Agency of Natural Resources Secretary Deb Markowitz. VTD/Josh Larkin

A proposal in Vermont’s Draft Comprehensive Energy Plan to consider rescinding a 2004 wind project moratorium on state land slipped through without consideration from the Agency of Natural Resources, according to ANR Secretary Deb Markowitz.

Due to an oversight in the drafting process, ANR never weighed in on the proposal to consider lifting the moratorium that ended up in the draft plan, Markowitz said. The current policy is appropriate, she said.

Markowitz said the “moratorium,” which prohibits large scale wind projects on ANR land is appropriate and consistent with land use practices the department supports.

“We think that the policy in place now works and is consistent with the goals of the energy policy,” Markowitz said.

To be clear, the “moratorium” on large-scale renewable energy development on state lands is not really a moratorium. In fact, the policy statement, which emerged during the Douglas administration, states: “The Agency shall actively encourage and promote development of small-scale, renewable energy applications in appropriate locations on ANR lands. (This includes ANR lands under long term lease to ski areas).” “Large-scale renewable energy projects” on such land are not permitted under the policy.

In fact, there already are turbines on state land. The agency recently held a ribbon-cutting ceremony for a wind turbine on Burke Mountain, for example, which is located on state land.

“My understanding is the final version of the plan will have taken the lifting of the moratorium out and in fact will reflect the reality that what we have is not a complete moratorium but allows the kind of flexibility that I think is appropriate to engage in renewable energy projects that is consistent with the land ownership,” she said.

Sarah Hofmann, deputy commissioner for the Department of Public Service, said the department was not giving any sneak peaks as to what would be included in the final plan, which should come out some time in mid-December.

The draft plan recommends that ANR consider lifting the moratorium. It does not rescind the policy outright.

Even if the policy did go away, Hofmann said, new projects would still have to go through the certificate of public good process, which requires the public service board to consider adverse effects on aesthetics, historic sites, air and water purity, the natural environment and the public health and safety that new electricity generation projects would cause.

The idea of rescinding the policy drew mixed reactions from environmental groups and lawmakers.

The Green Mountain Club, which works to preserve the Long Trail, wrote in its comments that it opposed the state lifting the moratorium “as long as the state continues to lack clear policy and guidelines for wind energy development projects.”

Will Wiquist, executive director of the Green Mountain Club, said his group had voiced concerns with lifting the moratorium early on. Wiquist said the club has been working for 20 years to purchase land in operation with the state and preserve it so people can enjoy the trail, which travels the length of the state from south to north. The comments filed by the club propose an evaluation of the cumulative impacts of wind project development on the landscape, considering the utility-scale wind projects on ridges at Georgia, Sheffield, and Lowell, as well as the Deerfield Expansion already in progress.

In comments to the Department of Public Service regarding the policy, the Vermont Natural Resources Council said rescinding the policy would be premature until the state completes its natural resource inventory and mapping project to determine whether state lands are
appropriate for wind development.

On the other hand, the Vermont Public Interest Research Group supported lifting the policy. Their comments state: “The current ban on wind turbines on state lands is not only unnecessary but also sends the message that wind power is somehow worse than other development that benefits the state.”

Paul Burns, executive director of VPIRG, said if the state is serious about renewable energy it needs to consider wind projects on state land, including those with more than one turbine. Like state buildings are an appropriate place to demonstrate a commitment to renewable solar energy, Burns said, land could be a demonstration of commitment to wind, subject to all environmental regulations.

“As one of the most benign forms of generating electricity, it should not be treated more harshly from a regulatory standpoint than anything else,” Burns said.

The proposal to lift the policy drew even more criticism from Sen. Peter Galbraith, D-Windham, who issued a press release last week proposing legislation that would make a prohibition of wind projects on state land a law rather than just a policy. Galbraith’s proposal would also require consent of all towns in the “viewshed” of a proposed project for an industrial-scale wind project.

Galbraith said his proposal would prohibit projects on private conservation land as well as ANR-managed land.

“If we protect land for its pristine qualities and we allow projects there, we’re defeating the purpose for which it was protected,” Galbraith said.

He said the consent of surrounding towns is only fair considering that their view may be affected more than that of a town that hosts a project.

Tony Klein, chair of the House Committee on Natural Resources and Energy, initially criticized the supposed “viewshed veto” Galbraith’s legislation would allow. Klein said approval of projects should be up to the state Public Service Board.

Klein said his concerns involve the proposal that surrounding towns have an effective veto more than the moratorium in general. He said it is more of a “feel-good” moratorium anyway, since there is really no appropriate siting for large-scale projects on state lands that anyone is currently aware of.

