Lake Champlain's Missisquoi Bay stays clear for summer

HIGHGATE, Vt. --It was a good summer for Lake Champlain's Missisquoi Bay.

For the first time in years, there were no reports of toxic blue-green algae blooms in the shallow, northeastern bay of Lake Champlain.

"It was wonderful. We have had no trace visible of blue-green algae," said Mike Roach, a Highgate Springs summer resident and a volunteer water quality monitor. "I swam almost every day after golf. I did not have one day that I lost swimming. I'm sure it's been 10, 15 years since that happened."

The blooms are caused by warm weather and pollution. They threaten human and animal health, make recreation unpleasant or impossible.

The late-summer blooms have turned Missisquoi Bay into the rallying point for a state campaign to reduce phosphorus pollution in the Lake Champlain watershed.

Scientists aren't sure why the thick algae scum never appeared this summer.

"I'd love to say it's all the hard work we've done, but the changes we've made have been small and incremental. You would not expect to see such dramatic change in such a short period," said Mike Winslow, staff scientist at the Lake Champlain Committee.

One theory is the dry conditions in May and June reduced the amount of dirt and fertilizer that flowed into rivers that feed the lake.

Spring rains wash a lot of pollution into the lake, because farmers have just spread manure and plowed their fields.

While there were no blooms in Missisquoi Bay, there were small blooms in St. Albans Bay.

"We don't want to pin too much on that. But this does give people a reason for optimism. This is what can happen if we get a little more aggressive" at cleanup, said Mary Watzin, the University of Vermont's top Lake Champlain scientist.

------

Information from: The Burlington Free Press, http://www.burlingtonfreepress.com