Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Senator Russ Ingalls (Chair)]: Good afternoon or good morning still. It is morning. We are back from a short break. We're going to talk about a lot of concerns about what Lake Champlain and people who are advocating for the help of, which we all believe that we should have the cleanest lake of all the Great Lakes because we are one of the

[Bob Fisher]: best Great Lakes out of all of them.

[Senator Russ Ingalls (Chair)]: So anyways, we have a wide range of folks coming in what do we have today?

[Karina Daley]: Yes, good morning. I'm Karina Daley. I'm the chair of the Vermont Citizens Advisory Committee on Lake Champlain's future. And we have a number of community members here, both online and with me in the room, and sort of I'm going to do a broad overview of our action plan for 2026, and then I'm going to pass it over to other committee members to share some of the details of the action plan, if that

[Senator Russ Ingalls (Chair)]: works for you guys. That works for us, the floor is yours.

[Karina Daley]: And could you clarify how much time we have?

[Senator Russ Ingalls (Chair)]: You have right up till noon time. No, I'm sorry, I only have.

[Denise Smith]: Yes, or I

[Karina Daley]: have no. Half of

[Denise Smith]: Half that, that.

[Bob Fisher]: I apologize.

[Karina Daley]: We will move quickly, but thank you. So, yes, who we are. We are a 14 member volunteer advisory committee for Lake Champlain. There are 10 Vermont citizens, representative from diverse backgrounds. We have farmer, we have scientists, we have engineer, so really cropping the spectrum. We have two state representatives and two state senators who support us and we have existed pre Lake Champlain Basin programs. So, we're 37 years old, 1989, and we are a liaison to the public on issues related to the lake, both from wildlife, water quality, and human connection to the lake. As we know, Lake Champlain, there are four large watersheds in Vermont, but Lake Champlain is the biggest, over 50% of the surface, the watershed of Vermont is Lake Champlain Basin. And many of you may not be from within the Lake Champlain Basin, but I think many of the issues that we'll talk about today represent the other watersheds as well. Many of these issues are facing all of Vermont's waterways. With that, we also work with the New York Citizens Advisory Committee as well as the Quebec. So, we really work in partnership with the other advisory committees on these issues about the lake. We also serve as a role in the Lake Champlain Basin Steering Committee, which oversees funds distributed to the lake and all of the good work the Lake Champlain Basin program does. So, our legislative charge is to create an action plan and this is the plan that we have to share with you today and I'm just going to pass around copies for you to take. Then happy to provide more should you need more.

[Senator Russ Ingalls (Chair)]: We'll get you online as well.

[Karina Daley]: Yes. And I will pass it over to Denise. Thank you.

[Senator Russ Ingalls (Chair)]: Oh, thank you. If anybody wants a muffin, help yourself with

[Karina Daley]: half Those look pretty

[Andrew Milligan]: good. You're pretty arrogant. Best fire.

[Senator Russ Ingalls (Chair)]: Good morning. Good morning. Thank you. Thank you for coming.

[Denise Smith]: Thank you, chair Ingalls, for inviting us and allowing us to come and speak this morning. I look familiar because I also work for the Vermont Council on Rural Development, and we hold for the Working Lands Coalition. So I was in here quite a bit last year, which I probably will be again this year.

[Senator Russ Ingalls (Chair)]: Nice.