VTDigger

Woodstock, Vt., September 11, 2011 -- Mud, rocks and debris have to be cleared in many rivers and streams throughout Vermont as a result of flooding from tropical storm Irene. FEMA is working to provide assistance to those who were affected by Hurricane Irene. Photo by Angela Drexel

State worries that rivers were damaged by dredging while Act 250 was relaxed

This story by Allison Teague originally appeared in the November/December issue of Vermont Woman and the Nov. 16 edition of commonsnews.org.

Tropical Storm Irene swelled rivers and streams to 100-year, and in some cases, even 500-year, flood levels on Aug. 28. The raging torrents washed out roads and bridges, destroyed homes and left more than a dozen communities in southern and central Vermont stranded by the aftermath.

Thousands of tons of sand, gravel, and rock were washed out of roadbeds and deposited in streams and rivers in the region, altering the shape of these waterways for decades to come.

The state immediately gave towns and villages permission to use the fluvial debris to rebuild access roads. Just as quickly, excavators, backhoes, bulldozers, and huge dump trucks massed around the river and stream beds around Vermont to accomplish that task.

Municipalities began work to “relocate streams to a former location,” “re-establish channel capacity,” “facilitate stream stability,” and “reestablish stream crossings.”

Not long afterward, the Compliance and Enforcement Division of the state Agency of Natural Resources began responding to complaints lodged by residents who were concerned about the environmental impacts of streambed alterations.

Since evidence of dredging and bank “armoring” came to light, environmentalists have decried the permanent damage caused by the excavation of streams and questioned the state’s handling of the emergency.

Act 250 after Irene

River and stream alterations such as armoring (embedding rock in banks) and channelization (digging out stream beds) have been off-limits since 1970 thanks to Act 250, Vermont’s signature environmental protection law that controls land use and development.

Deb Markowitz, secretary of the Agency of Natural Resources, suspended certain Act 250 rules immediately after Irene.

“Gravel and rock fill for road and infrastructure repair is critical to Vermont’s post-Irene response,” Markowitz said shortly after the cleanup began. “To assure availability of material that has been requested by the state or towns for such repairs, the Natural Resources Board [which enforces Act 250] is temporarily suspending enforcement of extraction limits and trucking, and is allowing closed gravel pits and rock quarries to be reopened on an as-needed basis.”

ANR officials gave towns verbal permits for to dredge streams through the beginning of October. At that time the state began to require written permits for all streambed alteration and gravel removal, according to Compliance and Enforcement Director Gary Kessler. Complaints about unapproved streambed work, he said, will be taken seriously.

“The locations with the most number of complaints will be the first we will look into,” Kessler said.

Grafton reacted swiftly

Grafton was one of the towns in the region that was cut off when the main roads washed out, but it was also one of the best prepared. Town Emergency Management Incident Commander Bill Kearns, a former FEMA attorney and now a Grafton resident, knew what to expect, and he parked machinery at the fire and rescue department, recruited contractors, and then obtained faxed approval from ANR’s District 2 Environmental Commission Coordinator, April Hensel, to “open any pit you want” to fix the roads the day after Irene hit.

As a result, three days later, residents and homeowners were able to get in and out of Grafton on roads that were “not up to standard,” but nonetheless allowed traffic.

For weeks, in an attempt to repair river channels and protect property farther downriver in Saxtons River, backhoes, bulldozers, and excavators lumbered into the river and began moving rocks and sediment, berming some and carting the rest away to “be stockpiled in the Rockingham highway yards,” according to R. J. Furgat, the operator/foreman of Buck Adams Trucking and Excavating LLC in Westminster, contracted by the town of Rockingham to deal with the emergency.

One of the results of severe flooding is likely to be that “the river bed was raised,” in some places several feet by gravel, rock and sediment, according to Furgat. “We’ve been hired to remove the excess gravel and clear the debris, as well as [re-]make channels and pools for the river to flow more like what it used to do,” Furgat said.

A mile or so downstream along Route 121, another contractor, Bazin Brothers Trucking, also of Westminster, spent several weeks clearing debris and berming the banks of the river with gravel from the riverbed, then leveling it. Bazin Brothers subsequently set up a gravel grading and crushing operation on the north side of the river in the flood plain where, before the flood, a farmer’s cattle had grazed.

Of time and the river

Time shows its effects on rivers and streams slowly, so human memories are short when it comes to events that result in flooding and damage.

Floods leave rich soil that is good for crops, and farmers along the Connecticut River have tilled floodplains for several centuries. Towns have also allowed building near rivers, despite historic flooding. But with the damage costs rising into the billions of dollars following Tropical Storm Irene, the state is encouraging towns to rethink planning and implement greater controls on development in floodplains.

