Vermont’s infrastructure is “mediocre” — on a school report card, it would get a C — according to a report issued Thursday by a statewide group of civil engineers.
The report gives Vermont letter grades across nine categories, ranging from a B-minus for its bridges to a D-plus for its wastewater systems. Energy, roads and solid waste scored a C-plus; aviation, dams and drinking water scored a C; and stormwater systems drew a C-minus.
The state’s overall grade is the same as it was four years ago, the last time Vermont’s chapter of the American Society of Civil Engineers published a letter. The C grade is slightly higher than the society’s national average, which is currently a C-minus.
The group of engineers said that Vermont has some of the oldest infrastructure in the U.S., and the state needs to make its existing systems more resilient to deal with the impacts of the climate crisis.
At the same time, the Society of Civil Engineers said, the pandemic has spurred additional challenges, including higher building material costs and fewer people working in industries such as engineering and construction, which have slowed even existing maintenance projects.
“As a parent of two teenagers, seeing a C grade on my child’s report card would not necessarily invoke a feeling of excitement. It would probably give me some pause,” Julie Moore, secretary of the Vermont Agency of Natural Resources, said at a press conference at the Statehouse on Thursday detailing the report. “But in thinking about this, the grade itself does demonstrate effort — and also the opportunity for growth.”
The report identifies wastewater as the only aspect of the state’s infrastructure that is in “poor” condition, with a D-plus grade. About half of Vermont homes rely on septic-based systems to treat their wastewater — but if those systems fail, the results can include health hazards and polluted waterways, Tara Kulkarni, an associate professor of civil and environmental engineering at Norwich University, said at the press conference.
The report notes that between 2018 and 2021, the number of state permits issued to repair failed wastewater systems increased by more than 20%, but annual statewide investments in wastewater infrastructure decreased by $17 million.
To supplement federal Covid-19 relief funding, the Society of Civil Engineers said the state will need to invest further in water and sewer infrastructure to meet its goals for reducing the amount of harmful chemicals in waterways and improving climate resilience.
The engineers also said in the report that Vermont will need to spend some $2.3 billion over the next two decades to help its cities and towns draw down yet more federal funding that’s available for stormwater infrastructure projects, as well as the labor needed to build and monitor them.
Moore acknowledged that there’s “a lot of work to be done” to make sure towns can meet the state’s clean water goals, though said she believes the state is on track with plans to invest about $750 million in water infrastructure over the next five years.
Bridges are the only aspect of Vermont’s infrastructure rated as “good” in the report. The number of bridges considered in “poor” condition in Vermont decreased from 5% to about 2.5% over the past several years, a figure that’s well below the national average, according to the report. But the state can’t rest on its laurels, according to the engineers: The average age of Vermont’s bridges is about 35% higher than the national average, which will spur a need for more bridge funding in the years to come.
Kulkarni also noted Vermont’s grade for energy — an area where the state has laid out ambitious goals — stayed the same this year as it was in 2019. Vermont households use less energy than those in most other states, the engineers said in the report, but Vermont still consumes more than three times as much energy as it produces. That means the state has to import extra power, giving Vermonters some of the nation’s highest energy rates.
Key to the state’s success in improving its energy system, Kulkarni said, is increasing the capacity of its power transmission infrastructure. From 2015 to 2020, she said, Vermont quadrupled its solar energy production, but the state’s transmission lines can’t carry that much solar energy around the state, or out to the rest of New England.
The Society of Civil Engineers also said Vermont’s roads are in better condition than those in many states, with about 40% considered in good condition (though that’s a decrease from the 2019 report, which said 45% of roads were “good”). The number of roads in “fair” condition is up this year, though, from 25% previously to 31% this year.
