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LCC March Ripples E-news: Bloated farm bill, rebuilding infrastructure

Submitted by tim on

LCC Lake Champlain Committee The Vermont Agency of Agriculture has requested a delay in up-dating their pollution control rules for agriculture. The up-date is required under Act 64, the water quality bill passed by the Vermont legislature in 2015. Act 64 called for the Agency to finalize the rules by July 1, 2016. The Agency wants that date pushed back until September.

The Agency released a first draft of the rules last October and a second draft in February, so extensive work has already gone into preparing them. The Agency argues that the February draft has generated additional comments that they need time to address. LCC and other groups have provided extensive comments to help guide development and implementation of the rules.

LCC expressed disappointment in the request. “We need strong regulations now,” said Executive Director Lori Fisher. "The delay means another growing season will pass before agriculture adopts better practices to protect water quality."

 

Lake Champlain Committee

March Ripples E-news
 

The Farm Bill – A Big Bloated Sprawling Mess

Marion Nestle, Professor of Nutrition, Food Studies, and Public Health at New York University, decided to teach a course on the Farm Bill. The Farm Bill is the primary agricultural and food policy tool for the United States. Read more...
 

Ag Rules on Hold

The Vermont Agency of Agriculture has requested a delay in up-dating their pollution control rules for agriculture. The up-date is required under Act 64, the water quality bill passed by the Vermont legislature in 2015. Read more...
 

Flint, MI – A Call to Rebuild America

We take clean drinking water for granted, but recent problems in Flint, Michigan are a reminder of how precious it really is. It has only been about 100 years that we could trust the water coming from taps to not make us sick, a threat many parts of the world still face. Read more...

Lake Look: How did we get where we are?

Lake Champlain does not meet water quality standards. Every year, blue-green algae blooms plague northeastern bays and pop up in other places around the lake. Conditions have sparked outrage and led to new regulations on farms, municipalities, and developers. Read more...

Wanted: Photos and Tales from the Trail

We're at work on the 2016 edition of the Trail guide and other Trail promotional materials. If you have pictures and stories from your 2015 water outings that you haven't shared yet, we'd love to see and hear them. Read more...

Nature Note – Pogo sticking on the water surface

The world is a different place when you’re small. As an example, consider how insects interact with the surface tension of water compared to a person. Surface tension is the property of the surface of a liquid that allows it to resist an external force, due to the cohesive nature of its molecules. Read more...

Upcoming Events
 

April Stools' Day -
St. Albans

April 1, 10 AM - Noon
at Taylor Park in St. Albans

Help scoop the poop on April Stools' Day! Meet for "doo-ty" at the fountain at the southwest corner of the park off of Main Street. Pet poop that's not picked up sends nutrients and bacteria into our waterways. Join a community effort to clean up parks, sidewalks and trails to protect our waters. Read more...

Additional April
Stools' Days

Stay tuned for additional clean-up days in April and May. Contact LCC to help organize a clean-up in your community or initiate some spring cleaning on your own. Whenever you have time, head out to your favorite park, trail or neighborhood with gloves, plastic bags and a sturdy trowel and help scoop the poop.  Read more...

Cat Walk for Water

April 13, 7 PM
at ArtsRiot in Burlington

Eco-conscious couture will rock the runway and raise funds for LCC's water work!

Join in a fun night of music, fashion and hair with flair in support of a good cause at AVEDA's Catwalk for Water on Wednesday, April 13, at Arts Riot, 400 Pine Street in Burlington. Doors open at 6 PM and the cat walk starts at 7 PM. Tickets are $10 in advance (at O'briens Aveda Institutes and online) and $15 at the door. Read more...

Friday Bird Walks

8 - 9 AM
at Burlington's Oakledge Park every Friday in May

Celebrate spring on weekly, free bird walks with the Lake Champlain Committee (LCC). Pick up tips to recognize the avian creatures that pass through and inhabit our region and learn how they rely on the lake. Read more...

Water News from Near and Far
 

Supreme Court Refuses to Hear Chesapeake Clean-up Challenge

For five years the Farm Bureau has been seeking to block the implementation of an ambitious Chesapeake Bay clean-up effort developed by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). They have argued that EPA exceeded its authority in developing the plan and that clean-up efforts needed to be left to the states. Read more...

PBDE Levels Increase in Lake Erie Smallmouth

Polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDEs) are flame retardants that were commonly used in furniture, electronics, construction materials and textiles. Production of the chemicals was discontinued in 2013, yet they persist in the environment. Read more...

SolarBees Fail to Prevent Algae Blooms in North Carolina Lake

People are always searching for engineered solutions to prevent blue-green algae blooms. One such idea is installation of solar powered water circulators, commercially called SolarBees. The idea is that circulating water will prevent the development of blooms. Read more...

Record Low Levels of Arctic Sea Ice

Arctic sea ice usually hits its maximum around mid-March. For the second year in a row, that maximum was smaller. The peak was 5,000 square miles smaller than last year’s low maximum and 431,000 square miles lower than the average peak between 1981 and 2010. Read more...
 

Twenty New Fish Species Found in Australia

There’s so much about the natural world we still don’t know. Field biologists in Australia discovered twenty new species of fish in nine months of fieldwork between 2012 and 2014. They sampled just 17 rivers in the province of Kimberley, a region in northwestern Australia on the Indian Ocean. Read more...