Tag Archives: news

$16 million in USDA funding to benefit Lake Champlain

USDA funding for Lake Champlain

Vermont and New York will receive $16 million in funding to benefit Lake Champlain for a new project through the USDA’s Regional Conservation Partnership Program (RCPP), which brings together partners to improve water quality and promote a sustainable working landscape. The project is one of many high-impact projects across the country to receive more than $370 million in this new effort.

 

$16 million in USDA funding to benefit Lake Champlain

 

The USDA has approved 115 proposals in the initial funding through the Regional Conservation Partnership Program, which was authorized under farm legislation enacted by Congress last year. The projects selected for funding under the new initiative are designed to cut down on fertilizer runoff, expand bird nesting areas and restore native grasslands, and will encourage conservation partnerships between government and private organizations.

 “This is a new approach to conservation. We’re giving private companies, local communities and other non-government partners a way to invest in a new era in conservation that ultimately benefits us all.” ~ Tom Vilsack, U. S. Secretary of Agriculture.

$16 million in USDA funding to benefit Lake Champlain

USDA Secretary Tom Vilsack with Vermont US Senator Patrick Leahy and Vermont Secretary of Agricluture Chuck Ross announcing $45 million in Lake Champlain cleanup funds August 28, 2014.
(Photo by Taylor Dobbs, VPR) 

The projects will share $340 million in federal funds, to be matched by $400 million from participating groups. Over five years, the USDA expects to spend $1.2 billion and raise at least that much from participating businesses, universities, nonprofits, local governments and Native American tribes.

The department solicited applications for funding of locally designed ventures designed to improve soil health and water quality while promoting efficient use of water and creating more wildlife habitat. Typically a project has eleven participating groups and agencies, but some have dozens. According to Vilsack, this will boost support at the community level.

“It’s the local folks who know the landscape. It’s the local folks who will be able to encourage landowners to participate. I learned as governor that if I went out and encouraged a farmer to create a buffer strip between their land and a river or stream, I might not be as successful as a neighboring farmer or someone from Pheasants Forever would be.” ~ Tom Vilsack

$16 million in funding to benefit Lake Champlain

40% of the federal money will go to multi-state and national projects, including $16 million to Vermont and New York for improve farming practices that benefit the Lake Champlain watershed and $10 million to help rice producers in six Southern and Midwestern states improve water and habitat stewardship.

 

$16 million in USDA funding to benefit Lake Champlain

Another 35% went to projects in “critical conservation areas,” including the Great Lakes region, the Chesapeake Bay Watershed, the California Bay Delta, prairie grasslands, the South’s Longleaf Pine Range and the Columbia, Mississippi and Colorado river basins. State-level projects received the remaining 25%.

USDA received more than 600 grant proposals. Groups that weren’t selected, may try again in the next round of funding.

USDA Regional Conservation Partnership Program (RCPP) – Vermont

‘Lake Champlain’ is a new pictoral history of Lake Champlain compiled by the Lake Champlain Maritime Museum, and a part of the Images of America series from Arcadia Press.

More Articles About Lake Champlain Ecology and  Algae:

‘The Field Guide to Lake Monsters, Sea Serpents, and Other Mystery Denizens of the Deep’ is a casebook and field guide to the world’s mysterious sea creatures offers insight into pop culture and scientific beliefs, as well as advice on how to investigate such phenomena firsthand.

Lake Champlain Gas Pipeline Phase II Proceedings Delayed

PSB Delays Lake Champlain Gas Pipeline Phase II Proceedings

PSB may consider sanctions

Lake Champlain Gas Pipeline Phase II Proceedings Delayed

Lake Champlain Gas Pipeline Proposed Route

Vermont’s Public Service Board (PSB) postponed hearings on Phase II of the Vermont Gas Systems pipeline project under Lake Champlain from Middlebury, VT to Ticonderoga, NY after Vermont Gas Systems revealed more cost overruns and requested the delay.

Vermont Gas had asked the Public Service Board to delay the project’s Phase II hearings after it announced its costs for Phase I were runnng about $68 million ahead of projections – $154 million, up from the initial $86 million estimate.

Vermont Gas CEO Don Rendall said last month that the company was filing new, increased cost estimates for Phase I of the project and asked for the delay on regulatory proceedings for Phase II to allow Vermont Gas to review cost estimates for that phase.

Phase I is designed to bring Vermont Gas service south from Vermont’s Chittenden County to Addison County, and the cost increases might lead the Public Service Board to reevaluate its approval for that phase.

