Editor’s note: This commentary is by Rep. David Deen, a Democratic state representative from Westminster and the chair of the House Natural Resources, Fish and Wildlife Committee. He is an honorary trustee and former river steward of the Connecticut River Conservancy, formerly the Connecticut River Watershed Council.
[A]ct 64, the Vermont Clean Water Act of 2015, is based on the tenet of “all in.” Nice catchy phrase, but what does it mean to you and everybody else?
Our all-in mantra depicts the notion that everyone contributes pollution to our water through their normal life activities, and all in means that we all have some level of responsibility to clean up the waters of the state. Act 64 holds all segments of our society responsible for clean water. Here’s how.
In the municipal sector, roads are the major contributor to pollution and nutrient discharges to our rivers, streams and lakes. The act established a set of standards for municipal and state roads that begins with an analysis of how any segment of road affects the waters of the state. Once the roadway analysis is complete, over the next few years towns and the state must create plans to bring those sections of the roads up to “Best Management Practices” standards. These standards not only help clean up our waters, but BMP installations are more flood resilient, so it is a win for the rivers and a win for road repair budgets.
In the development sector the act sets new standards for stormwater runoff caused by creating surfaces where water will not soak into the soil but instead runs off directly and quickly into a stream, lake or river. The act required an update of the Stormwater Manual, the book of standards developers must meet when they create impervious surfaces or parking areas, buildings and driveways. The new manual was published in December and offers the highest protection to our waters.
In the forestry sector the act required a review and reissuance of the “Acceptable Management Practices” that protect water quality for logging. These renewed rules apply voluntarily across all logging operations but are mandatory for property enrolled in the Use Valuation Program.
Then there is the agricultural sector where new higher standards of protection of surface and groundwaters are central to the act. The Legislature discovered in our research on the act that many farmers were unfamiliar with the “Acceptable Agricultural Practices,” in place since 1996 that set out minimum water quality protection standards for all farms. So first off to make sure we got everyone’s attention and that agriculture practitioners understood that the standards applied to them we renamed the standards the “Required Agricultural Practices.” The new higher and more protective standards went into effect in December 2016.
The act requires training for small farmers as defined under the new required practices and for manure spreading companies, so everyone applying nutrients to the land understands how to protect the waters of the state as they spread manure. The act standardizes buffer protection, not as far back from the stream or lake shore as some would wish, but further than the previous standard. Each farm, whether small, medium or large, must have a nutrient management plan. The purpose of such a management plan is to ensure no farm is applying too much in the way of nutrients, a practice that not only wastes an expensive resource but increases the risk of runoff carrying the excess nutrients into the waters of the state.
So far, the act has engaged the major sectors in reducing nutrient loading and pollution runoff but there is one large group still not engaged in the all-in approach to clean water — that is you and me, whether we live in a town, city or on 100 acres out there in the middle of nowhere. The act allows for our engagement in this effort, but we have not yet moved there for several reasons.
One of the first hurdles we need to overcome is the oft-repeated but inaccurate claim that the act is only meant to clean up Lake Champlain. Nothing could be further from the truth. The act affects practices of each of the sectors mentioned above everywhere in Vermont, all the time.
The next most often heard claim is that “Hey, me and my modest house just don’t contribute that much runoff, why should I pay to clean this up?” Well, unless you never leave your house in a car, never shop at a store, never go to a school, never go to your town hall, and are off the electric grid, then you are contributing runoff to the waters of the state through using the road infrastructure, turning on you lights, and using the built landscape to shop, work, and play.
That said, how do we all participate. The answer under discussion right now is a Clean Water Authority that would manage a per parcel impervious fee, both its collection and disbursement for water quality improvement projects. The fee would be modest because we are all in, and with some 320,000 parcels in Vermont there is strength in numbers, and each person’s contribution would be minimal.
Yet doctrinaire voices say this is not the way to go since it will raise a fee. Well that slight raise in the cost dedicated to cleaning up the waters of Vermont will raise the comfort level of all who live here. Clean water will raise the value of our environment as an economic development tool. Clean water will raise the Vermont brand so that visitors will continue to value their experience in Vermont.
Despite the knee-jerk reaction to a clean water fee, there is much more to be gained if Vermont is all in to clean up the waters of the state.
