News from Vermont

It's been a big couple news days for Vermont.

First, the Lake Czar had a big public meeting on Tuesday, and there was a write-up on it here. It seems she's going to face a deal of skepticism until her program gets on the ground, but I can tell that she's going to kick ass on Lake Champlain.

Then also on Tuesday Vermont won the Springfield contest to host the premier of the Simpsons movie. This is big news for our little state. I don't think Springfield, VT is a very big place. I've never been there. Like most other people I know.

The other two big news stories this week up here both have to do with Vermont rivers, and therefore have been especially big news in the Rivers Management program at DEC. They're also both pretty sad stories. The first is the massive floods that hit Barre yesterday. I saw some photos that my boss got this morning while surveying the damage, and the pictures here in the local newspaper don't even do some of the damage justice. It's been a raining like crazy all around here this week, and heavy downpours yesterday afternoon put it over the top. A couple of us went to Barre this afternoon to survey some high water marks. The water's back down and stuff is drying right out, but there's some ugliness left on the ground.

The last big story may only be of interest to other river science people (and fisherman). Just in the last month there's becoming widespread discoveries of a nasty diatom, didymo, that forms thick mats on stream bottoms and may basically choke river bottoms, effectively irreparably damaging trout populations, and fishing, in Vermont. It's a pretty sad thing, as so many of Vermont's rivers are still in such good condition compared to other areas. But apparently this stuff is going to thrive and spreads super easy. Very unfortunate.