Opponents of a plan to use chemicals to kill invasive weeds in Lake Bomoseen are calling for a statewide moratorium on the practice until the use of herbicides in lakes and ponds is better understood.
A group of residents who live on and fish in the Rutland County lake gathered in Montpelier on Wednesday to support H.31. The bill would block regulators from issuing new permits for chemical treatments of bodies of water until a year after a study committee puts forth findings on their impacts on the environment and public health.
Regulators already are drafting rules to clarify and codify the existing permit process, but residents say that doesn’t go far enough.
“We don’t need rules changes. What we need is a time-out and full reexamination of a flawed process,” said Bob Stannard, a former lobbyist who owns lake property and opposes the herbicide treatment.
At 2,400 acres, Lake Bomoseen is the largest lake exclusively within Vermont’s borders. Located just north of Castleton, it is home to a popular state park and about 1,000 private homes. The lake is relatively shallow, with an average depth of 26 feet, and for decades, efforts to control Eurasian watermilfoil in it have fallen short.
The feathery invasive plant was first introduced into the United States in the mid-1900s, likely from aquarium water, and has spread steadily ever since. It was first identified in Vermont in St. Albans Bay in 1962 and has since invaded more than 80 lakes and ponds.
The state tries to limit its spread by educating boaters about the need to clean their crafts thoroughly. Once established, milfoil is nearly impossible to eradicate.
People have tried mowing it, ripping it out at the roots, sucking it up with underwater vacuums, spreading sheets on the lake bottom to block its sunlight and even encouraging tiny weevils to eat it.
They also sometimes try poison. The Department of Environmental Conservation has issued more than 600 permits for herbicide and lampricide treatments in the state since 1963. The latter targets lampreys, a parasitic fish.
Since 2019, regulators have issued herbicide treatment permits for 10 lakes. Lake Bomoseen hasn’t been one of them.
But in January 2022, the Lake Bomoseen Association applied for a permit to chemically treat the lake. The nonprofit group, which represents many lake homeowners, said in its permit application that it had been battling milfoil unsuccessfully for 40 years and wanted to try a product called ProcellaCOR.
It’s the same herbicide that was used on Lake Iroquois in 2021 to successfully reduce milfoil levels that had gotten so bad that swimmers and boaters had avoided the stinky mess.
In Lake Bomoseen, the chemicals would be applied to about 620 acres of the lake over three years. The chemicals would be applied by boat between June and September, according to the permit application.
The application is still being analyzed by the DEC, and if it decides to move forward, a draft will be issued and public comment sought, said Oliver Pierson, director of the department’s Lake and Ponds Program.
Environmental organizations, including the Vermont Public Interest Research Group and the Vermont Natural Resources Council, and several lawmakers expressed support for the proposed moratorium. “While there is legitimate reason to be concerned about invasive species, there is also cause to be concerned the treatments … may be causing more harm than good,” said Brian Shupe, executive director of VNRC.
“This is a commonsense bill for us to take a time-out in order to evaluate the use and evaluate the rules around who gets to spray under what circumstances,” added Rep. Joe Andriano (D-Orwell).
Rep. Bill Canfield (R-Fair Haven) noted that selectboards in Fair Haven, Castleton and Hubbardton had all objected to the permit.
Cynthia Moulton, an ecology professor at Castleton University, said the state relies on the federal Environmental Protection Agency to decide which chemicals are appropriate for which uses, but little is really known about their cumulative human health impacts.
“We want our state government biologists and toxicologist to put our health in front of killing a weed,” she said.
In an email to lawmakers obtained by Seven Days, Liz Bird, president of the Lake Bomoseen Association, blasted Stannard for using “scare tactics, false claims, and unsubstantiated rumors” to disrupt the permit process. She suggested that Stannard’s ties to bass-fishing groups were behind his campaign.
“H.31 is an attempt to manipulate a process for a specific goal: Keep underwater milfoil groves alive and well as a super-habitat for largemouth bass. Please do not support this legislation,” she wrote.
Pierson said his department is required by state law to process permits, but the process can be confusing because the statute uses terms that are open to interpretation.
These include the requirement that chemicals be used only when there is “no reasonable non-chemical alternative available” and “negligible risk to public health.”
The Lake Iroquois permit process was challenging, and so the department is seeking to establish clearer rules for future permits, Pierson said.
A moratorium could harm the state’s ability to issue permits in instances where there is wide support for herbicide application, he said. It could also prevent the state from pursuing additional projects to improve lake health, such as adding alum to Lake Carmi to control phosphorus and reduce cyanobacteria blooms.
He noted, however, that the proposed bill would exempt lampricide treatments from the moratorium despite their impacts on aquatic salamanders known as mudpuppies, suggesting “a selective degree of concern for environmental impacts in this bill.”
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