[Denise Smith]: My name's Denise Smith, and I live in St. Albans. I'm from Franklin County. I've been involved with the citizen advisory committee on the future of Lake Champlain since I worked for Friends of Northern Lake Champlain back in 2015. And my job today is to just kind of give you an outline of the action plan. What I'll say is every year we come and we deliver this action plan to the legislature, that is our charge. We were created prior to the Lake Champlain Basin program, and really were the citizen's voice for Lake Champlain, because it can't speak for itself. I will say our priorities have shifted. They're very similar from year to year, but sometimes there's more emphasis on things that might be more important or impacting the lake at certain moments in time. I live near St. Albans Bay. I used to represent an organization that was working on Missisquoi Bay, and blue green algae is always the issue up there because of the excess nutrients that flow into that portion of the lake. But as you can see, the image on the front, we've really tried to simplify this plan so actionable and it's really clear. And this year we've identified four priorities. But the image on the front is really all about how do we get to a healthy lake, right? And so it's a Venn diagram. To get to a healthy lake we need clean water, healthy ecosystems, and climate resilience, and we get that through biodiversity, watershed management, and restoration. And so those are really the simplest way that we think about the health of our watershed. As Karina said, about 50% of the land surface waters flow into Lake Champlain in Vermont, but Lake Champlain is not the only lake in Vermont. We have many lakes, and the issues that are impacting Lake Champlain are also impacting other water bodies in our state. The main things that we're going to focus on today when have a panel of experts that talk along today, the four priorities that we've identified this year, and this is something we've identified year over year, is what we do for climate change and adaptation are the same things that are gonna result in clean water. And so we'll talk a little bit about that. We have to start addressing, I would say continue to address water contaminants and pollutions, specifically chloride is what we're focused on this year. And then, devesting and aquatic species management. It's really important that there's consistent, continued funding for that, because once you take your kind of eye off of it, it really can be incredibly disruptive, and prevention is your best solution for aquatic invasive species. And then finally is really that equitable access to Lake Champlain. I'm fortunate to have grown up on Lake Champlain since I was a young child and always had access. I used to be able to bike right down to Lake every day, the public beach, so it was free. So I feel very fortunate and I think that's why I care so much about it and why I do this as a volunteer. But I think that that's a really important point that the more access that we have, the more that people can access the public good, the public body of water that we have in our state, and all the water bodies that we have in our state, the better. I'm handing it over to Allison, I believe, who's going to go next and talk more about the flood mitigation.

[Bob Fisher]: Thanks, Denise. You're welcome.

[Allison Spazen]: My name is Allison Spazen. I am a resident from Garako, Vermont. I'm a relatively new member of the Citizens Advisory Committee. I'm finishing up my graduate studies at the University of Vermont in natural resources, and I'm going to be talking about this first priority, and then I'm actually sharing the stage with Breck Bowden, who's gonna follow after me, but really talking about advancing flood mitigation and climate resilience. So it's no surprise that flooding is a huge issue in our state. In the past fifteen years, the Lake Champlain Basin has been affected by all 25 federally declared disasters in the state of Vermont, and it was found that Vermont as the state ranks seventh in the highest number of federally declared disasters, so that's not even per capita, which we tend to do well on. That's per capita, and when you look at spending and costs associated with recovering after those disasters, we do rank fourth per capita in the nation for spending. And so it's affecting our budgets, it's affecting our economies, our environment, our livelihoods, so it's certainly an issue that we are taking quite seriously in this version of our action plan as well as previous versions as well. And so a central piece of flood mitigation and climate resilience that we support is nature based solutions. So those are cost effective measures that have been proven to help us fight against the worst impacts of climate change, so both flooding and butter us against severe drought, which was a huge issue this past year. We saw record low lake levels as well. So these are things like serving and restoring Lake Champlain's headwaters, our flood plains, river corridors, wetlands, soils, riparian buffers. And so in order to implement these nature based solutions, we endorse investment in full staffing and cohesion, as well as collaboration across all state agencies working to restore our watersheds throughout the state. We also endorse increasing collaboration and support with all the different organizations that are working on these issues. It's important that we protect and restore our natural infrastructure, if you will, but also our physical infrastructure because flooding has had a huge impact on our roads and bridges, our riverside buildings and structures. This costs our state. I think the figure is that it's close to $1,000,000,000 between the twenty twenty three and 2024 flooding. That's what I saw from Vermont Public recently. And so we support efforts to right size culverts and bridges, so I'm sure that they're wide enough that they can support increased flows and also maintain natural river processes, as well as removing obsolete dams, and this is all working together to restore aquatic organism passage, reduce erosion and nutrient loading downstream of these structures, and overall just increase our blood resilience and public safety. So I'll just finish by saying we support the state to continue funding and to support research on how we can restore our natural river processes to ensure that communities downstream are safer in the event of future flooding, and also make us more resilient in terms of these wide variability of weather conditions that we've seen, especially in the recent years. And this also has a huge impact on our agricultural producers and our farmers, and so Breck is specifically going to speak more into that, so I'll let him take that away.

[Senator Russ Ingalls (Chair)]: Yeah, we're going let everybody speak, and then we're going to ask some questions after for the committee just to keep their costs where you want to be. I want to get everybody up and cheer Go on

[Karina Daley]: ahead, Brett.

