Drinking Water Standards Get Mixed Up In Fight Against Lamprey
By Peak Johnson
State officials in Vermont are working on a way to adjust to strict drinking water standards that limit a chemical used to fight the eel-like sea lamprey.
Officials with Gov. Peter Leahy’s offices confirmed that there had been negotiations over the use of the anti-lamprey chemical TFM, according to the Associated Press in an article appearing in the Burlington Free Press.
The problem has caused concerned among “fishing enthusiasts” who are worried that slowing down on the use of TFM could possibly cause a surge in lamprey.
"The native and endangered fisheries are sick with sea lamprey," James Ehlers, executive director of the fishing and clean-water advocacy group Lake Champlain International, said in a Facebook post. "It needs medicine, and any cessation in the program represents not only a huge ecological loss but millions in federal and state taxpayer dollars invested in the program."
According to digital.vpr.net, a federal official with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service reported that the policy change means that TFM will not be able to be used in Lake Champlain “for at least two years.”
U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service fish biologist Bradley Young said that “the federal agency was applying for a permit to use a chemical” in order to treat three Vermont rivers.
The chemical treatment is known to kill the larvae of sea lamprey.
“Half-way through the permitting process, we were notified that there was a change in the Vermont Department of Health’s policy on what they believe is the appropriate drinking [water] standard in Vermont,” Young told digital.vpr.net. “So the value that had been used for 26 years prior in the program has been changed to a new value because of new concerns claimed by the Department of Health.”
The AP reported that two of the three Vermont Lakes are Champlain tributaries scheduled to be treated with the chemical, however the LaPlatte River in Shelburne, VT, “likely won't be, perhaps for the next two years,” until a study of the correct drinking water safety standard is completed.
Mary Borg, deputy director of the state Department of Environmental Conservation's watershed division, said that lowering the standard would mean a time after the use of TFM during which “people would be urged not to drink or swim in affected water.”