[T]he Vermont Superior Court’s Environmental Division upheld a decision this week to give the state’s transportation department, VTrans, the permits it needs for an almost $10 million overhaul of the I-89 Exit 16 interchange in Colchester.
The court decision paves the way for connecting roads needed for a Costco gas station, the creation of the state’s first “diverging diamond interchange” — a configuration allowing traffic to briefly switch sides — and a sidewalk on Route 2/7 connecting Winooski and Colchester.
It will also send more phosphorus and chlorine into Lake Champlain, according to the Conservation Law Foundation, which has been calling for greater environmental safeguards to be built into the project.
Colchester’s Costco announced plans to open a 12-pump gas station in 2007 and constructed a pumping station last year.
Fuel has yet to flow from Costco’s pumps, however, as their permits were conditional on VTrans’ upgrading Mountain View Road — a project the state’s transportation agency bundled with a larger traffic calming project along the Route 2/7 corridor in Colchester.
VTrans plans to install a “diverging diamond” interchange at I-89 Exit 16 in Colchester that will send left-turning traffic to the opposite side of the road. That exit has been designated a “high-crash location” by VTrans.
The plan has been opposed by R.L. Vallee Inc. and Timberlake Associates, respective owners of nearby gas stations Maplefields and Champlain Farms. The companies appealed the state’s Natural Resources Board’s 2016 decision to grant VTrans Act 250 permit for the project.
The big box store is expected to offer gas prices below the regional average, presumably eating into sales at the nearby competitors.
The plan has created unusual allies out of the Conservation Law Foundation, an environmental advocacy group, and the fuel sellers in their legal challenge.
Judge Thomas Walsh of the Vermont Superior Court’s Environmental Division wrote in his decision, signed on June 1, that VTrans project manager Michael LaCroix had proved that site constraints made additional stormwater treatment beyond what VTrans had proposed were “impracticable.”
Walsh felt that VTrans’ proposed “site balancing” — treating stormwater elsewhere in the watershed — would have a “net positive impact” on adjacent Sunnyside Brook. Walsh upheld the Natural Resource Agency’s decision to grant VTrans an Act 250 permit, writing that their application had met all safety requirements and that Champlain Farms would be minimally impacted by construction.
Costco attorney Mark Hall said in an interview Friday that Costco won’t be able to start pumping gas until VTrans acquires adjacent land for widening the intersection of Mountain View Road and Route 2/7, which he called the “last little piece” needed to open the gas station. He didn’t know when that might be.
Winooski town manager Jessie Baker said she thinks “any improvements are great” to help alleviate traffic between Colchester and Winooski. She added that she would work with VTrans to educate drivers on how to make their way through the figure-eight traffic interchange — the first of its kind in Vermont.
“It’s a pretty innovative traffic design,” said Baker.
In addition to changing vehicular flow onto I-89, the project will install sidewalks on both sides of Route 2/7 in Colchester. Pedestrians and bikers currently have to travel in a dirt path next the busy road or along its narrow shoulder.
“Right now we have people walking to the grocery stores from Winooski or from the other side of Colchester,” Kathi O’Reilly, Colchester’s economic safety officer, said in an interview Friday. “It’s really an unsafe situation.”
Conservation Law Foundation argued in its initial motion opposing the stormwater permit that it is illegal for VTrans to construct a project that will add more chloride and phosphorous to Sunnyside Brook.
The brook is classified as impaired under Vermont Water Quality Standards due to chloride from road salts applied by VTrans. Stormwater treatment for the diverging diamond interchange project is only designed to “comply with the Stormwater Management Rule for non-impaired watersheds,” according to Judge Walsh’s decision.
“The Exit 16 project sits next to an already-polluted creek that feeds directly into the lake,” CLF press secretary Jake O’Neill wrote in an email Friday afternoon.
“We believe that VTrans should be required to take more stringent steps to address stormwater runoff and stop harmful pollutants from making their way into Lake Champlain. We’re disappointed in the decision allowing the project to proceed with less-stringent stormwater protections in place,” he said.
Costco’s attorney Mark Hall said he would not be surprised to see an additional appeal filed opposing this decision, but that VTrans can start on the road overhaul regardless.
