Protecting Vermont's troubled waters.

• Position: Vermont - Brief article

After years of broken promises by state officials and millions of taxpayer dollars spent on failed cleanup measures for Lake Champlain, Vermont regulators continue to allow sewage treatment plants to dump pollution into the lake.

Excess phosphorus pollution feeds noxious blue-green algae blooms that contaminate water quality and restrict swimming and other recreation activities. The federal Clean Water Act prohibits regulators from allowing increases in pollution. State law also requires sewage plants to develop plans to prevent illegal spills of raw sewage into lakes and streams.

Unfortunately, state regulators have ignored the federal Clean Water Act by issuing a draft permit that will allow the St. Albans sewage treatment plant to increase the amount of phosphorus pollution it dumps into St. Albans Bay. Other sewage plants...