Phase II of the pipeline would conduct the natural gas from its Phase I terminus in Addison County under Lake Champlain to Ticonderoga’s International Paper mill.

Lake Champlain Gas Pipeline Phase II Proceedings Delayed

Opposition to Lake Champlain Gas Pipeline

Some pipeline opponents think the delay for Phase II consideratuion was a mistake. They hold that the Public Service Board should dismiss it totally.

Vermont Public Interest Research Group (VPIRG) said the board should dismiss the petition without prejudice on conditions.

VPIRG pointed out the failure ofVermont Gas Systems provide quarterly updates to the Public Service Board, which regulates utilities in Vermont. Vermont Gas had committed to quarterly cost updates forboth Phase I and Phase II after they announced a price increase last July. VPIRG said Vemont Gas had not delivered on that commitment.

Others, including Vermont’s Agency of Natural Resources, the Conservation Law Foundation and some landowners along the pipeline route, had no problems with the company’s request to delay Phase II hearings.

Solar Haven Farm, an organic farm located along the route of the pipeline, called for a timely conclusion to the matter.

The parties “… should not be held in a perennial holding pattern wherein no personal or business plans can be made because at any time the Docket 8180 [for Phase II] could be reactivated. In the interests of fairness to the parties, Solar Haven Farm respectfully asks the Board to set a deadline by which VGS must make its decision whether it will withdraw or proceed with its Docket 8180 petition. The docket 8180 must have closure date.” ~ PSB filing for Solar Haven Farm.

The Public Service Board ruling said it “will determine at a later date whether to hold a status conference, and whether to reschedule the technical hearings in this proceeding or dismiss VGS’s petition,” and that “the board will address the request for sanctions in due course.”

 

 

More Articles About Lake Champlain Ecology:

                               

 

Federal Funding for Lake Champlain

Federal Budget Includes Funding For Lake Champlain

Lake Champlain stands to benefit from the $1 trillion spending plan recently signed into law by President Obama.

Almost $4.4 million is targeted for water quality restoration and monitoring efforts on Lake Champlain; the funds will be administered by the Lake Champlain Basin Program (LCBP). LCBP Director, Bill Howland, said the money could support about 100 projects around the lake. LCBP received only $1.4 million last year.

Federal Funding for Lake Champlain Cleanup

Runoff of manure used as fertilizer rain storms is one of the leading causes of phosphorus overload in Lake Champlain

One example of such a project might be hiring technicians to provide engineering plans that prevent manure runoff to farmers. The farmers could then apply for USDA money to help with implementing the plan. Last summer the USDA awarded Vermont $45 million to improve agricultural practices.

“It’s kind of a behind-the-scenes support program that really makes our dollars leverage a lot of other federal dollars,”  ~ Bill Howland, Director of the Lake Champlain Basin Program.

Howland said the money will help LCBP continue water quality and biological monitoring programs. This is the single largest expense -about $500,000 per year, according to Howland. Other uses of the money will include preventing the spread of invasive water chestnuts, inspecting boats for invasive species, planting winter rye to prevent topsoil erosion, and other water quality improvement efforts.

Vermont’s Senator Patrick Leahy supported the expansion of the EPA budget to administer the national water quality program. Leahy played a key role in the negotiation of the budget as the senior member on the Senate Appropriations Committee.

“We have invested far too much and for far too long in the restoration and preservation of Lake Champlain to walk back on that commitment. With new federal requirements forcing Vermont, New York and all of our Lake partners to make difficult decisions about how to maintain our ‘Great Lake,’ this federal support will go a long way toward preserving one of Vermont’s greatest natural resources for generations to come.”  ~ U.S. Senator Patrick Leahy of Vermont.

Leahy helped secure Federal Funding for Lake Champlain cleanup

U.S. Senator Patrick Leahy of Vermont

The EPA is requiring Vermont to reduce the amount of phosphorus loading into Lake Champlain through a plan that establishes a Total Maximum Daily Load (TMDL) of phosphorus. Vermont proposed a plan last summer, and is now pursuing funding sources to implement the plan.

In April, David Mears, Vermont’s Commissioner for Environmental Conservation, went to Washington, D.C., seeking federal funding for Lake Champlain. He described his efforts to find federal money as sobering when he returned to Vermont. Now, he said it looks like it has been a good year. Mears said, “We’re off to an awfully good start.”

According to Mears, Vermont applied for a $20 million Regional Conservation Partnership Program Grant, as authorized by the 2014 Farm Bill. The state has also applied for an AmeriCorps program to work on water quality issues in Vermont communities.