“People don’t like to change,” Markowitz said. “It’s not going to be easy.”

A third-generation Vermonter, Caitlin Noel, executive director of the Friends of the Mad River, pointed out that rivers “operate on an entirely different time scale than humans.”

Noel, who holds a bachelor of science in environmental science from the University of Vermont, said that rivers have been “moving and changing since the retreat of the glaciers 10,000 years ago, meandering across floodplains, and moving sediment as our mountains continue to wear down over the course of geologic time.”

“The issue of dredging and stream alteration has been a very polarizing one,” Noel continued. “However, I believe that people on both sides of the issue want the same thing: to protect our communities from harm. The two camps simply disagree about the best way to do that.”

Environmentalists want to keep dredging to a minimum because the scientific evidence shows that removing silt and gravel is detrimental to river ecosystems.

“Scientists have documented what happens when you channelize, dredge, widen, and armor rivers over the years in places around the world, and the science is clear,” she said: Dredging damages waterbodies.

Many states limit the amount of gravel that can be removed from a stream, and regulate channel management, she said.

“[ANR] takes a watershed approach, understanding that river systems are interconnected, and the actions that are taken in one place can reach and affect the conditions of the river in upstream and downstream locations,” Noel said.

But Irene may have changed all that, Noel noted, and by the time ANR responded with guidelines, “The damage had already been done.”

Fish populations and their riverine habitat were impacted significantly.

In a study of selected streams affected by Irene, Rich Kirn, a fisheries biologist with the Vermont Fish and Wildlife Department, noted a loss of 33 percent to 58 percent of wild trout populations following the storm, compared with surveys before the storm.

“Young fish were particularly affected [0 percent to 37 percent of pre-flood levels], while older trout fared better [41 percent to 64 percent of pre-flood levels],” Kim said.

Kirn also noted that the impact of in-stream flood recovery activities “such as channelization, excessive stream bed excavation, and large-scale natural wood removal greatly reduces the quality and diversity of aquatic habitats necessary to sustain fish and other aquatic populations.”

He added that is difficult to say whether it would take longer for a river to recover from catastrophic changes from a natural disaster of the magnitude of Tropical Storm Irene, or from the extensive damage that is being caused by what he called “misguided human intervention.”

“It is my understanding that Vermont’s rivers are still in a period of adjustment due to historic channel straightening that occurred in the 1800s,” he said.

What happens next time?

Climate scientists, environmentalists, Gov. Peter Shumlin and Markowitz — agree that there will be a next time.

Noel wants to know what will be different “next time.”

One of the biggest problems was an inadequate number of technical staff from ANR who were available to respond to the emergency – there were only four river specialists available to help towns and villages dealing with cleanup following Irene, according to Justin Johnson, the deputy commissioner of the Department of Environmental Conservation.

Markowitz said that all the state’s agencies involved in the Irene disaster — from the Agency of Transportation, to the Agency of Natural Resources, to the Department of Environmental Conservation — are “stepping back to say, in the case of another event like this one, what are the lessons learned?”

“We want to be sure we have the capacity to meet the need” should a similar event recur, Markowitz added. “In this particular case, we had over 2,000 streams and impacted areas that [still] need to be addressed.”

Markowitz said the agency’s emergency response was “not a realistic way to deal with it (Irene).”

In an ANR study from 1999, “Options for State Flood Control Policies and a Flood Control Program,” the agency stated that “flood recovery operations have historically and frequently addressed only the symptoms of a greater problem rather than focusing on identification of the cause and determining how to facilitate improved system stability.”

“This is somewhat a funding-driven shortcoming, but a problem of institutional focus as well,” the report warned.

In August, Shumlin called for the formation of an international task force “to study issues related to flooding on Lake Champlain and the Richelieu River,” following spring flooding that destroyed homes and property all around Lake Champlain, in New York, Quebec, and Vermont.

Markowitz noted that “because of that experience, we had already made it a priority to have a more proactive approach” to mitigating and controlling flooding in state.

However, the biologic impacts on habitat following Irene have not yet been fully assessed, as the state continues to grapple with the damage to the infrastructure of roads, highways, and bridges, and biological and habitat assessments of the damage to private and municipal property continue.

With Vermonters coming to grips with a changing climate that includes increased precipitation, Shumlin urges residents to start to “change how we do things, and think about where we build our communities and developments.”

“Our city and town planning must reflect what we know about where floods occur, and not build there,” he said.

