February 2, 2021 – The Vermont Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) recently released the Vermont Clean Water Initiative 2020 Performance Report. The Report summarizes how the state’s $194 million investment in water quality over the past five years is paying off by improving water quality in Vermont’s rivers, lakes, and wetlands.

The Department of Environmental Conservation has issued a $5,250 fine to a couple and their contractor who removed vegetation along 200 feet of shoreline of Lake Sadawga in Whitingham.

Cause of Lake Champlain pollution? Cows. Cause of CO2 emissions? Yep - cows. Cows. Solution: hamburger, hold the cheese.

A new federal program spearheaded by Sen. Patrick Leahy has $7 million to pay farmers who reduce runoff and keep Vermont waters clean. Leahy also has managed to delay for a year the implementation of hemp growing guidelines, which Vermont farmers would have struggled to meet. Oh - and Leahy and Bernie Sanders also want the federal government to release federal LIHEAP funding earlier than usual, to help Vermonters struggling to pay their heating fuel bills.

A former - emphasis on the “former” - U.S. naval officer, fishing competition organizer, and GOP campaign volunteer is running for both the Vermont House and Senate as an independent. Now a union organizer, James Ehlers wants nothing more now than to kick the F-35 out of Vermont and, for pete’s sake, stop polluting Lake Champlain.

It’s been a dry summer and the phosphorus continues to pour into Franklin County’s Maquam Bay. Result - a bad odor that has summer residents upset.

The State of Vermont must get serious about its requirement forcing any property owner with more than three acres of developed, impervious surfaces (such as parking lots) to pay hugely expensive stormwater runoff fees, environmental groups demanded in a recently-issued statement.

Another plan to clean the Lake. Will this one deliver results?

Whatever Vermont has done to clean up Lake Champlain, it’s not good enough, say the feds. At this rate we won’t meet a key September 4 deadline. The dreaded, hugely expensive three-acre phosphorus runoff regulation may need to be enforced after all.

Finally, a bit of good news!