The
state of Vermont is hoping to improve water quality in Lake Champlain’s Missisquoi Bay basin, which has been the site of toxic
algae blooms, by reducing bacteria that flows into the bay and finding
solutions to suspected discharges in the towns of Enosburg Falls, North Troy, Richford and Swanton.
Missisquoi Bay has been plagued for years by
some of the worst phosphorus pollution and blue-green algae in Lake Champlain. Phosphorus comes primarily from agricultural
runoff. So the U.S. Agriculture Department wants to pay farmers to adopt
practices that would keep pollution from running off their fields and into the
lake.