Those who fail to heed current warnings, Markowitz said, might find themselves disqualified from receiving FEMA assistance should a similar event occur. “We know it’s not if, but when,” she said.

Editor’s note: Anne Galloway contributed to this report.

Correction: We originally stated that Act 250 rules regarding stream management were lifted in the immediate aftermath of Irene. This was incorrect. Act 250 requirements were lifted for the reopening of gravel pits, according to Ron Shems, chair of the Natural Resources Board.

VTDigger

“Resiliency – the ability to adapt to difficult situations and successfully overcome adversity.”

An increasing body of research shows that people with strong social networks have a better chance of recovering from crisis; and that when people come together to rebuild, it can result in great innovation. Vermont’s history, from the early settlers in the 1700s to the great flood of 1927, demonstrates the truth of this research. And now, again, even in the shadow of the loss suffered by so many Vermont families, communities are coming together to reinvent themselves. Vermonters are a model of resiliency. So, too, are Vermont’s ecosystems.

This year many of Vermont’s ecosystems suffered significant damage from Irene and from the historic floods in May. Rain swollen rivers eroded their banks, realigning their contours, sweeping fertile agricultural land downstream. Pollution washed into our watersheds and as we repaired our infrastructure, work in the rivers compounded the damage.

While the state, local and federal responses to the flooding have been outstanding, we cannot underestimate the significant cost of flooding to Vermont. Scientists warn that changes in the earth’s climate will result in more frequent extreme one-day precipitation events, like those we saw this year, so we must do what we can now to prevent future economic harm, environmental damage and threats to public health from floods.

Ecosystems, like people, exhibit their own form of resiliency: and like people, they are more likely to bounce back when the surrounding environment supports the healing and prevents additional damage. There are things we can do to make our ecosystems and our communities more resilient, and to protect ourselves from future floods.

· Think twice before we build in floodplains. This year Vermonters suffered millions of dollars of damage when homes, businesses and roads in the floodplain were damaged or destroyed; and we saw environmental harm from failed septic systems and oil tanks leaking pollution into our waterways.

· Where possible, restore our river corridors. The places where we allow our river to meander survived this year’s floods with a minimum of damage. When we restore our river corridors we protect properties up and down the river because it gives a place for the stormwater to go, instead of flooding our towns. Re-vegetating the banks of our lakes and rivers and maintaining healthy forests helps prevent erosion that destroys property and pollutes the water.

· Design our communities for flood resiliency. We must rethink how we design our communities. New development can incorporate low impact building techniques and designs that allow water to seep into the ground, more closely imitating the natural cycle of water in which rain flows into the ground, is filtered by the soil, and then is slowly released into streams. Strategically placing green spaces and town forests can help absorb runoff in our built environments. This is not necessarily easy work, or cheap – but many communities have begun this work and are seeing results.

· Use innovative approaches for infrastructure design. When we build and renovate infrastructure like roads, bridges, culverts and wastewater treatment facilities we need to anticipate future flood events and look for innovative approaches to make them more resilient to floods.

Leadership from the top. Just weeks before Irene hit Vermont Governor Peter Shumlin and I announced a major flood resiliency initiative in response to the unprecedented spring flooding experienced last May. In light of Irene we will be expanding that effort. In the coming months we will be working across state agencies to develop a plan for Vermont that will use what we learned from this year’s floods to better prepare us for the future. With our partners in Canada and New York we are convening a conference that brings together state, local and regional partners to consider the latest research on innovative approaches to prevent, mitigate and respond to future floods.

State government will not solve this problem alone. Like every environmental challenge facing Vermont we need to work together. But if our response to Irene is any indication, Vermonters are well up to the task.

What causes floods? We experience flooding when stormwater cannot soak into the ground so it flows into our lakes, rivers and streams in amounts that make those water bodies exceed their banks. For example:

· Earlier warming trend are changing the timing of our spring snowmelt. When the snow melts before the ground thaws the water has nowhere to go except our lakes, rivers and streams. This year the early snowmelt was combined with record spring rainfall and the consequence was disastrous for Lake Champlain.

· The impervious surfaces we create – parking lots, pavement, roofs and other development – within our communities mean that stormwater has nowhere to go but our lakes, rivers and streams. And it brings with it all sorts of harmful pollution!

· Floodplains and wetlands are nature’s way of making us more resilient to flooding because it creates a place for stormwater to go, and it prevents pollution from reaching our lakes and streams. The more we fill in and developed our floodplains and wetlands, the less able the landscape is able to absorb snowmelt and rainfall. The areas that suffered the least damage in Hurricane Irene had less development in the floodplain and more marshy areas.

