cowsThe next time you pour a glass of cold, refreshing, Vermont tap water, and then you think it tastes like crap, it just might be because that’s what it contains.

According to an article on Grist.org, waste from Vermont’s lightly regulated dairy farms is increasingly polluting Lake Champlain, the nation’s sixth-largest body of fresh water. It’s undermining Vermont’s tourist economy and jeopardizing drinking water supplies for a third of the state’s population.

The damage is obvious in the murky gray-brown stains spreading at river mouths, the slimy masses of weeds choking bays, the rotten stench wafting over the sluggish water in late summer when the blue-green algae blooms.

Read more about cows threatening Vermont’s water supply.

Also, below you can check out the first installment of the 2010 Emmy-winning Bloom film series, a documentary examining the challenges facing Lake Champlain. You can check out the full series here.