 This is a great turnout and we thank you very much for coming out to this Clean Water Board meeting. My name is Suzanne Young. I'm the secretary of administration. I am the chair by statute of the Clean Water Board and the statutory function of the Clean Water Board is to allocate the Clean Water Fund dollars and any capital dollars that have been appropriated by the legislature towards clean water projects and is a robust one-year process that we follow and this is the first public hearing we've had and I'm really glad they did because there's a good turnout and we want to hear from the public about the draft budget. The draft budget is $32.9 million that's within the jurisdiction of the Clean Water Board. I know folks have asked why is it only $32.9 when we've been saying we've got about $50 million allocated to allocate and dedicated to clean water projects and so the statute gives the Clean Water Board authority only over only two pieces of our Clean Water Funding. The Clean Water Fund itself and the capital dollars that are allocated to clean water projects. Most of the money is appropriated through the normal state appropriation process to agencies and departments who engage in clean water work. I'll just briefly introduce the board to you today and then we can get started. The run of show will be we're going to have a presentation by the Clean Water Initiative staff and the departments and agencies that do clean water projects to give you an overview of the programs that they support with clean water dollars. And then we will open it up for a few questions specific to that presentation. We have a lot of people we want to fit in today. We have a sign in sheet and we will ask folks to comment, limit your comments please to five minutes so everyone has the same amount of time to speak and if you haven't signed up to speak please do so because we're going to work up with that sheet and anyone who is participating online will be given an opportunity to speak through our wonderful Spinks phone here. It will alternate someone who is present here and anyone on the phone so everybody has an opportunity. So we will start with introductions. This is Jim Giffin who is a public member of the board appointed by Governor Scott. This is Secretary Joe Flynn, the Secretary of the Agency of Transportation, Secretary Moore, the Secretary of the Agency of Natural Resources, Secretary Kevitz, the Secretary of the Agency of Agriculture and Chad Tyler who is a public member appointed by the board. We have a great turnout today. We have two members who could not make it but this is a working meeting. We did not need a quorum and it's great that everybody made it here to personally hear from the public. So without further ado I would turn it over to Emily to introduce herself and staff and see up the presentation. Where would you like us? You're great. Where you are. I'm just going to put it from back here. Sorry for the awkwardness. So understanding that there may be some participants here today who this may be their first time coming through a Clean Water Board public meeting, wanted to share a little bit of background to set the stage on the Clean Water Board, the Clean Water Budget process and why we're all gathered here today. And after I wrap this quick presentation up we're going to be moving through with the different line items of the draft state fiscal year 21 budget and different staff from each of those agencies will be sharing a brief overview of the line items and then we'll open it up for public comment. So the Clean Water Fund was established under Act 64 of 2015 and it established a specific funding source for clean water improvement boards in the state of Vermont targeting nutrient inclusion primarily that washes into the state waters either through a wastewater treatment facility or a sewer water system or it could be a non-point sources of pollution which is driven by rain, runoff and snowmelt. And these funds are dispersed through a budget process annually that has multiple opportunities for public participation. And we allocate those funds across all of the different land use sectors whether it's agriculture, developed lands like hard surfaces, parking lots and roads, natural resource restoration which improves water quality and mitigates non-point source pollution as well as wastewater improvement. And in addition to all these water quality benefits these projects also provide other co-benefits like public health and safety and flood resiliency. They enhance our recreation opportunities and are very good for Vermont's economy. The Clean Water Board is the statutory entity that administers the Clean Water Fund and the Clean Water Board consists of the agency secretary of administration, agriculture, food and markets, natural resources, commerce, community development, transportation and a few years or a couple years ago this legislature added four public members to be appointed to the Clean Water Board to integrate some more public participation into the process. So we have those members here today. And each year the Clean Water Board comes together following a public process to be able to develop its annual budget and how these funds are administered. This year we are working right now on the State Disciliar 2021 budget. So this will be effective July 1st of next year of 2020 and go through June 30th of 2021. We have worked with Department of Taxes to determine what the anticipated revenues are for these funding sources that flow into the Clean Water Fund. And our funding target for the Clean Water Fund and State Disciliar 2019 is approximately $19 million. And in addition to that $13.9 million have been allocated through the capital bill process at the state legislature to also support this work. And by statute the Clean Water Board makes the recommendations for these two funding sources which in fiscal year 2021 will total across almost $33 million. And as Secretary Yang mentioned in addition to these funding sources we're also leveraging funds through the transportation bill, other federal funds and the appropriations bill that helps to bring together the whole portfolio of Clean Water Funding. And this is a quick overview, apologies for the small print of our budget process. There is a less detailed version of it on the fact sheet in your materials. On the right hand side you'll see a process chart right here. This is a little bit more detailed version. So the Clean Water Board had its first meeting under this budget process in June. And the Clean Water Board at that meeting finalized last year's budget to begin implementation this year. And they also looked at a draft budget recommendation that was developed by agency staff based on cost estimates for Clean