Costs of Flooding:

Economic impacts: property damage including both buildings and loss of land through erosion, loss of customers and tourism for lake dependent businesses, and disruption of other businesses as well.

Damage to public infrastructure: roads, drinking water and waste water treatment facilities, bridges, and culverts. Repairing this infrastructure will require public monies.

Environmental impacts: spills of oil, hazardous wastes, and other chemicals; septic tank failures; excess sediment and associated nutrients – all of these impact the environmental quality of the lake; also, it is likely that algae blooms this summer have been exacerbated by the flooding. Work we do in our rivers to protect infrastructure destroys fish habitat. All of these impacts have immediate costs associated with them, and will also impact our economy over the long term.

Flooding and Lake Champlain water quality

The flood exacerbated a number of existing challenges facing Lake Champlain. Some wastewater treatment plants and sewer systems overflowed, septic systems were flooded or failed, oil tanks tipped and spilled, and some small amounts of hazardous chemicals such as paint and cleaners were spilled from flooded households and small businesses. In addition, some fields where manure had been spread flooded and that material ended up in the lake. Similarly, stormwater runoff from our towns and cities throughout the lake’s watershed carried nutrients such as phosphorous off of our lawns, sidewalks, roads, driveways and parking lots.

Stormwater runoff also caused serious erosion and the resulting sediment load carried significant amounts of nutrients such as phosphorous and nitrogen. The significant algae blooms we are seeing this summer are due in part to the significant amounts of sediment that entered the lake.

VTDigger

Rivers run through our history and folklore, and link us as a people. They nourish and refresh us and provide a home for dazzling varieties of fish and wildlife and trees and plants of every sort. We are a nation rich in rivers. – Charles Kuralt

In Vermont we love our rivers, lakes and streams. They are the centerpieces of our communities, an important source of clean water and an essential economic driver as people come from all over the world to fish, paddle and swim. The recent floods have not just damaged our homes, businesses and infrastructure; the flooding made catastrophic changes to many of our streams, and rivers.

Across Vermont, communities have been devastated by the flood, and they have a real need to protect vulnerable areas before the winter snows fall. But this work can and must be done in a way that does not cause more significant damage in the future, and that will minimize the ecological impacts to the banks and beds of our rivers and streams.

Getting this balance right — with 2,000 locations with flooding impacted rivers and streams — is challenging, and responding to this statewide emergency has clearly strained the finite resources of the Agency of Natural Resources Rivers Program.

The first phase of our disaster response primarily involved emergency river work that was necessary to allow Vermonters to get back to their homes and businesses. Starting this week, staff will begin the shift from an exclusive focus on emergency response to working with municipalities, businesses and homeowners to maximize the long-term effectiveness of our state’s flood recovery work. We will be moving from oral authorizations to written documentation to ensure that work is done in conformity with the rules. This is also necessary to ensure FEMA reimbursement. Work that is unrelated to the flood disaster will still need to go through the formal permit process.

We can only protect our communities if we learn from our past mistakes. The damage from Irene is at least partially the legacy of flood control approaches taken in the 1930s, 1950s and 1970s. We know more now than we did then. We know that we must limit the amount of channel straightening, berming, over-widening and deepening to the bare minimum necessary to protect existing homes and businesses; we must design and size road ditches, bridges and culverts correctly and push roads and infrastructure as far back from the stream and river banks as we can, and finally, we need to minimize how much we build in our river corridors and floodplains.

Work in Vermont’s streams and rivers must be done knowing that doing the work incorrectly is just money down the hole. It may well cost more in the long run to simply rebuild in the same place, using the same methods! We also know from experience that digging deeper channels and constructing more bank stabilization is an expensive and uncertain way to contain a river or stream. While this may be done to protect particular homes and businesses, it can easily result in shifting the problem from one stretch of a stream to another area downstream.

This is easy to say but much harder to achieve in practice. There are times when digging out a channel and armoring the banks of a stream or river are simply necessary to protect our towns and villages, and our most important roads and bridges. Going forward, we must work to account for the costs and impacts of doing so.

Over the coming days, weeks and months, we look forward to engaging Vermonters in a conversation about how we can rebuild Vermont to be stronger and more resilient to the next round of flooding.

VTDigger

In the days since Tropical Storm Irene passed through Vermont leaving devastation in her wake, we are reminded of what it means to be Vermonters, what makes Vermont the special place it is, and how fortunate we are to call this state our home and our neighbors our friends.

