[J]ay Peak Resort will face tougher pollution control measures following a settlement with an environmental group over stormwater runoff flowing from the resort that damaged streams for more than a decade.
The state’s environmental enforcement agency has imposed pollution control measures on development at the resort since 2006, but two streams have not fully recovered in the past decade, in part due to a wave of expansion since 2009.
Despite the streams’ slow recovery, in April of last year the state issued four new permits allowing Jay Peak to discharge stormwater runoff into the already impaired streams. This prompted an environmental group to step in.
“We didn’t feel like the agency’s response was very satisfying. The real issue was these streams have been impaired for a decade and they weren’t getting any cleaner,” said Kim Greenwood, a staff scientist for the Vermont Natural Resources Council.
With help from the Vermont Law School, the group appealed the agency’s stormwater permits in environmental court. The settlement reached last month places restrictions on new development unless the resort can show that the streams are recovering.
But a major proposed development at the four-season resort is exempt from all conditions under the settlement, according to an attorney involved in the appeal.
Jay Peak Resort plans to break ground this summer on 13 new cottages (totaling 84 residential units), a 15,000-square-foot recreation center and a 5,000-square-foot medical center. The projects will be funded through the federal EB-5 immigrant investor program.
“It’s not going to interfere with Jay Peak’s plans,” said Walter Elander, director of mountain planning and development at Jay Peak Resort. He said Jay Peak has put in place stormwater infrastructure that will capture sediment coming from new projects.
Aside from exempted projects, new stormwater discharge permits must be offset by pollution control measures elsewhere along the streams, according to the settlement. That means if the resort builds a project that sends sediment into the stream, it can capture sediment at another location that results in no net increase in pollution.
The settlement also says the resort must wait until the streams are restored to state standards before it applies for permits to develop the so-called West Bowl. Jay Peak plans to build six new trails, three chair lifts, glades, a base lodge and a hotel, according to Elander. The resort has yet to find a financial backer for the project.
Elander said the streams will likely recover by the time the resort applies for its permits, which could be two years or more in the future. At that time, he said the resort will use “very sensitive construction methods” to prevent erosion.
“We can do this. We can do it right,” he said. “We’re confident, given the trend that we are currently on.”
Jay Peak is not the only ski resort that has damaged high-elevation streams in Vermont. Sugarbush, Killington, Mount Snow and Stowe are all responsible for damaging waterways, according to the state.
“We have definitely seen issues at the ski resorts across the state,” said David Mears, commissioner of the Department of Environmental Conservation. “But we have also seen some real success stories.”
Some resorts, like Stratton and Sugarbush, have successfully restored streams, he said. The state also says the bottom mile of the Jay Branch has recovered, according to 2014 biological monitoring data.
Since the state ordered Jay Peak to come up with a plan to restore the streams, the resort has built stormwater infrastructure capable of capturing sediment runoff, such as a series of collection ponds and grass filters, according to Neil Kamman, manager of the state’s water quality monitoring, assessment and planning program.
In April, the Agency of Natural Resources issued Jay Peak Resort four stormwater permits to further pollute the impaired streams, including Jay Branch, Tributary 9 of Jay Branch, South Mountain Branch and Jay Brook, according to VNRC’s appeal.
Following the appeal, Mears applauded the VNRC for working with Jay Peak to develop the additional pollution control measures.
“It reflects how critical it is to have citizen involvement and engagement in these issues,” he said. “We would not have gotten into this settlement without the involvement of the VNRC.”
Rachel Stevens, an attorney with the Environmental and Natural Resources Law Clinic, said the Agency of Natural Resources had full legal authority to deny the permits themselves.
“The Agency of Natural Resources has been authorizing discharge permits for new discharges into impaired waters,” Stevens said. “We didn’t do anything that the agency couldn’t have done themselves.”