Earl Morrison wanted to install a 500 kw solar array to offset electricity costs at his feed mill in Barnet. He bought a 4-acre plot of land near the mill and applied to interconnect the project to the electric grid.
Then the wetlands division at the state Agency of Natural Resources told him that most of the parcel was either a Class II wetland or buffer area — and that approval for the project was unlikely.
“They aren’t helping us, I feel,” said Morrison of state regulators. “They don’t permit solar in wetlands, they aren’t going to permit solar in wetlands.”
Morrison, who owns of Morrison’s Custom Feeds in Barnet, said he may end up planting corn (which is exempt from wetlands regulations) instead of solar panels on his 4-acre field.
Many of the state’s wetlands are on private land — and landowners are frustrated by what they say are convoluted and at times conflicting state and federal wetlands regulations.
Vermont lawmakers wrestled last session with simplifying the state’s wetlands regulations. Unable to figure out what to do, they created a study committee to come up with recommendations about how to update the law.
Rep. Carolyn Partridge, D-Windham, Sen. Bobby Starr, D-Essex/Orleans, respective heads of the House and Senate agriculture committees, and Rep. Harvey Smith, R-New Haven, all said current regulations were too confusing for farmers — on top of new water quality requirements.
Smith, a beef farmer in Addison County, said farmers are faced with two different sets of regulations. The federal Natural Resources Conservation Practices might invoke water quality rules in an area that the state later says requires a wetlands permit.
“So, we’re getting some mixed signals,” he said.
Sen. Chris Pearson, D/P-Chittenden, expressed concerns that the state would have to pay millions of dollars more for phosphorus cleanup efforts if wetlands protections are not taken seriously.
Case in point? A Conservation Law Foundation lawsuit prompted the federal Environmental Protection Agency to reject Vermont’s Lake Champlain cleanup plan several years ago. Now the state has to pony up $50 million to $60 million a year for the next two decades for clean water projects.
“Wetlands are the single best tool we have for protecting clean water,” Bray said.
Ernest Wright, of Derby, told lawmakers he bought a forested tract near Lake Salem in Derby and received a heavy cut permit from the Vermont Department of Forests, Parks and Recreation to clear the land so he could farm it.
After clearing the woods, he received a “cease and desist” letter from the state wetlands division telling him he had not received permission to alter the wetlands on his property. Wright expressed frustration that he had not heard anything about needing a wetlands permit when he applied for permission from the same agency to clear the land.
Wright said he hoped to sell the property because he and his wife could not afford to pay taxes on it if they could not farm it.
“If the state of Vermont wants to be telling us what to do with this land, then you better be owning it,” he said.
Karen Horn, director of public policy and advocacy for the Vermont League of Cities and Towns, testified that farmers were not the only ones struggling with wetlands regulations. Municipalities often have to apply for many different permits and at times have to grapple with conflicting permit requirements, she said.
“Our experience at the local level is that each regulatory program in Vermont tends to operate as though it is the only regulatory program,” said Horn.
Currently, the state’s definition for what counts as a wetland grandfathers in agricultural land that has been used since 1990. The state Agency of Natural Resources wants the law to be updated to align the wetlands definition with the federal one used by the Army Corps of Engineers. ANR also wants to “create a straightforward process” to determine if a project is subject to wetlands review and streamline the permitting process.
But environmental groups say federal regulations do not provide adequate wetlands protection. They would like the state to have a goal of “net gain of wetlands through restoration processes.” The state’s current goal is no net loss.
Wetlands provide critical ecological and economic functions including filtering water, mitigating floods, and providing critical habitat for certain fish, birds and plants. A recent study by the University of Vermont’s Gund Institute and the Nature Conservancy estimated that 15% of phosphorus reduction in Lake Champlain could be achieved through wetland restoration. Phosphorus, a mineral found in soil, fertilizer, septic and manure runoff, feeds cyanobacteria blooms that are poisoning the state’s lakes.
“I know there’s a lot of work going on right now to try to address farming and dairy farming in particular the economic difficulties that we’re having and we support those efforts,” said Jon Groveman, water and policy director for VNRC, in an interview Friday. “We just don’t think weakening regulation is a way to help farmers economically and it will end up with a loss of vital natural resources that you can’t get back.”
One area of confusion is whether required on-farm water quality practices, like animal trails and manure storage areas, should also be exempt from wetlands permitting.
In June, respective chairs of the Senate and House agriculture committees sent a letter to Anson Tebbetts, Secretary of the Agency of Agriculture, Foods and Markets, saying that their intent in Act 64 was to clarify that the Agency of Ag has authority over all farming activities in wetlands.
That letter triggered a wave of concern at ANR.
“I’m concerned with the final statement — that they (legislators) believe that the language clearly authorizes AAFM to regulate farming in wetlands and buffers — and it appears to mean all wetlands,” wrote Marli Rupe, agricultural water quality section chief for the Department of Environmental Conservation, in a July 8 email to Julie Moore, Agency of Natural Resources head.
