(AP) — Reducing the amount of phosphorus in Lake Champlain could be the responsibility of the federal government if a plan being reviewed by the state falls through, a development that could mean big bills to upgrade sewage treatment plants. Vermont cities and towns could face more than $300 million in federally required work to the plants, with only limited improvement in the lake, if the state doesn't take other steps to address the lake's phosphorus pollution problem, according to a top state official. [...] though an Environmental Protection Agency spokesman said agency officials don't believe it'll come to that, he confirmed the tougher requirements on phosphorus discharges from municipal sewage treatment plants would be among several tools the EPA might need to use if Vermont does not step up its own efforts to clean the lake. David Mears, commissioner of the Department of Environmental Conservation, said $300 million was a "conservative estimate" of what it would cost a group of larger cities and towns he numbered "in the low 40s" — those with more than 200,000 gallons a day of discharge from their sewage treatment plants — if Vermont does not act this year. The governor told lawmakers that 40 percent of the phosphorous flowing from Vermont into the lake is farm runoff; 20 percent comes from roads, parking lots, roofs and other developed surfaces that don't do a good job absorbing water. With a majority of phosphorus coming from those sources, state officials say they don't like the EPA putting sewage treatment plants, most of which have already been upgraded to reduce phosphorus output, at the top of its to-do list.
Comment on EPA: We'll toughen rules unless Vermont gets on lake cleanup
By DAVE GRAM, Associated Press, San Antonio Express-News: World
Sun, 02/22/2015 - 10:04am
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