Water Work in the state of Vermont. And they approved that draft budget, posted it for public comment. It has been out for public comment since July 22nd and it will be posted until September 6th. And there is an online questionnaire that's also included in your materials that is available for providing written comments and all so weighing in proportionately how the state should be allocating these funds. Once that public comment period closes, we will be integrating the recommendations and comments from this public hearing with the results of this online questionnaire into a package of public comment that will be presented to the Clean Water Board for their review. The Clean Water Board will meet in October. The exact meeting time has not yet been set, but we will be advertising that through our email list serve. If you haven't signed up yet, I encourage you to do so. And then the Clean Water Board will finalize its budget recommendation incorporating the public comment and then submit their recommendation to the administration to incorporate into the state budget. And they will go through a public legislative process to finalize. And by the time we come out of the next legislative session, we will have a final fiscal year 21 budget that the agencies will begin to implement. Okay. So that is the presentation of some background. And now we're going to switch gears. If you go into your meeting materials, you will find line item descriptions of each of the fiscal year 21. Here on page eight is the budget, the draft state fiscal year 21 budget that has been posted on our website and approved by the Clean Water Board for public comment. And now we're going to run through each of those line items by agency. And there are more detailed descriptions available also in your meeting packet. So first you'll see the table of the roll-off of the 21 budget. And then following that are the detailed line item descriptions that we're going to walk you through now so that you have a chance to learn a little bit more about how these funds are going to be used, what types of projects they'll support. And then we can shift gears into the public comment period. So first up we have agency of agriculture, food and markets. Laura DiPietro is going to be providing an overview of their programs. Do you want to hold questions to the end? Yes, please. Great. So I'll talk to you all and everyone else. So I'm Laura DiPietro at the agency of agriculture in charge of water quality programming. And at the agency of agriculture, mostly what we do is regulatory work with farmers to inspect and to identify problems. When we identify problems or people voluntarily come up and identify a problem on their own, we then have programs and the statutory setup is that the cost is not to be borne by the farmers solely as the citizens to protect the water and the state of Vermont and hence the programs that exist at the agency of agriculture to then help people implement projects. So that's the structure of what we do and how we do it. The first line item there is the Ag Conservation Assistance Program. And that is essentially farmers need some technical assistance in the field to help them as they try and do innovation, right? So agronomy and work in the field, I'm sure you've seen a lot of changes in the past where you see a lot more cover cropping, no-till practices, things like that. Having so specifically, this is a great deal of this is UVM Extension and the Pultney Meadowley Conservation District having staff to work with farmers directly to do that work. Those people are also, because they have other sources that support them, are able to get grants and have other programming that then becomes accessible to the farmers. So for instance, a lot of these groups have actually helped facilitate getting equipment and moving equipment for these farmers and doing sampling and testing so that they can understand the impacts of the practices and the changes that they've made and how that goes. So that program there is solely directed at that. And the water quality grants to partners and farmers. In previous clean water funds budgets, you will have noticed there were two different line items. One was money to partners and one was money to farmers. These have sort of been merged together because of how just the grant and opportunities were. Sometimes, for instance, we would give money to a partner who would then move that money to a partner. So putting it in one bucket allows us to have that ability to just give one grant instead of two grants to folks. So it limits the administrative overhead. Essentially that is a wide bucket, right? Other than that, the next one is operating we'll talk about. This is the bulk of where the clean water funding in the line items to the agency of agriculture to facilitate and move out to partners and farmers exist. And in the back, you'll see there's a lot of different things. There's capital money and there's obviously clean water fund money into it. And so essentially, we use the capital money to help with brick and mortar and more fixed steel or other type of longer-term investments. And then we use the non-capital funds to do a lot of the education, outreach, project development, those kinds of things. But more specifically, on the capital fund side here, our biggest program is our best management practice program. So that's the program that essentially helps put infrastructure on the ground. So we go out to a farm, we identify a problem, we realize you need some fix. That fix comes through that program and it's developed with our engineers or outside engineering services. Sometimes that program can actually pay to help outside. So if it's a very risky project, we might want a private engineer coming in to help do that project for stability, to make sure that it's well designed. Not that we don't have bad engineers, but sometimes liability is put into that space. Conservation Reserve enhancement program, so that's another program that we have that essentially is a long-term lease on a farm to take land out of agricultural production and put it in conservation use. Typically they're seeding it down to grass or putting it into trees. And in the state of Vermont, that program has been around for a while and we're actually starting to see some of the projects re-enroll for these longer-term investments. One thing we are going to do in that space in the near term is we've actually been able to work with DEC and Lake Champlain Basin program to get some resources to bring on another staff person. And that program is mostly federally supported. It's for federal dollars to one state dollar. And having another staff person that's predominantly supported with federal funding is going to allow