According to Leahy’s office, the state has also received $3.5 million from the Great Lakes Fishery Commission to protect aquatic wildlife in Lake Champlain, about $450,000 from the State Department to monitor flooding along the lake, $300,000 from the National Park Service, and $4 million for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Aquatic Plant Control Program to control the spread of invasive water chestnuts in southern sections of the lake.

 

More Articles About Lake Champlain Ecology and  Algae:

                               

 

Friends of Northern Lake Champlain Awarded CIG Grant

Friends of Northern Lake Champlain Wins $50,000 Grant

The United States Department of Agriculture’s Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) awarded the Friends of Northern Lake Champlain (FNLC) a Conservation Innovations Grant (CIG) to develop and monitor a phosphorous removal system at the end of a subsurface drain on a Franklin, VT farm. The $50,000 grant will be used to design, monitor and evaluate two treatment systems using two different phosphorous filtering media for the next two years. Phosphorous loads will be calculated before and after treatment.

 

Friends of Northern Lake Champlain Wins $50,000 Grant

 

NRCS developed a new interim practice called Phosphorus Removal System for subsurface drainage to treat water coming out of tile drains. New research conducted in the Midwest shows that between 60-96% of the water that falls on a tile-drained field discharges from the tiles and at present there is no treatment for that water.

“Subsurface drains, otherwise known as tile drains, are nothing new. Farmers have been installing tiles for centuries. We used to support this practice because it was effective in reducing soil wetness and increasing crop production. Most of the tiles drain into ditches or streams off the farm fields without any treatment… Although the water looks clean from tile drains, we now know that dissolved phosphorous is coming out of the end. This project will allow us to monitor the water from 2 tile drains before and after treatment, providing us with more information about the water quality from tiles and how to best remove phosphorus from that water.” ~ Kip Potter, Water Quality Specialist for VT NRCS.

These will be the first of these systems in Vermont. Research in other parts of the country has focused on bioreactors for nitrogen removal on subsurface drainage, but no one has developed a system for phosphorous removal. According to Potter, “We have already started studying the effectiveness of different media at removing phosphorous with a group of students from UVM and some locally sourced materials are showing promising results. It is important that the material we used can be recycled into a crop management system, so there is incentive to install these systems. Flow data has already been collected and the project is underway”.

The systems will be installed in early spring of 2015.

 

More Articles About Lake Champlain Ecology and  Algae:

                               

 

VT Agriculture Secretary Rules on Mandatory BMPs in Missisquoi Bay Basin

Vermont Secretary of Agriculture Issues Decision on Mandatory BMPs in Missisquoi Bay Basin

Vermont’s Secretary of Agriculture Chuck Ross issued a decision last week that denied a petition from the Conservation Law Foundation (CLF) to impose mandatory best management practices on farms in the Missisquoi Bay Basin. The decision did, however, direct the Agency’s Agricultural Water Quality Program to accelerate its agricultural water quality compliance and enforcement activities in the Missisquoi Bay Basin.

VT Sec’y of Agriculture Issues Decision on Mandatory BMPs in Missisquoi Bay Basin

A ‘honey wagon’ or liquid manure truck on a dairy farm near Mississquoi Bay

Last May a petition filed by the CLF sought to impose mandatory best management practices (BMPs) for water quality on farms in the Missisquoi Bay Basin that are “critical source areas” as modelled by a 2011 Lake Champlain Basin Program study. In July a public hearing on the petition was held in St. Albans, VT – that provided extensive testimony and comment. Secretary Ross considered the study a guidepost for on-going water quality work, but ruled that the data did not provide an adequate regulatory rationale to impose mandatory BMPs in Missisquoi Bay Basin.

Ross concluded that the actions sought by the CLF would not be consistent with the EPA’s continuing process for water quality improvement under the federal Clean Water Act. That process establishes a Total Maximum Daily Load (TMDL) for Lake Champlain. Additionally, his decision notes that there are insufficient resources available at this time, to help the basin’s farmers to achieve compliance with mandatory BMPs, as required by state law. The full text of the decision can be accessed at: http://agriculture.vermont.gov/clf_petition

“The written decision speaks for itself. CLF’s initiative and the hearing process, in which stakeholders on all sides engaged in thoughtful and civil discourse, demonstrate why Vermont is a special place where we work together to address mutual concerns. CLF has pledged, on the record, to assist stakeholders in seeking additional resources devoted to agricultural water quality improvement.” ~ Vermont Secretary of Agriculture, Chuck Ross

Additional information, including the original hearing notice and audio files from the hearing, can be found at http://agriculture.vermont.gov/clf_petition

More Articles About Lake Champlain Ecology and  Algae: