CRC comments on the Final Draft Basin 10 Water Quality Management Plan – VT

March 9, 2012

Marie Levesque Caduto, Watershed Coordinator
VT ANR I Dept. of Environmental Conservation
100 Mineral Street, Suite 303
Springfield, VT 05156-3168

 CRC comments on the Final Draft Basin 10 Water Quality Management Plan

As the primary citizen watchdog and steward of the Connecticut River from source to sea, the Connecticut River Watershed Council works to preserve the health of the river and its tributaries. As such, we are formally submitting comments on the State of Vermont’s water quality management plan for Basin 10 (the Ottauquechee and Black river watersheds).

First we would like to thank you for your efforts over the past several years and for helping to bring this plan to fruition.  We applaud and appreciate the hard work of all who participated in the process, including the Two Rivers-Ottauquechee Regional Commission, the Black River Action Team and the Greater Upper Valley chapter of Trout Unlimited.

In general CRC supports the recommendations and actions to improve and protect these waters. We agree that the lack of riparian buffers is a major cause of water quality and habitat problems in the Basin, and that sediment and silt are by far the most visible causes of degradation.  We also concur that the presence of obsolete dams causes undue stress to the rivers and harms their ecological functions. As the Plan points out, excess nutrients, stormwater runoff and combined sewer overflows also are issues that need to be addressed.  With that in mind, we are supportive of the Plan’s Top 10 recommendation to “maintain and expand the bacteria monitoring program to cover the entire Basin.”  CRC is committed to helping the Agency of Natural Resources in this regard.

Since this Plan will be used by ANR to guide decisions regarding allocation of resources as well as your review of permit applications for potential impact on water quality, CRC believes the following additions and/or revisions should be made to the Plan prior to it being adopted:

Existing Uses- On page 17, the Plan states that recreational uses (such as boating, swimming and fishing) should be “preserved and improved.”  Unfortunately ANR continues to use an outdated and inferior process to identify existing uses, especially in terms of fishing. Specifically we object to the double standard used by ANR for determining existing uses on lakes and ponds versus flowing waters. Just as ANR “presumes that all lakes and ponds have existing uses of fishing, contact recreation and boating”, so to should ANR assume that all flowing waters have existing uses of fishing, contact recreation and boating. ANR’s policy states that this “simplifying assumption” is being used for lakes and ponds because of “the well known and extensive use of these types of waters for these activities based upon their intrinsic qualities.”  This same simplifying assumption holds true for all flowing waters.  Vermont’s rivers and brooks are no less intrinsic and have no less extensive use for recreational activities than our lakes and ponds.  In fact many small ponds in Basin 10 get little or no contact recreation, boating or fishing use, while most if not all of our small brook trout streams have swimmers and fishermen who frequent their waters. By using such a double standard ANR has placed the burden of proving existing uses for flowing waters on the individual, organization etc. while giving lakes and ponds a “free pass” so to speak.  ANR should revise this process for Existing Use determinations in this Plan and in all other basin plans already adopted by the State.