FRANKLIN, Vt. (WCAX) - State environmental officials last month gave the green light to use a chemical treatment in Lake Carmi. It’s the latest attempt in a multi-year effort to rid the state’s only “lake in crisis” of the foul cyanobacteria blooms that plague local beaches.

“It was a thick, green bloom, across the entire lake,” said Robert Evans, the president of the Franklin Watershed Committee. He says that despite the 170 campsites and 300 properties along the shore, the lake is often unusable on many summer days. “I don’t think there was any oxygen in the lake because of the significant bloom we were experiencing.”

To help manage those blooms, state officials have given the go-ahead for an alum treatment this fall. It’s a process that applies an aluminum compound to the lake’s dee

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