Many of the offices of the Agency of Natural Resources are located at the Waterbury State Office Complex. When the muddy waters of the Winooski River first started rising, most of us were convinced we’d seen it before as we’d already survived spring flooding relatively unscathed. But when the waters rose through the basement and filled the first floor of some of our offices, we began to realize our own failure of imagination.

The flood of 1927 should have prepared us to appreciate the awesome destructive power of floods. In November of that year, 1,285 bridges were lost as well as countless numbers of homes and buildings destroyed and hundreds of miles of roads and railroad tracks washed away. More importantly, the flood waters claimed 84 lives, including that of the Vermont lieutenant governor at the time, S. Hollister Jackson. We are lucky to have avoided that level of destruction and loss of life in the most recent flood!

Now, as then, Vermonters stepped up to the challenge of rebuilding communities and the lives of those most directly affected. I realize now that our own organization — the Agency of Natural Resource — is a microcosm of the larger community.

I am proud of and indebted to those state employees who, when the floodwaters began to rise, struggled to save what they could of both our digital and physical infrastructure. They slogged through mud and muck to save important agency records and valuable equipment. Many of our staff worked long hours and responded to emergencies all around the state, despite having just lost their own offices, phones and computers.

Wherever I go, I hear stories of agency staff who have helped Vermont communities restore damaged sewage treatment facilities, ensure our dams remain safe and strong, rebuild roads, collect hazardous materials and debris, deal with contaminated drinking water and respond to the changes in our rivers in ways that will keep our communities safe in the future.

Without a home in Waterbury, the Agency of Natural Resources will look different from what it once was. Although we do not yet know whether we will return to Waterbury or make our home in a new place, we remain committed to our mission to protect, sustain and enhance Vermont’s natural resources for the benefit of this and future generations. One thing we have learned from Tropical Storm Irene is that we cannot achieve our mission by working alone.

As I listened to the stories of families who lost everything when the flood took their home, or a town clerk who is trying to salvage the historic records of the town that were inundated by floodwaters, or parents and teachers trying to get a school back up and running, I feel both overwhelmed with the enormity of the tragedy facing so many Vermonters, and also incredibly heartened by the resiliency and generosity of our people.

Just as we must work together to overcome the adversity imposed by flooding, so too must we work together to ensure we make the right choices for the future. When we protect our environment and help our ecosystems remain strong, we will be more resilient as a state.

VTDigger

Contact
Dr. Les Kanat
Department of Environmental & Health Sciences
leslie.kanat@jsc.edu
802-635-1327

JOHNSON, VT – Deb Markowitz, secretary of the Vermont Agency of Natural Resources and former Vermont secretary of state, will speak about her involvement in the Vermont Climate Cabinet from 4 to 5:15 p.m. on Wednesday, Sept. 21, at Johnson State College. The presentation takes place in 203 Bentley Hall and is free and open to the public, with ample free parking available in any campus lot.

Markowitz’s talk is part of the Wednesday afternoon speaker series sponsored by JSC’s Department of Environmental & Health Sciences, which brings experts on science topics to campus on Wednesday afternoons during the fall semester.

VTDigger

By Deb Markowitz, Vermont Secretary of Natural Resources

Some years ago, when the kids were young and my husband was out of town on business, I discovered a couple of bats flitting around the house. Quickly, the house erupted into chaos with bats flying, children screaming and running around, and me – trying to figure out how to open the windows (still caulked from the winter) while avoiding the darting bats. I was unsuccessful. Finally, I corralled the kids into a room and closed the door and called a friend who calmly caught the bats in a large sheet and then safely released them outside. The emergency was over.

I don’t know for sure what kinds of bats were in my house that early spring day – but most likely they were little brown bats. Until recently, the little brown bat was one of two species most often found in and around our homes, attics, barns, and garages. Due to a devastating illness, these populations have shrunk by as much as 95 percent. Just three years ago little brown bats were Vermont’s most common bat species, and now they are one of the rarest in the state. Consequently, as of this month, the little brown bat along with the northern long-eared bat have been added to Vermont’s Endangered Species list. This requires all of us to rethink how we treat our encounters with bats.

The Situation

White Nose Syndrome now threatens as many as 25 species of cave-hibernating bats across the United States. In Vermont alone, we have already lost over 500,000 bats. Two of these species – the little brown bat and the northern long-eared bat – have experienced declines by as much as 90 percent or more. Unless we find a way to slow the disease the little brown bat, among others, could become extinct within the next 15 years.

Why Bats are Important

Bats are important to our ecosystems because they pollinate plants and flowers, spread seeds, and, of course, eat insects. In fact, these little creatures eat nearly one-half their weight on a given night. Some of these insects are forest and agricultural pests – and others, like the mosquito – are human pests.