[Dr. Breck Bowden]: Thanks, Allison. Hello. My name is Brett Bowden. I'm sorry that I can't be with you in person today. I'm a retired professor of watershed science and planning from the University of Vermont and was the director of the Lake Champlain Sea Grant, which is a federally funded program that was focused on the is focused on the on a healthy lake, Champlain and the economy associated with it. I'm a member, of the citizen Vermont Citizens Advisory Committee from Burlington, and, I'd like to guide you through the remainder of our priorities that are associated with the flood management. You can find these on page three of the action brief. As Alison has just stated, increased investments in sustainable agriculture, forests, and working lands largely through these nature based solutions that she described, have created cost effective initiatives that are beginning to reduce phosphorus runoff to our waters. However, the intensifying impacts of climate change and oversubscribed grant programs, pardon me, continue to pose challenges to water quality. Agriculture, as you all, I'm sure, know often comes under fire as a source of problems that threaten Lake Champlain, particularly for sediment and phosphorus discharges that are known to promote harmful cyanobacterial blooms in the lake. Given that agriculture accounts for almost a quarter of the land use in Vermont, it's inevitable that agricultural activity is gonna lead to some sediment and phosphorus releases. But farmers wanna minimize these losses too. Beyond their own concerns about water quality, the erosion of nutrient rich soil is a significant economic loss to farmers, and spreading manure that has been diluted with rainwater onto wet fields present serious operational problems for farmers. So programs and practices that help farmers reduce soil and nutrient loss would be welcomed by everyone. Additional state funding to support these programs and implement these practices is essential to sustain our vibrant local farm economy and to reach our climate and water quality goals. This need has become particularly urgent because of reduced federal support. For example, our committee thinks that the Farm Security Act's S 60 that was passed by the Senate last year is a good way forward. The farm and forestry operations security fund created by this bill would help farmers recover from weather disasters like flood and droughts, and in doing so would help to protect Lake Champlain. More broadly, provisions in the Vermont resilience implementation strategy would benefit Lake Champlain as well. These provisions include a number of things that would affect agricultural activities including agricultural resilience through funding farm recovery, establishment of an agricultural emergency response team, and investment in adaptation measures like soil health and water management. So our committee supports these and other legislative actions that would help to implement and expand these provisions. The final component of our flood management priorities is to invest in public and private infrastructure, including transportation, drinking water, and stormwater systems to meet modern standards and withstand future flooding. Bills in this area are less likely to come through your committee. However, I do wanna note that one aspect of infrastructure that is, often overlooked are septic systems, which are common in, rural systems for, treating wastewater and are increasingly becoming, a a concern when these fail and can deliver nutrients to water bodies, including Lake Champlain. So I'm I'm not gonna speak in detail about this particular area, but do urge you as members that should bills come forward that are associated with developed lands that you consider not only the immediate intention of those bills, but there are potential impact on Lake Champlain. And with that, I'm going to pass the baton to Bob Fisher, who will address our water contaminants priorities.

[Bob Fisher]: Thank you. Thank you. My name is Bob Fisher. I'm from Barry. I am a water quality superintendent for

[Senator Russ Ingalls (Chair)]: the city of South Burlington.

[Bob Fisher]: I'm a longtime CAC member, at least sixteen years or so, and I'm here to speak about contaminants. To expound on Brett very quickly, 55% of Vermonters are on septic tank. That's the most by population in the nation. And 99.3, I think there's one field, but it's pretty well a 100%. All those septic tanks, you say, oh, I don't care about wastewater plants. They all go to wastewater plants in Vermont other than a few long orders that might go to wastewater plants. So that's a major issue, and just a few failed systems can really put a strain, and can really introduce a lot of phosphorus and other things into the environment. Really chloride is the main reason we're here. Chloride seems to be taking the same path as phosphorus. We realize it's a problem. There's five impacted streams. Sunnybrook, two of are in South Burlington. I asked South Burlington Stormwater Department. Why are there two of them here? It's because they have the money to monitor it for. So who knows how many other streams are impacted. The EPA's gonna eventually be forced to put a TMDL on it. It'll kinda follow the same process as you could stop putting salt down now everywhere, and it's all everywhere. It's legacy, it's gonna take a long time to work its way through the system. We're in favor of a system like New Hampshire, where a lot of municipalities like South Burlington, Salt's Expensive, we're computerized, we try to use as little as we can. Nonetheless, you own a mall or something, somebody falls in your mall, breaks their legs, sues you, know,

