"Vermont Farms Fret Over New Sanctions For Water Pollution"

"Environmentalists are giving Gov. Peter Shumlin early accolades for his proposal to reduce the amount of phosphorus running into Lake Champlain. But a prominent agriculture group says the plan to clean up the lake might end up hurting the farms that operate near it.

For years, water quality advocates have criticized the Shumlin administration for failing to crack down on heavily polluting farms. Large farms operating along Lake Champlain's tributaries are among the chief sources of high phosphorus loads. And the toxic blue-green algae blooms fueled by that farm runoff have begun to exact an ecological toll on the big lake, and harm the businesses that rely on it."

Peter Hirschfeld reports for Vermont Public Radio January 20, 2014.