The casual reader of today’s Free Press headline:

EPA scraps 2002 Lake Champlain Cleanup plan

might get the alarming impression that efforts to clean-up Lake Champlain are simply being abandoned.   Nothing could be further from the truth.  Federal regulations dictate that failure to clean-up the lake is not an option.

What this EPA ruling means is that the federal Agency is agreeing with the Conservation Law Foundation’s (CLF) long-standing arguments that the TMDL (Total Maximum Daily Load) for phosphorous adopted under “Clean and Clear,” a plan that was approved by the EPA in 2002, was built on faulty models that did not allow a margin of safety in its projections for phosphorus loading scenarios.  To put it simply, run-off control requirements for both farms and development were inadequate under “Clean and Clear,” and no significant progress in phosphorous reduction has therefore been made anywhere in Vermont since the plan was enacted eight years ago.  The EPA ruling means that a new plan must be developed using better models that take into account the numerous variables, such as the potential impact of climate change, that were overlooked in the inadequate Clean and Clear plan.

News of the EPA’s decision will inevitably be met with mixed reviews.  The new Secretary of the Agency of Natural Resources, Deb Markowitz, welcomed this decision as an opportunity to work with the Feds to craft a newer, more effective standard, so that the decline of Lake Champlain might finally be reversed.

Some developers and farmers will be less enthusiastic.  So will some willy-nilly local development boards, who see unlimited growth as the single overarching goal, regardless of the ability of infrastructure and the environment to absorb such growth.  These special interests have argued that, even though standards adopted under “Clean and Clear” have not succeeded in reducing phosphorous loading in the lake, levels have not increased proportionate to the new development that has occurred in the area since 2002.   Under the Douglas administration, this argument was accepted by the Agency of Natural Resources (ANR), and the Conservation Law Foundation was frequently vilified as a bunch of  troublemakers undermining the governor’s rapid-growth agenda. Missing from that agenda was adequate attention to sustainability issues.  

The EPA mandate was to significantly reduce phosphorous loading in the lake, not merely to prevent its increase.

Lake lovers can be glad that the new Markowitz-led ANR, under Governor Shumlin’s administration, is poised to restore the balance of sustainability in development decisions.

Despite all the inevitable grumbling from the farming and development sectors, a new and more effective plan for Lake Champlain cleanup will inevitably be crafted, most likely with the assistance of federal funding. Those who drag their feet may be left behind, and the economic rewards will go to those communities and entrepreneurial visionaries who respond most nimbly to the winds of change.