[Senator Russ Ingalls (Chair)]: sort of

[Bob Fisher]: a lot of private chloride, introduction, and, it is starting to become, I was a former federal fishery biologist, it is starting to affect, the aquatic invertebrates where it's actually starting to build on. So in in New Hampshire, they have a program where if you do training and whatnot, it's, say, going up all or some business, you can just take on some of the liability for that. Another one is PFAS. Another everywhere. And it's the same as chloride, phosphorus, everything else. It's really an ounce of prevention. It's worth the pound of cure. It's everywhere. It's toilet paper. It's on everything. We produce electricity from our biosolids. We also send it to a 5% mix with V Trans now. It's a fertilizer along the roadsides where people won't go. We used to go to farms. Was an effective use, but politically, made the decision of cities to just work with B TRANS at the moment. It's gotta go somewhere. Your average American male poops one pound a day. They gotta go somewhere. And that's it for me. Thank you. So that's what she she is. It was her birthday. Thank you. The average American male is under an eighty six pounds, produces about one pound. The women are exactly the same. They're generally smaller, so it's holding the bunch. Yeah. I think I think

[Senator Russ Ingalls (Chair)]: you could have elaborated on it. She said, oh, you're so curious. World leaders,

[Bob Fisher]: believe it's Tonga at seven hundred pounds each. I don't know. The losers

[Andrew Milligan]: You're increasingly. Very. Thanks, Joe.

[Senator Brian Collamore (Member)]: Where are you started? Thank

[Andrew Milligan]: you for the opportunity to talk with you. I'm Andrew Milligan, a relatively new member of the Assistance Advisory Committee from Charlotte. Recently retired from a thirty plus year career with the US Fish and Wildlife Service working nationally and regionally and on Lake Champlain as well. I So really have to be part of this committee and addressing these priority issues. I'm gonna give a very abbreviated summary of another key issue for us and that is addressing aquatic, particularly non native aquatic invasive species in Lake Champlain. And they are a real significant threat to the lake in terms of their impact to non native species, to ecosystem integrity, to recreation, to infrastructure, broad impacts from those species. And once aquatic invasive species are in the lake, they're very difficult to address and manage and very expensive to address and manage. So there's a real focus on trying to prevent introduction and work on monitoring that would allow for early detection and rapid response. I at the current moment, the working number of aquatic invasive species in Lake Cheflaing is 51, so there's quite a few in there. However, I will also say that our neighbors to the South and the Hudson River have a 122 aquatic invasive species, and to the West and north, the Great Lakes have a 184 aquatic invasive species. And as I think you know, those systems are actually connected to Lake Champlain through canal systems. So that is that is a major issue. I'll just mention the round goby as an example of how this happens. The round goby is a Eurasian species that was in ballast water that was dumped out of a ship in the Great Lakes, went through the Erie Canal and the Mohawk River and is now in the Lower Hudson River in the first locks of the Champlain Canal. So a high priority is to maintain our, existing levels of staff and to address aquatic invasive species in Vermont so that we can work cooperatively with New York and Quebec, to address future invasions through the canal system, which is one of the primary vectors. But, also, it's really important to have a strong public education component, particularly with boaters and have a important boat steward program and boat wash network that can help reduce any impacts coming in from from boats. I I will say that we ask that the state consider also a mandatory boat decal program that's worked pretty well in the states of New Hampshire and Maine and also in the Adirondack portion of New York and could generate some income to support this person. And I think I will leave it there and pass it to Lori Fisher.

[Senator Russ Ingalls (Chair)]: Thank you, Andrew.

