Still, it will take time for the evidence to show up in Lake Champlain — where progress is measured in decades rather than years.
“Will the rest of the country, facing similar water-quality crises, follow suit?” Greenberg asks. “In these tumultuous times, with environmental regulations under siege from the White House, the paths that individual states and the federal government take on water quality may diverge. Vermont, as its most famous poet, Robert Frost, once wrote, is taking the road ‘less traveled by.’ Whether other states head down that road, too, will determine how clean our nation’s water will be in the future.”
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Sam Fromartz
Editor-in-Chief
Food & Environment Reporting Network
@fromartz
@FERNnews
Photo of Lake Champlain by Flirite Aviation LLC