Based on information collected in 2012, the EPA estimates Vermont will require $30 million annually for the next five years to build facilities needed for clean water.
But that report doesn’t include new requirements imposed by federal and state regulations since 2012, which bring the annual cost to about $156 million, Environmental Conservation Commissioner Alyssa Schuren said.
“We have not made the investments over time for clean water, and now the bills are due,” Schuren said.
The state commissioned a report two years ago through Act 138 on costs associated with clean water and drinking water within the state. It found that a $156 million annual investment would be required over 10 years to meet the state’s drinking water needs while performing needed cleanup efforts on the state’s polluted surface waters.
Schuren said she appreciates the EPA’s work in preparing its report, called the Clean Watersheds Needs Survey, which the agency released this month.
But things in Vermont have changed dramatically since the EPA collected information for the report, Schuren said, warning that towns and residents should not find solace in the document’s relatively low figures.
James Ehlers, executive director of Lake Champlain International, said he has been trying to alert the public to these figures for years.
“The $156 million is more along the lines of what we’ve been saying for years is necessary, and I’ve been criticized for using that number,” Ehlers said. “They say, ‘Oh, it doesn’t have to be public tax dollars.’ No, it doesn’t all have to come from public tax dollars, but it needs to come from somewhere.”
Ehlers said the cleanup investment is vital for the state’s economic health. Without clean surface water and adequate drinking water, tourism will suffer, property values will decline, tax revenue will fall, and a host of cascading effects will overshadow the admittedly high price of investing in clean water, he said.
“I think the money’s there. It’s just, are we going to prioritize it, and invest in what’s a basic, fundamental necessity for life, and that’s clean, healthy water,” Ehlers said. “This amount of money we’re talking about, it’s a rounding error in the human services budget. There is no more basic human service than the provision of clean water.”
The state’s 2016 budget shows $3.6 billion going toward human services.
Much of the amount Schuren cited should come from private businesses, said Conservation Law Foundation Vermont Director Chris Kilian.
“It’s an open question whether the cost of implementing water quality protection on farms — which are for-profit enterprises — should be borne by the public either,” he added.
But there’s no question Vermonters will need to invest in their infrastructure to clean up the state’s waters, and what’s been allocated so far is insufficient for the task, Kilian said.
“Everyone acknowledged last year that what was done in Act 64 by way of raising revenue was just the beginning,” he said.
A significant portion of public costs would be for large-scale upgrades on wastewater treatment plants.
Responsibility for the cost of these improvements falls on municipal residents, said Eric Blatt, director of the Facilities and Engineering Division at the Agency of Natural Resources.
The state can provide low-interest funding and in some cases grants, but “ultimately, if a community is required to make improvements, it’s the municipality’s responsibility,” Blatt said.
This worries local government leaders, said Burlington Mayor Miro Weinberger.
He and other mayors across the state are seeking ways to pass most of the cost to the state, he said. Previously the state paid 100 percent of the cost of upgrades that are now entirely municipalities’ burden. Weinberger said he’d like to get the state to pay at least 80 percent.
Furthermore, the money required of local communities might be better spent in other ways than major overhauls to multimillion-dollar sewage treatment plants, Weinberger said. That might save localities money and drive down the overall cost of the cleanup effort, he said.
For instance, the $156 million annual figure that Schuren cited includes $30 million to upgrade Burlington’s wastewater treatment plant, Weinberger said. But technologies exist that achieve the same reduction in the city’s phosphorus pollution for costs on the order of $80,000 to $100,000 a year, he said.
That is one reason the Department of Environmental Conservation should update its cost estimate, Weinberger said.
Beyond that, he said, it’s just not an efficient use of money for cities and towns to make huge upgrades to their wastewater treatment facilities when the same investment in reducing pollution from other sources could make a far greater difference. Already, he said, the effluent from wastewater treatment plants contains little phosphorus, which is the pollutant of primary concern at the moment.
“It would be a pretty perverse outcome if we spend millions and millions of public dollars on these pretty marginal improvements,” Weinberger said.
Interventions in stormwater control could have just as great an effect on phosphorus pollution for far less money, he said. That is why, he said, it’s important that rules for enforcing upcoming phosphorus pollution limits allow municipalities the flexibility to spend the money most efficiently, instead of mandating they invest in large wastewater treatment plant upgrades.
The state is amassing money to address needs such as these and should raise around $8 million for that purpose next year alone, from a property transfer tax instituted last year, said the chairman of the House Fish, Wildlife and Water Resources Committee, David Deen.
Several state agencies were instructed, at the time that tax was adopted, to find a permanent replacement that will adequately fund the state’s needs, he said. The current tax, which supports what’s called the clean water fund, expires in 2018, the year those agencies are to deliver their recommendation for permanent funding.
This year, no legislation has been introduced to supplement, replace or increase the property transfer tax, Deen said. It’s not for lack of interest, he said. Something of this magnitude requires a substantial process and demands answers that have yet to be found, he said.
“Anybody who has a silver bullet to help us raise $150 million a year, I will entertain that legislation,” he said. “Bring it to me.”
In the meantime, he said, his focus is on doing what can be done with what Vermonters can currently afford.
Whatever the sum, Vermonters won’t need to pay for all of it alone, Schuren said.
“Millions and millions” of dollars will come to the state from the federal government to aid in the effort, she said. That money will come from multiple federal agencies, to numerous sectors of Vermont’s economy.
For example, the USDA will provide grants to farmers, she said, and the EPA’s Clean Water State Revolving Fund will award loans to municipalities.
But much of the necessary money will come from within the state, in the form of either taxes or investments required of private businesses, she said. How to apportion costs is the subject of an ongoing inquiry within her department, which will result in a report to the Legislature in January 2017, Schuren said.
The investment will be required, by both the EPA and state law, she said.
“We don’t have the choice of investing” or not, she said. “This is why everyone needs to remain at the table. This is why everyone needs to do their part.”
“I do not think this is impossible,” Schuren added. “I think this is challenging.”