The impact of the loss of bats in Vermont cannot be underestimated. The 500,000 bats that died from white nose disease would have eaten around 2.5 billion insects every night – a figure that is so high, it is hard to imagine. A recently published national study found that bats contribute as much as $32 million annually in value to Vermont by destroying insects that could damage crops.

What We are Doing at the Agency of Natural Resources

This month both the little brown bat and the northern long-eared bat will be listed as state endangered species. We listed these bats on the advice of biologists in the Fish and Wildlife Department and the Vermont Endangered Species committee, with the support of many members of the public. We all believe that the protection offered by this status will help buy these species some time, so that we can, hopefully, find a treatment for White Nose disease before it is too late.

As a practical matter, once a species is listed as “endangered” members of that species cannot be taken, harassed, or killed without getting special permission. This means that pest control companies that remove bats from a chimney must take care to relocate them in a safe manner – rather than just kill them. It means that we must all avoid entering caves and mines in the winter when we know there is a colony of endangered bats hibernating within. And it means that when we encounter bats in places they don’t belong – like our homes and barns – that we find a safe way to remove them.

How You Can Help

Until a treatment is available we need to all work together to prevent unnecessary harm to Vermont’s endangered bats – and you can help.

We take concerns about rabies transmission from bats very seriously. The goal of the state is to provide technical assistance to citizens and pest control companies to appropriately deal with and exclude these bats from homes. Avoiding interactions with bats avoids bites and scratches from the small number of bats that carry rabies. Because such bites and scratches are serious, despite the endangered species listing, Vermonters will still be able to kill a bat in order to have it tested for rabies when a possible exposure has occurred, so long as the killing is reported to Fish and Wildlife officials.

I know from experience how hard it is to think straight when a bat is flying around the house – but it is more important now, than ever to remove bats without hurting them. You can get more information about best practices for keeping bats out of your house and removing them safely at our website www.vtfishandwildlife.com.

Remember, the little things we do can make a big difference. Help us help our bats.

VTDigger

On July 6, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) finalized a rule that will significantly improve air quality by reducing power plant emissions that cross state lines. This rule will protect the health of millions of Americans by helping states reduce air pollution and meet the standards of the Clean Air Act.

The EPA’s new rule, known as the Cross-State Air Pollution Rule (CSAPR), requires 27 states to significantly improve air quality by reducing power plant emissions of sulfer dioxide and nitrogen oxides that cross state lines and contribute to ozone and fine particulate pollution in other states.

This is great news for Vermont.

It is a little known fact that Vermont is close to being out of compliance with the requirements of the federal clean air laws. This is not the result of pollution generated in Vermont, but it because air knows no geographical boundaries.  This new rule will make a difference for Vermont’s air quality because it requires power plants in other states to install readily-available air pollution controls to reduce emissions that are transported into Vermont. By reducing ozone and fine particle pollution, EPA’s new rule will protect the health of Vermonters, saving lives and preventing illnesses. In addition to avoiding premature deaths and respiratory-related illnesses, the pollution reductions from EPA’s rule will also lead to improvements in visibility in Vermont, and increased protection for sensitive ecosystems, such as mountain lakes and forests.

Since the 1990s, regional strategies have successfully reduced interstate air pollution transport.  EPA’s Cross-State Air Pollution Rule builds upon this earlier success and will continue the trend of improving air quality for our state. To speed implementation, EPA is adopting federal implementation plans, or FIPs, for each of the states covered by this rule. EPA encourages states to replace these FIPs with state implementation plans, or SIPs, starting as early as 2013.

For more information about the rule, visit the EPA’s website.

Here is some information on the new Cross-State Air Pollution Rule from the EPA:

Emission reductions

Compared to 2005, EPA estimates that by 2014 this rule and other federal rules will lower power plant annual emissions in the Cross-State Air Pollution Rule region by:

• 6.4 million tons per year of SO2 (2005 emissions were 8.8 million tons)
• 1.4 million tons per year of NOX (2005 emissions were 2.6 million tons) including 340,000 tons per year of NOX during the ozone season.

The Cross-State Air Pollution Rule, including states proposed for inclusion in the supplemental notice of proposed rulemaking, covers 3,642 electric generating units at 1,081 coal-, gas-, and oil-fired facilities in 28 states. EPA’s modeling projects that by 2014, in the states covered by the Cross-State Air Pollution Rule:

• Approximately 70 percent of the power generated from coal-fired power plants will come from units with state-of-the-art SO2 controls (such as scrubbers).
• Approximately 50 percent of the power generated from coal-fired power plants will come from units with state of the art NOX controls (such as SCR).