[Laurie Fisher]: You, Chair Ingalls, Vice Chair Major, members of the committee. Thank you for the opportunity to testify today on behalf of the Lake Champlain Citizens Advisory Committee. My name is Laurie Fisher. I'm a long serving Vermont CAC member from Williston and the retired executive director of the Lake Champlain Committee, a nonprofit dedicated to lake protection and stewardship. I'm gonna focus on access. And the Vermont CAC sees investment in recreational access to Lake Champlain as essential to stewardship, equity, and long term lake health. People protect what they know, and they only know what they can reach. Our vice chair, Denise Smith, noted, one of the reasons she's here today is because of that connection, that access that she had to Lake Champlain that started in her childhood. When Vermonters can walk a shoreline, paddle the lake, fish, or swim, Lake Champlain becomes personal. That lived experience at what is what builds care, responsibility, and public support for clean water. Equitable access to the lake is also critical to Vermont's economy. Outdoor recreation accounts for roughly 5% of Vermont Vermont's GDP. That's second only to Hawaii, and that continues to grow reinforcing the importance of sustained investment in recreational spaces like Lake Champlain. Expanding non motorized access and low barrier shoreline opportunities are also important to reduce conflict, broaden participation, and strengthen stewardship. Lake access is managed by municipal, entities, but also multiple state entities, including Vermont Fish and Wildlife and Vermont Parks and Recreation, each with different funding structures and mandates. Vermont Fish and Wildlife's budget is comes mainly from a mix of federal funds, the state general fund, and department generated revenues such as licenses and registrations. While this structure has understandably shaped how access sites are managed and prioritized, declining license sales and the growth of lifetime licenses have reduced annual revenues even as recreational uses have diversified and management needs have expanded beyond what those traditional funding sources were designed to support. For example, some of that federal funding is tied to, motorboat registration or gas, taxes, and that imposes a hierarchy of use at our fish and wildlife access areas where the priority uses are really for motorboat recreation, and that can spur conflict with this growing use of of of human powered craft. We also feel access must be truly accessible. Cost should not be a barrier, and access should not depend on owning a car or a boat. Walkable, bikeable, low barrier access points, free or reduced fee options, and simple shoreline facilities, are essential if all Vermonters are to form a lasting connection with our waterways like Denise did. While there are multiple state parks along the Northern And Central Lake, the South Lake does not have a state park. And although it's a rural region, the people who live there still need reliable public ways to reach the water. Addressing this gap is key to equitable stewardship across the entire lake. If we want a cleaner, healthier Lake Champlain, we need to ensure that people can experience it firsthand. That stewardship begins with access, and access requires intentional ongoing investment. Thank you very much.

[Senator Russ Ingalls (Chair)]: Well, thank you. Definitely, we see your care and concern of very valuable resource to Vermont and New England. Tuning County is the biggest benefactor, I would say, of all the counties that we have enjoying the lake. Your representation in that county is one fifth of all the Senate. Do you think that you're getting proper representation as far as the protections, as far as some of the legislation that comes forth? I mean, we do see still four to seven times a summer of the Burlington's sewer septic overflowing into the lake. We had a large burst and a pipe where thousands and thousands of gallons were going in there. Do we see proper stewardship from the community that enjoys the lake more than anyone in the state of Vermont? Are they doing what they're supposed to be doing?

[Allison Spazen]: Rick, do you want to take this one about I think you're muted.

[Dr. Breck Bowden]: Apologies. Yes, I will take that. You you may be aware that, Burlington, passed a bond, issue last year, $172,000,000,000, to upgrade infrastructure in their wastewater systems that is antiquated. It is decades beyond its its design life and is causing exactly the sort of problems that that you that you just referenced. And so I I do think that the community is taking, responsibility, to to step up and and make these changes. I will note that rural communities and other communities throughout Vermont, throughout the Lake Champlain Basin face similar problems and may not have the resources to address them in the same way that Burlington has been able to. And so it's essential for the future health of Lake Champlain and our other water bodies around the state that these smaller communities that are less able have access to state resources to help them.

[Senator Russ Ingalls (Chair)]: You mentioned that S-sixty, very important bill. We are going to have that bill back in our committee soon. It's going to pass that house on the floor. We are looking for funding to help with that. We are looking outside of this building because it's highly unlikely that we're going be able to find funding this year. If we didn't find it last year, we're certainly not going to find it this year as far as in here. So we are in hopes of finding a partner that would want to park some dollars. And again, we're shameless. If you guys know of any groups that have 5,000,000 to $10,000,000 kicking around and want to park at some place, we'd be glad to help with that. Yeah, it's very big with us. We also had some very interesting testimony in here last week, and I don't know really where it will end up but the company, I apologize, mind, Chauvin Lime has got a product of black shale, and it's been very in tests. It seems to bind, or phosphorus seems to bind very well, it seems to encapsulate phosphorus very well. Don't know if you folks have looked or heard about that, but they have just tons and tons and tons of this product that it's just kind of interesting to us because of the ability to capture phosphorus. Again, it's just an avenue to help us, to help you when we look at a product like that. It sounds very interesting that doesn't seem to be able to get off the ground for whatever reason. I'm not quite sure why. The last thing that I would have is how's the lake level? Are we anywhere back where it was? I know up our way our waterways seem to have restored themselves a little bit with the fall levels of precipitation, but how are we doing with the lake level now?

[Allison Spazen]: Does anyone have a number on that? Do you know?

