VERMONT — Jeff Severson has spent much of the past 50 summers at his family’s Lake Champlain camp in West Addison. But it wasn’t until two weeks ago that the born-and-raised Vermonter had ever seen blooms of the potentially toxic cyanobacteria, or blue-green algae, engulf his favorite swim and fishing spot.
While Severson and his son were fishing on June 29, his wife Lisa Windhausen, who teaches middle school science in Jericho, watched from above as Oven Bay turned from a pool of glistening glass to chunky green sludge within hours.