Lake Champlain United - Forums

When is Burlington going to get this under control?
Blanchard and Blodgett beaches in Burlington were closed to swimming and fishing Wednesday afternoon after tests showed potentially harmful levels of the bacteria E. coli in nearby sections of Lake Champlain, according to the city's Department of Public Works.

The beaches will remain off-limits until further notice, department officials said in a news release. Levels of the bacteria typically peak shortly after storm events and then plunge 48 hours later.

Intense rainfall and stormwater runoff on Monday surged through Burlington's main wastewater treatment plant, resulting in a discharge of about 145,000 gallons of untreated, sewage-infused water, according to the DPW.

Water samples were taken from the lake Tuesday; results released Wednesday indicated levels of the bacteria that exceed standards set by the Environmental Protection Agency.

Storm-related overflows on June 2 and May 21 at the Queen City's treatment plant also closed beaches

As with previous releases of untreated or partially treated sewage, the incident was reported to the Vermont Agency of Transportation, which tracks overflows throughout the state.

Please release all no-fin browns you may catch during the next 48 hours

Gecha (Gerry) wrote:Please release all no-fin browns you may catch during the next 48 hours

With some luck maybe the Cormorants will start feeding on those!

So lets see sewage and eels and we wounder why the lakes fishing has gone in the toilet .

cheer up ,there's another 9 million gallons coming from Rutland

What the hell!!! If a private company was releasing pollution into our waterway. They would be fined. Why aren't the towns and cities being fined and forced to update their facilities?

My guess is because no politician will run on the platform of "I'll raise your taxes to fix our sewer system".

The trouble is that Burlington allowed way too many breweries to set up shop and their discharge is exasperating an already overburdened effluent treatment system.
So short-sighted to think all those breweries with their revenue generating taxes would offset an already overburdened and aged WWTP.
The city is charging them a "fee" for the excess amount, however, IDK if any of those funds were allocated to increasing the capacity of the plant, and should've began retrofitting the plant at the onset of letting so many dump more fluids into the system.
IMO too little too late...
As for politicians: I suppose shooting galleries, free healthcare for all & share the wealth are more important a platform to run on than actually coming into compliance with EPA regs on discharge and fixing the WWTP problems in those cities that have plants at capacity, yet allow even more micro-industry to put more effluent into the waste stream.

Off my soapbox for now...

If Burlington didn't have a combined treatment system, which treats storm water as well as sewage, there wouldn't be any overflows of the system. But then all the storm runoff would go right into the lake, resulting in a net increase in phosphorus loading and contamination. So what we have there now is objectively better than the alternative for the health of the lake.

fishingmachine is right about Rutland...but that's 9 million gallons of untreated sewage, as opposed to Burlington's 90% treated or disinfected overflow.

What I'm not seeing here or from many of the other people and organizations (I'm looking at you, LCI) who keep attacking the 150+ year old infrastructure systems in place, are workable solutions. How do we get to a place in which Burlington, Rutland, Montpelier, and Vergennes are not releasing any wastewater without a billion dollar investment that the cities and state don't have? Where does that money come from in a state that already has sales tax, income tax, and a crippling property tax rate?

Nobody thinks that what's happening is OK, but what do we do about it? James Ehlers is running on a clean lake platform, but he hasn't proposed a single viable solution to the problem to my knowledge.

Edit: fining the cities? Who pays for that? Ah yes, taxpayers. And then the money goes to the state, but is used for something else.