This commentary is by Kathy Urffer, who serves as river ateward for the Connecticut River Conservancy in Vermont and New Hampshire.
In the face of climate change, Vermont needs a comprehensive, equitable way to ensure access to surface water users for decades to come. The Connecticut River Conservancy feels that H.466/S.237 currently being considered in the Vermont Legislature creates that pathway.
This bill will require data collection to understand current surface water usage, provide the Vermont Agency of Natural Resources oversight of any transfers of water between large watersheds, and provide a public process after 2026 to create a permitting system for larger surface water users to make sure that downstream users have access to the water they need while also protecting the living creatures in our streams and rivers.
Vermonters support clean water, and many rely on access to surface water as part of their livelihoods. This bill will ensure that all have equitable access to that water in the future.
We are living in a rapidly changing climate. What we have seen occur in the past decade is more intense than the relatively conservative predictions by climate scientists. We continue to see more runoff, increased flooding, and increased droughts due to reduced snowpack.
And, these changes are happening on a very local watershed scale with more intense localized storms and weather patterns.
During the summer of 2018, the White River was well below normal flow levels even though, where I live in southern Vermont, we had been inundated with rainstorms almost weekly. The drought monitor for the state of Vermont right now shows that the northern half of the state has been considered abnormally dry for the past several months.
In July and August of 2021, the northern half of the state was in a moderate drought. There was a secretarial disaster declaration for drought in nine counties in Vermont beginning in June 2020.
Simultaneously, we are seeing catastrophic local flooding. There were 10 counties considered natural disaster areas in 2019 for flooding. In 2021, Vermont and New Hampshire requested more than $7 million in federal disaster relief funding for infrastructure due to storm damage.
Any research that you do regarding our changing weather patterns bears out the same result. We must anticipate that the hydrology of our state’s rivers are going to change dramatically over the next 10, 20, 30 years. We should fully expect flooding and drought to increase, and we need to adapt now to avoid the worst of it.
Add to this increased developmental pressure from climate migrants and recent Covid migrants — Vermont had a 38% increase in out-of-state buyers in 2020 compared to 2019 — and you have the perfect scenario where our rivers are potentially sucked dry, like, for example, what is currently happening to the Ipswich River in Massachusetts, which is running dry every year, even with the Massachusetts Water Management Act that has been in place since 1986.
All three of the other Connecticut River watershed states, New Hampshire, Massachusetts and Connecticut, have some surface water use registration or permitting system in place. While Vermont is often the one taking the lead on policy; in this instance, we are woefully behind.
One of the most important aspects of H.466 is that it allows the state to consider cumulative impacts on a stream. The few current regulations that deal with surface water withdrawals, such as the snowmaking and de minimis agriculture requirements, are limited to considering one surface water user’s impact on the entire volume of a waterbody.
There is currently no way to consider the cumulative effect of multiple surface water users taking water at the same time — especially the impact if taking water during a period of low flow or drought.
The Surface Water Diversion and Study Group, as required by Act 173 of 2020, met 10 times between January and December of 2021, did a great deal of research, brought in riparian rights experts and regulators from other states, conducted hours of conversations, and collectively filed a report to the Vermont Legislature.
It was not required to provide draft legislation, but its members collectively decided that effort was the best way forward. That legislation is in front of the Senate now and was drafted with considerable discussion and consideration for the many parties that might be affected by it.
In the face of climate change, Vermont needs a comprehensive, equitable way to ensure access to surface water for decades to come. H.466/S.237, currently being considered in the Vermont Legislature, creates that pathway. The Connecticut River Conservancy asks all to support the passage of H.466 to provide equitable access for those who rely on surface waters for their livelihood while protecting the life in our streams.
