Restoring lake Champlain: reasons for hope after decades of degradation.

• Jurisdiction: United States
• Date: 22 June 2017

When it comes to the future of Vermont's Lake Champlain, Crea Lintilhac is optimistic.

"We're going to clean up our waters," declares the longtime CLF Vermont Board member (and now chair), who has lived on the shores of the iconic lake for nearly 30 years. Given that she has witnessed the lake's increasing degradation over three decades, one wouldn't blame her if her outlook was a bit less rosy.

But Lintilhac has also witnessed a shift in the public's--and the state government's --attention to the lake in recent years, especially as blue-green algae bloomed on the lake's surface more frequently. "People started to say, 'I'm seeing these algal blooms; we've always had them but now it's worse and it's toxic. What's happening to clean, fresh water?'" she recalls.

Lintilhac credits CLF for raising the public's ire about the pollution issues plaguing Lake Champlain. In 2008, the organization sued the Environmental Protection Agency over unmitigated phosphorus pollution, which is produced when fertilizer runs off of farms and lawns and improperly treated sewage from septic systems leaks into the lake.

Too much phosphorus triggers the blue-green algae blooms, which literally suck the life out of waterways by absorbing the oxygen that plants, fish, and other wildlife need to live. Such pollution closes beaches, destroys...