“This is not fish versus Homo sapiens,” wrote members of the Eden Selectboard in a letter commenting on the plan. “It is absolutely critical to balance economic and practical needs with the need to maintain conservation efforts.”
The closed asbestos mine on the flanks of Belvidere Mountain in Eden and Lowell remains a gray scar on an otherwise forested landscape. The state Agency of Natural Resources and the Department of the Interior jointly received $850,000 from the mine’s prior owner, G-I holdings, as the result of a settlement reached in 2009.
Representatives from the Vermont Department of Environmental Conservation and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, designated as trustees under the settlement, had to come up with a plan for how to spend the money.
Per the terms of the settlement, the money — paid in full this year — must offset damage caused by the mine by improving natural resources similar to those that were contaminated, said Molly Sperduto, a biologist with U.S. FWS. As tailings from the mine had contaminated nearby streams, destroying habitat for fish and other wildlife, the trustees were looking for projects that would improve other nearby aquatic habitat, she said. Following a series of public meetings, the agencies unveiled a draft plan at the end of June to replace culverts in Eden and Lowell.
John Schmeltzer, a hazardous waste project manager with the DEC, said that, in addition to addressing priorities for Eden and Lowell, “replacement of culverts can have a (positive) impact on habitat, especially for fish passage.”
“So what we were thinking is that culvert projects are pretty clear, defined projects that I think are beneficial to the town and also provide an ecological benefit.”
A common concern expressed in the 13 public comments to the plan was that the lion’s share of Eden’s portion of the settlement money would replace two culverts on Square Road — a class four, infrequently used road. Schmeltzer said the trustees had initially selected to replace culverts on Square Road based on assessments from fisheries biologists that this would reconnect “a long stretch” of blocked fish habitat.
Leslie White, an Eden resident, was among the residents who requested that the trustees spend the money in a way more in line with town needs. “This is one-time money, which they have made it very clear…so to spend it on a road that’s only a seasonal road” doesn’t make sense, she said.
Rep. Mark Higley, R-Lowell, and Sen. Bobby Starr, D-Essex-Orleans, sent a joint comment to the trustees requesting they spend the money on projects more line with the towns’ priorities. The Eden Selectboard is content with the trustees’ plan to put $60,000 toward replacing a double culvert on Knowles Flat Road, but want to see the rest of the money go toward replacing other culverts on that road, according to their letter.
Higley described Knowles Flat Road as “a major thoroughfare” that “has been out of commission for a couple years” due to the failing culverts. This has created a safety problem for the town as emergency vehicles cannot get through, he said.
Meanwhile, the Lowell Selectboard wrote that they would like the trustees to use the money for erosion control projects instead of replacing culverts on Irish Hill Road, noting that the town needed to reduce erosion to comply with roads permits. Schmeltzer said they would look into the possibility of spending more of the money on projects requested by the Selectboard that could mitigate runoff into streams.
Members of the Eden Selectboard wrote in their letter that spending the settlement in a way that meets existing town needs is especially important given the more than 15,000 acres of conserved land in town that pay reduced taxes. “As long-time residents of Eden, the community is not oblivious to the importance of the natural world. That is why many of us live here.”
But, the board notes, “for a small town of 1400 residents, the vast amount of land that others can come and enjoy is made possible in part by the Eden taxpayer. This is yet another reason to fully maximize what the settlement funds can accomplish.”
When asked whether the lower tax base was a problem for the towns of Eden and Lowell, Higley said that “it is going to be a concern, of course, when property taxes continue to rise for everybody.”
“When these sorts of things get taken off the tax rolls, everybody else has to pick up the tab,” he added.
The $850,000 is not the only money going toward asbestos remediation efforts. In 2013, the Vermont Attorney’s General Office, along with the EPA, reached a settlement with current mine owner Vermont Asbestos Group.
VAG, which is owned Morrisville businessman Howard Manosh, was found to be financially unable to cover the full remediation costs. The settlement obligates VAG to pay $5,000 a year until 2023 and to try to obtain as much as possible in insurance claims. The state manages a a fund,with money from insurance claims and the mine’s original owner that currently has $1.26 million, said Schmeltzer. He noted that this falls far short of even the low-end of estimates for cleaning up the mine.
VAG also has to continue maintaining the temporary mitigation structures put in place by the EPA since 2007 — environmental features such as water bars, diversion trenches and berms to minimize runoff — for a decade after the settlement.
The DEC had hoped to designate the site as a Superfund site, said Schmeltzer, to provide federal cleanup money. He noted that natural resources damages, which is the class of settlement that the $850,000 belongs to, “are typically done after a Superfund site has been remediated,” meaning they are structured to go “above and beyond” a cleanup that, in this case, never happened.
Residents of Lowell and Eden both voted against designating the Superfund designation, and Gov. Shumlin honored their request. White said she had been against the designation because of the stigma associated with it — and skepticism that the state would have been able to cough up its share of the costs. “I felt it was wrong to label us as a Superfund site and then never be able to complete it.”
In a comment letter from his lawyer, Manosh requested that the trustees set aside the $850,000 for any unforeseen future cleanup. Under CERCLA, the federal law that governs how the trustees can spend the settlement money, the money cannot go toward cleaning up the mine, said Sperduto.
“I know it’s kind of counterintuitive,” said Schmeltzer. “I would love to be able to use that money to put it into a rainy day fund, if you will.”
He added that the state did not want to spend the money for projects in the “immediate watershed” of the mine. “Given the fact that we don’t have a long-term remedy, I don’t want to go in and do some type of restoration that is, in the future, going to get re-contaminated.”
Manosh’s attorney, Adrian Otterman, says he agrees that “the cash that they are holding cannot be used for direct on-site remediation,” but believes, based on researching similar settlements, that it could be “held for future contingencies.”
“There are dilapidated buildings and there’s this mountain of asbestos tailings that, as hard as they may try, there are half a dozen scenarios that could cause future runoff and future contamination,” he said. “It would be nice if there were a small fund available to clean this up.”
White and others had fought against a Vermont Department of Health report released in 2008, which originally concluded that living near the mine posed a health risk. “I’m not going to die because I’m sitting up at my picnic table looking up…at the waste pile,” said White. “You don’t want to be making it into powder and inhaling it, but that’s not what’s happening up there.”
The revised report now says that people who died from asbestosis in the surrounding towns had all worked in the mine. Schmeltzer said that nearby air quality monitoring found that fibers were not migrating off-site.
The state and federal trustees are still in the process of reviewing the public comments and will draft a formal response, said Schmeltzer. “I understand where everybody is coming from on this, and we’re going to try to look at what people are looking for, and going back and seeing where we could potentially accommodate some of the requests.”
“But again, our filter is, we have to go by what that criteria is for using that money which is…something that we believe has an ecological benefit for that area,” he added.
The trustees will meet again with members of the town selectboards to provide an update in November and solicit more feedback. The final plan for the money is slated to come out in January.