EPA modeling shows that coal use will continue to grow under the Cross-State Air Pollution Rule and power plants may achieve the necessary emission reductions by:

• Maintaining effective and frequent operation of already installed control equipment,
• Using low sulfur coal,
• Increasing generation from relatively cleaner units, and/or
• Installing existing, commercially proven technologies that are widely available and frequently used in this industry, such as low NOX burners, scrubbers (flue gas desulfurization), or dry sorbent injection.

Air quality improvements

The Cross-State Air Pollution Rule will improve air quality in thousands of counties throughout the eastern, central, and southern U.S. – counties that are home to over 75 percent of the U.S. population. State, local and federal actions have already improved air quality so that many counties meet the National Ambient Air Quality Standards for ozone and fine particle pollution. Many areas have already been brought into attainment with these standards, this rule will help to bring several more areas into attainment and help many more areas continue to meet the level of the standards.

Benefits and costs

The emission reductions from this final rule will have significant and immediate public health benefits.  By 2014, this rule will annually prevent:

• 13,000 to 34,000 premature deaths,
• 19,000 cases of acute bronchitis,
• 15,000 nonfatal heart attacks,
• 19,000 hospital and emergency room visits,
• 1.8 million days when people miss work or school,
• 400,000 cases of aggravated asthma, and
• 420,000 cases of upper and lower respiratory symptoms.

These emission reductions will also improve visibility in national and state parks, and increase protection for sensitive ecosystems including Adirondack lakes and Appalachian streams, coastal waters and estuaries, and forests.

The $800 million spent annually on this rule in 2014, along with the roughly $1.6 billion per year in capital investments already under way as a result of CAIR, are improving air quality for over 240 million Americans and will result in $120 to $280 billion in annual benefits. These estimates include the costs and benefits of the supplemental proposal.

The employment effects of this rule are modest, but by our analysis positive.  EPA examined some employment impacts using two methodologies which are detailed in the RIA. Both show that some jobs are lost, but more are gained as some companies construct and operate pollution control equipment to comply with the rule.

VTDigger

As boats cruised by on the clearing waters of Lake Champlain, Gov. Peter Shumlin’s cabinet members gathered on the Burlington waterfront Tuesday to tell the public that Vermont is ready for business.

With spring coming to an official end, Lake Champlain has been left with its largest flood in recorded history, washing away roads throughout the state while damaging businesses, homes and summer camps. Finally, it appears the water is receding to a level more manageable for Vermonters to get back on the water for swimming, boating and fishing.

According to Secretary of Natural Resources Deb Markowitz, the flooding put pressure on some of the waste water treatment plants throughout the state, resulting in overspills and weekly state water tests to ensure Lake Champlain and other lakes at Vermont state parks are safe for swimming.

The lake’s most recent depth reading came in at just below flood stage of 100 feet.

Secretary of Transportation Brian Searles said that there are still some costs unaccounted for, such as power lines running under rock that was placed on top of causeways. After the water goes down a bit more, the rock can be removed and those additional costs can be taken into account before a final damage estimate is made.

“Damages to highways and related facilities are now somewhere between $16 million and $18 million. It’s going to go up. We don’t know the total, and won’t until the lake goes down a bit more and we are able to consider what it’s going to take to implement permanent repairs.” Searles said.

Searles added that the good news is that all state roads are now open.

Since April, considered the beginning of the flood period, 36 state roads closed; adding in closed local roads, the number was much higher.

Searles reminded Vermonters that the surfaces of many roads are still showing damage, since spring repair crews are made up of the same people tending to flood damage. He said he expects there will be a six-week delay on the maintenances of some roads.

In addition to people working hard with different municipals to get things cleaned up, businesses are also scrambling to repair damage caused by the flooding. Gov. Shumlin, along with the Vermont Economic Development Authority, created a low-interest loan system for businesses to apply for up to $25,000 for damages from the flood. According to Sue Allen, special assistant to the governor, there were approximately 17 businesses that had applied and 11 had been approved as of June 20. Allen suspects there will be enough money to respond to all applicants unless businesses start requesting the maximum amount, which will cause the $3 million budget to disappear quickly.

Because it has been such a nasty spring and the weather has been breaking records, people wonder if more of the same can be expected in upcoming years.

Markowitz said: “There have been a lot of questions coming to my desk asking whether or not what we saw this spring is a 500-year flood occurrence, or if it’s the new normal, and I would have to say that it would be irresponsible for us to not plan ahead and not to plan for greater rainfall and greater flooding into the future.”

VTDigger

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.

VTDigger