[Dr. Breck Bowden]: I can give it to you in a couple of minutes. The the lake level has come back up significantly. We're we're seeing it rebound. If if I recall correctly, it's near its its, mean level, again. So that's encouraging.

[Denise Smith]: Yes.

[Senator Brian Collamore (Member)]: Overall health of the lake compared to like the 1990s when we

[Bob Fisher]: were

[Senator Brian Collamore (Member)]: having industry actually dumping chemicals and byproducts into the lake. Is our overhaul, is there good news with our lake that it is getting healthier or are we just maintaining, I don't even know what to say. Is there good news here anywhere about the lake?

[Dr. Breck Bowden]: I mean, again, I'm I'm, yes, I think there is good news. And I would encourage you to look at the good news that that's in, the State of the Lake report that's published by the Lake Champlain Basin Program every three years or so. The latest, edition came out in in 2024. We phosphorus is what people always hear about. And and, so just on that topic, we are seeing some places in the lake where it looks like the actions that we are implementing are beginning to turn the phosphorus levels down. Bob can speak to this much more than I can, but since the 1970s and 1980s, we've almost eliminated phosphorus discharge from waste treatment plants. It used to be a large source. It is now virtually a negligible source of phosphorus to the lake. That's good news. Things like wounding rates of lamprey on trout are on the way down. So I think that there's a number of things that we can point to, and I see that Laurie is raising her hand.

[Senator Russ Ingalls (Chair)]: Go ahead. I'm sorry, go ahead Senator. Oh, sorry. I apologize, my fault.

[Senator Brian Collamore (Member)]: Related to other chemicals that are starting to show up in water and discharge, have we seen, are we monitoring better what's coming out of our water sources from our water treatments plants and are we seeing an uptick in chemicals we never even thought to look at before that could be detrimental to our

[Bob Fisher]: species as well as all the aquatic life? I'll take that real quick. First of all, the lake's at 95.2 feet at the moment. 95.5 is average, so it's it's darn close. And, yeah, 65% of the phosphorus in the eighties was from wastewater treatment plants going to the lake. Now it's three to 4% depending on the Tetra Tech estimate. Unfortunately, you're you don't have a definitely bay baseline. I test for probably four years now testing for PFAS and my effluent, but I didn't test for it previous to that, so I can't really say whether it's going up or down so much. It is fairly low levels. So we continue to add more parameters that we test for. But really, it's an ounce of prevention for the pound of care, everything. And basically, unfortunately, everything's pretty much triage at this point. I mean, it's even like the bile salts we produce, you know, the one pound of poop per average American male per day. It's gotta go somewhere. And, you know, currently, mine's going in a 5% mix with V TRANS, and we test every thousand yards for PFAS, and we haven't seen anything about background levels use this fertilizer. I can send it to the landfill, but the greenhouse gas emissions gonna be huge. I'll have to truck it all the way to Coventry. I'll have to import it, the phosphorus off of trains, and it'll off gas someone at the the thing. So there's no easy solution for any of this. But, yeah, the lake is showing trends in the phosphorus reduction, in in in many of the in some of the segments. So overall, it's a very slow thing. It's the same as the chloride. You could stop now. It's gonna take a long time with the legacy to get around, and you still are producing phosphorus. Yeah. Most of the phosphorus comes from us, from the food we eat. Of the nine, ten milligrams per liter I'm taking in, that's almost all just from people.

[Senator Russ Ingalls (Chair)]: Laurie, I cut you off. Go ahead.

[Karina Daley]: No worries. Thank you very much.

[Laurie Fisher]: I just just to add to that, I I think there certainly have been improvements, and we can get you copies of the State of the Lake report. We'll send you the link where you can download it, but we can also provide you with hard copies and coordinate with the Lake Champlain Basin program regarding that. That's a worthwhile background read and a good resource document. But with regard to the gains that we've made across the board on all the issues that we're talking about, and it's one of the reasons we really spent much of our discussion today on impacts regarding climate change, climate change has been a game changer in terms of Lake Champlain, as it has been for many water bodies across the country and around the world. And that is threatening some of the gains that we have made. And it's making that's why a lot of the things that Breck and Alison went over in terms of priorities for the action plan really tie back to responding to these increased challenges with climate change that are, you know, are are, you know, causing more water quality problems that we need to continue to invest in. So those past investments have been very, very worthwhile, but we are certainly seeing, challenges, in terms of lake health still?

