A rival fuel dealer’s opposition to the construction of a gas station at the Costco warehouse store in Colchester is winning friends in the environmental community.
Retail giant Costco is proposing a gasoline station at its Colchester location that it says would lower gas prices in the area. But since the project was first proposed in 2007, a competing gas station owner has been fighting the project on environmental grounds.
R.L. “Skip” Vallee, owner of the Maplefields chain of gas stations and convenience stores, is taking his case to a state environmental court this summer to challenge the Agency of Natural Resources’ recent decision to approve Costco’s wetlands permit.
The proposed six-pump filling station is located along a wetland on the south side of Lower Mountain View Drive near one of Vallee’s Maplefields stores. Costco’s proposal would pave most of the wetland’s 50-foot buffer zone that filters pollutants from stormwater flowing off the store’s parking lot.
That’s why Vallee hired an environmental consulting firm to review Costco’s wetlands permit. The report found the project would send more sediment, phosphorus and other chemicals into the nearby watershed and, ultimately, into Lake Champlain.
Despite Vallee’s competitive interests, environmental groups say the study’s findings are solid.
“They’ve got a pretty good case,” said Kim Greenwood, a water program director for the Vermont Natural Resources Council. The VNRC and the Conservation Law Foundation sent a letter to the ANR in December 2012 opposing the permit.
The state defends its ruling, and says the case is really about two gasoline dealers fighting over customers.
“It’s two very well resourced entities deciding to invest in using the environmental permit as a proxy for a commercial disagreement,” Department of Environmental Conservation Commissioner David Mears said Monday.
Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., has been critical of Burlington-area gasoline dealers for allegedly keeping prices high. He wants more competition brought to the area and has expressed support for the competition Costco might bring.
“I find it interesting that the opponents of Costco’s filling station are some of the region’s major fuel distributors, who apparently are not interested in competition from Costco,” said Daniel McLean, a spokesman for Sanders’ Vermont office.
Costco sold gasoline at 14 cents below the national average in 2013 (and the previous year), according to GasBuddy, which tracks more than 35 million individual gasoline prices.
But Vallee said his case is about fairness. And he said he has the resources to “battle” the Costco’s plans on environmental grounds.
“Usually, I’m on the other side of this,” he said. “My view is that every time I build one of these things, I have to comply.”
The study
Watershed Consulting Associates, a Vermont-based stormwater consulting firm, is working with Vallee on the case. Replacing the 50-foot natural vegetative buffer with pavement will send 130 percent more sediment and 46 percent more phosphorus into nearby Sunnyside Brook, the firm found.
“The proposed changes at the site will clearly not improve water quality but rather substantially degrade water quality,” Andres Torizzo, the principal of the firm, said in a memo.
The brook feeds into Lake Champlain, and the firm predicts there will be a net increase in phosphorus loading into the lake.
The Shumlin administration is finalizing a plan with the Environmental Protection Agency to limit phosphorus loading into the lake – a plan that points to commercial development as one of the chief causes of the lake’s water quality problems.
“Why are we talking about trying to do more for the lake?” Vallee said.
Environmental groups that have been critical of the state’s Lake Champlain cleanup plan agree the permit will harm the lake’s water quality.
“All of those small developments, and all of our small actions, are why the lake is impaired in the first place,” Greenwood said. “Small impacts add up.”
Costco rejects Torizzo’s analysis; the company’s proposed project, which relies on channeling stormwater runoff into a pond where the sediment can settle before entering the brook, is better for the watershed, it says.
“Phosphorus and sediment would be vastly improved over the existing systems,” said Mark Hall, an attorney with Paul, Frank and Collins who is representing Costco.
Watershed Consulting Associates has monitored “alarming” levels of chloride entering the stream, which they say exceed EPA standards. Chloride, which comes from spreading salt in the winter months, can kill off aquatic habitat, the firm said.
“The results that we are finding are really pretty shocking,” Torizzo said. And Costco’s current plan, he said, is “very noncommittal.”
Costco’s attorney said the retailer’s proposed chloride treatment system will be better than the current system.
The VNRC is using the case as a vehicle to advocate for the adoption of a rule that proposed developments either improve or maintain the state’s existing water quality.
The so-called anti-degradation policy, if adopted, could require the agency to prohibit some projects. The policy so far lacks political will to move forward, Greenwood said.
“The agency does not want to be in the position to tell people you can’t build here because you can’t pollute the water,” she said.
