Gov. Peter Shumlin. VTD/Josh Larkin
The bill would have required all newly drilled wells intended for use as a potable water supply to undergo testing for contaminates. The same tests would have been required if such wells were sold.
Rep. David Deen, D-Putney, said he was “absolutely flabbergasted” when he learned that the governor planned to veto the bill.
As chairman of the House Committee on Fish, Wildlife and Water Resources, Deen said he had worked to ensure the legislation was acceptable to all parties. Negotiations in committee, he said, had eased the concerns of the Vermont Association of Realtors, who had initially opposed the bill. He said he also consulted with Harry Chen, commissioner of the Department of Health.
Kim Greenwood, staff scientist at the Vermont Natural Resources Council, who worked with the Agency of Natural Resources on the bill, said there was very little opposition.
“I was very surprised (it was vetoed) because there wasn’t a lot of controversy around this,” she said. Greenwood said that there were questions raised about which tests should be done and some concerns about the bill’s implementation, but not the legislation itself. “I’m not aware that there was a lot of – or any – opposition to the bill,” Greenwood said.
“It is striking,” Greenwood said in a statement released by the council, “that on the same day the governor signs a landmark health care bill, he vetoes a measure designed to protect public health by requiring the testing of new drinking water wells for arsenic, lead and uranium, among other things.”
Deb Markowitz, secretary of the Agency of Natural Resources, said while her office had been communicating with the governor about S.77, there had been “no prior conversations with the governor about this specific bill.”
“We do what we can to work with the Legislature to craft a bill that we can live with,” she said, “and that’s what we did (with S.77).”
Markowitz said that the bill’s enactment was ultimately in Shumlin’s hands. She said her agency had taken no official position on S.77.
In a statement, Shumlin said, “I don’t believe the government should mandate the testing of every single new well, with the cost and burden on individual private property owners that this bill would impose.”
Deen disagreed with the governor’s criticism. New wells, he said, typically cost up to $10,000 to install.
“To then spend 150 bucks to see what is in the water doesn’t seem like an unreasonable cost,” he said.
Deen added that “the key word is ‘potable,’” meaning that wells drilled for agricultural or industrial uses would not be held to the same testing standards.
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I agree with the veto of S.77 and commend the governor’s pragmatism on this issue.
Mandating testing would also necessitate monitoring and over site. At a time when state government is trying to manage spending it would mean more costs. When I purchased my house I had the well tested out of common sense and not a gov’t mandate. Investing in public service announcements on the recommendation to test water when buying or selling a well and setting aside funds to subsidize the cost of testing for low income households would be an alternate approach that would not require new legislation. I also believe it would be be more fiscally responsible than having to establish a network of state employees to administer the program.
I am very much for protecting our natural resources and providing a safe environment for people to live but also I think there needs to be a cost/benefit evaluation of every piece of legislation and if S.77 had passed I do not think the effort and expense would have been justified.
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I read somewhere that the governor said that most water in Vermont is just fine. I wonder where he got that idea. VCE has been doing work in Vermont communities for more than a decade and much of our work has focused on water resources. We have had our eyes opened to the fact that a lot of Vermonters are consuming polluted water. Other New England states have the water testing requirement at the time of sale. Vermont is way behind on this one. Vermonters’ waters are subject to times of drought, to surface water runoff contaminating wells and springs, to MTBE contamination,and to naturally occurring contaminants such as arsenic. Fact is we have no idea, no statistics or information statewide on groundwater contamination of private water supplies. A coliform test costs less than $25, the metals testing is affordable in the context of a house sale. Or, to put it another way, if you can’t afford this water test, you shouldn’t be entering into a contract to purchase a home. The real question, which this article doesn’t answer, is which lobby got to the governor that resulted in the veto. If lobbyists can influence the governor on issues that have had a full hearing in the legislature and lobbyists hold back and don’t engage, and then go to the governor, that diminishes our democracy.
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Annette is correct.
If the test was done at the time of sale and rolled into the mortgage (like the property transfer tax), it would be the equivalent of a rounding error.
For example, the monthly mortgage payment for a $200,000 home with 10% down at 5.5% interest = $1,022.02 (30 years). If you add the estimated $140 cost of the test, the mortgage payment would increase $0.79 per month to $1,022.81.
Does that sound like a burden?
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This is unfortunate as it doesn’t protect renters. I don’t blame my landlord or anything because I honestly don’t think it occurred to her, but I had been living in a rental for over a year before I had to test the water when we installed a new well pump. And it turned out there was coliform bacteria in very high counts in the water.
I didn’t get ill, but was I drinking that contaminated water for over a year? No way of knowing, because there was no mandated well testing.
It’s one thing to be forced to test your own water, it’s quite another to be forced to test the water of a renter. It seems as if this bill would’ve protected renters, who are usually low income folks such as myself.
Once again, health and safety ensured only for those who have the funds.
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An interesting aspect to this subject that I have noticed is that some people who have well water adopt the attitude that ignorance is bliss. People really don’t want to know. They are drinking their water, they think everything is okay, and they’d rather not find out if there is a problem. That is one reason why this legislation is needed. There are some things you can’t and shouldn’t mandate, people need to just take responsibility and test their water, and maybe the governor thinks most responsible people do. Especially if you’re buying a house, the purchaser could make it a condition of the contract that the seller must provide a potable water test, including bacteria and metals. But we are not doing that routinely, and I think the reason is that people really don’t want to know. And Josh is correct that renters are not protected under the current scenario.
Speaking of low income people, if you really want to understand just how bad some of Vermont’s water is, go do a file review of the 200+ mobile home parks’ public water supplies. I’m talking now about regulated systems, not what’s covered by this vetoed legislation. Even systems that are supposed to have some level of state oversight are failing miserably. The state issues a lot of violation notices but corrective action is insufficient to bring the water up to what most of us would consider acceptable standards.
This legislation was a needed small step in improving the overall efforts to protect Vermont’s waters. We are allowing too much stormwater runoff, which is impairing streams and Lake Champlain. What most people miss is that all that water is intimately connected to our groundwater, and until we recognize that our water isn’t as pure as everyone wants to believe, we will not succeed in cleaning up Lake Champlain or getting impaired waters off the state’s list.
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The House and Senate took a great deal of testimony on S.77 before coming to the final bill. This bill was brought to life by a Middlebury class who followed a family whose child had suffered deteriorating health and development ultimately linked to arsenic in the well. Once off the contaminated water, the child began a slow crawl to reclaim lost skills and development. What price can one put on that?
The Dept of Health has been chasing down hot spots for geologically derived trace metals and arsenic. Municipal systems undergo this type of testing, but private wells do not. NW Rutland and Addison have had higher number of wells testing positive for arsenic. The additional testing was to be used by the DOH to help map critical areas for contaminants.
While some people are well versed and thoughtful when purchasing a property, most are not – particularly those coming from municipal systems to a private well. A DOH survey of 120 face-to-face interviews revealed that 81% had no idea there was a health recommendation for contaminants and only 14% knew that arsenic was an issue in Vermont.
The bill required new private wells, typically costs thousands, to add $150 to do the testing. Those selling existing homes were simply required to provide buyers with information on well testing for contaminants and the buyer could then choose to test from an informed position.
We took testimony from many sources and it passed handily in the House and the Senate. We were disappointed with the Governor’s veto and I disagree with his assumption that we cannot mandate safe drinking water. This does show, however, that although the legislature and administration are controlled by the same political party, this does not necessarily mean there is not sharp disagreement.