[Senator Russ Ingalls (Chair)]: Brett, go ahead.

[Dr. Breck Bowden]: Senator, you asked a really great question about novel chemicals that are getting into the into the lake. New chemicals are being in intended by the chemical industry on a daily basis. If you watch late night TV, you know, there's a a new pharmaceutical with a name you can't pronounce, that it's being produced, you know, advertised every every day. Keeping up with all of those chemicals by waste treatment plants that are funded with municipal funds, as Bob has said, is nearly impossible. However, I would say that the next big challenge we have is in microplastics and the manage management of microplastics that are coming through waste systems, where they're being sourced, and what their impacts are on on the environment. So it it you you've raised a a very important issue of, these novel chemicals getting into the lake, and we don't know enough about them. Funding to find out more would be helpful.

[Bob Fisher]: I would follow-up on that. Yes. I would echo what he said, the microplastic and nanoplastics. Oh, the water bottles you drink are fine. This might just not well, they didn't look far enough down. It's nanoplastic. So the fish in Lake Erie, they've done studies. They're full of plastic, microplastics that are coming through, and you can mitigate that slowly. Yeah.

[Senator Russ Ingalls (Chair)]: Well, we've run over a little long time, but I'm okay with that. Just to finish up, I just wanna make sure if there's anything else that you guys would like to add that you didn't get out there.

[Karina Daley]: Anything else? I did want to inter- well, I think you heard from Hillary earlier, but Hillary Solomon is a member of the PAC as well.

[Senator Russ Ingalls (Chair)]: Yep.

[Karina Daley]: So she's here with us today.

[Senator Russ Ingalls (Chair)]: Yes.

[Karina Daley]: Great to have her and Katie Styles, who is also a contact.

[Senator Russ Ingalls (Chair)]: Yes. We had them both in

[Karina Daley]: our Yeah. We're trying to maybe recruit Katie for a future PAC membership. Sorry, Senator Collamore, I think you're gonna be there.

[Senator Russ Ingalls (Chair)]: Senators, any more questions? Well, we want to thank you guys for the advocacy a treasure to the state of Vermont, again, to New England, again, it is a great lake that we most care about. It's group effort all the way around. I think that for as much as what ag has contributed maybe to the problems that the lake faces, I think we have a lot to learn and a lot to fix really just right around the lake as well. Always a great concern when we hear about levels of people not being able to swim right within the city itself. So To have a lunch dog group with a lot of concern and care is important to all of Vermont, and we thank you for what you do.

[Bob Fisher]: I'd like to say, I thank the farmers. This is why Vermont's Vermont and why, you know, it's the most popular, you know, states and healthiest states. Rural areas surrounded by, you know, urban you know, I'm against sprawl. You know? I can treat things at my facility. Should build in. And, you know, it's the farming community. Eric Clifford, one of our members. He's been on as long as me, and what the things he tells me are just shocking. The amount of farms they're losing, the fact they have to put suicide prevention stuff in the.

[Senator Russ Ingalls (Chair)]: Yeah. Yeah. We're working on that. Yeah. Yeah.

[Bob Fisher]: One other thing I'd like to

[Senator Brian Collamore (Member)]: say is that when we were talking about salt and sanding and that, that again, this black shale that they're producing up at SLC and down in Chorum, that maybe if people like you and others get behind saying, hey, why don't we do a test up in Swanton or St. Albans and see if this works as well as salt because it's black, it draw on the sun and dry. And that would give us a new alternative to switch to other than salt if they saw it work. And then also that if we changed our laws that everybody couldn't be sue happy if it slipped, then we could use

[Bob Fisher]: more of that product rather than salt and start making a difference. I've never heard of it until now. I've dealt with Omia before,

[Senator Russ Ingalls (Chair)]: but I would love to decide for some of this. UBM Extension Service has done some testing on it as well. We plan to have some conversations with Heather Darby and some of those other groups. If you both show online, the owner- Travis. Travis, we would be glad to talk about that. Be great in your guys' backyard. We would welcome any help to show us a way and to do some of our research for us. We would encourage that. Thank you so much Thank for you. I hope you guys have a great day. Thank you. Bye. Thank you all. Thank you for your time, thank you for coming in.

[Karina Daley]: Thanks very much.

[Senator Russ Ingalls (Chair)]: Yeah. Thank you. Have a day. Bye, Kate. We'll we'll do offer a manager. So Alright. That's a.