us to even bring more opportunity to get more projects and expand the scope of work that we are able to pull more dollars from the feds because they have other program options that we just haven't tapped into yet. So that's our plan into the future is to do that. Grasswaterway Filtership Program, essentially through the years you've heard of critical source area probably, we've been able to even refine those farms, identify areas that are highly sensitive and seed them down, essentially, and do a long-term contract to seed that particular area down. And so that is that work. That is all sourced out to other folks. The districts and UVM Extension currently have contracts to do that work. And then the Capital Equipment Assistance Program is a program that helps farmers with the investment either in the actual steel in the field, right? So putting in a lot of these conservation practices take equipment that farmers traditionally didn't have. And so helping farmers cost share that equipment so that they can get it. Helping partners who might want to facilitate sharing equipment amongst farmers to get that. And then additionally there's some innovative technology and phosphorus reduction work that can be done to also cost share with like infrastructure to put on the farm to actually do some of these nutrient separation technologies. So that's that. Ag Environmental Management Program is a new program that just started this legislative session. And essentially this program was born out of the fact that we're all working on our quality and the state with these programs. And sometimes you look at a farm and you look at the cost of the price tag to do the fix that's required on the farm. And then for instance a simple comparison is you look at the grand list cost of that or price of that farm and the cost to fix it is more than the farm might be worth. And so trying to figure out are there other alternatives and ways to shift what happens in that farm to make the best used environmentally and also just in our public good for that piece of land. So we were able to get some more opportunity to do like easements or alternatives where in Lua putting in all that infrastructure we use those funds to say perhaps you know no more annual cropland right here or something to that effect and pay the farmer for that lost opportunity. And then. Would you like to take the seat? Would you like to have a chair available right now? Yeah. Looks like it's. Yeah that's nice. Sorry. Sorry. All right. So just a couple more. So on the noncapital fun side what we do there is a lot more of the annual things that might happen so cover cropping the seating over winter that's something that obviously you need to do every year. And so that's the kind of we've also been able through the Lake Champlain Basin and federal fund support and also USDA been able to really put more out there in that program and use these funds and have some funds come to us to be able to pass through to farms. Cover cropping is up significantly in the state and it's just it's a really good strong practice as well as other practices like no till this year we created a new space having like at least three inches and there's other restrictions in the program but to try and foster and put more into that space to support those farms that want to do those activities. And then the other one here is the I clean water initiative program. This is our big grant program that we do out to partners and farmers. That is essentially where what we've tried to do is several years ago kind of create a lot grant concepts where if you are UBM extension or a conservation district or a watershed group or a farmer group what you need is stability and having to be able to hire a staff who can work with farms and build relationships. So we built these agreements with folks to be multiple years they could apply for either two or four years and to give that structure of like give us a sense of your programming and give us a sense of your goals and we'll check in with you. There's definitely things that flux and when there's other monies that come in we want to be able to use them for that and then have flexibility to create new space and programs. So we created a lot of flexibility in how we do this type of work to basically rely on the skills knowledge and abilities of the partners who are well trained and have been doing this work for years to do it and report back to us and check in with us. And then the last one here is this innovative method for improving water quality. We're able to look at any of the gaps that kind of get filled. Stuff that comes up that it's just it's interesting and there's not a specific program that fits for it. So one project I can think of there was a project in Lake Carmi where there was an old space where there may have been soils that were inundated with nutrients over time. And so this is the kind of resource we can come in and do a project specifically to do this which doesn't fit any other federal or state conservation practice box, right? And so that's where we're able to do tile drain monitoring or other innovative stuff to look at it. We support a lot of the edge of field monitoring that goes along the state. We support the laboratory work that goes on it through this. So it's where we're able to help play a role in facilitating other projects that are predominantly supported by others or fill the gaps. Next up we have Jen Hauler from Vermont Housing Conservation Party. Can you use the names back here? Oh, Jen. Hauler. Hauler. Hauler. Hauler. Hauler. Hauler. Hauler. Hauler. Hauler. Hauler. Hauler. Hauler. Hauler. Hauler. Hauler. Hauler. Hauler. Hauler. Hauler. Hauler. Hauler. Hauler. Hauler. Hauler. Hauler. Hauler. Hauler. Hauler. Hauler. Hauler. Hauler. Hauler. Hauler. Hauler. Hauler. Hauler. Hauler. Hauler. Hauler. Hauler. Hauler. Hauler. Hauler. Hauler. Hauler. Hauler. Hauler. Hauler. emphasize the water quality benefits that come out of these activities and for that for those reasons it's been folded into the clean water budget and that's why you see two line items for VHCV activities here. So the first one is that egg water quality projects and we use that funding to provide grants directly to farmers for infrastructure improvements on their farms in order to address potential runoff or make other improvements that are going to mitigate or improve water quality impacts. The grants are about to $40,000 and again those are for capital investments and they typically support farmers and paying for project components that other state and federal programs either can't cover because that particular activity or project element is ineligible or simply because there just isn't enough funding in those programs and the project on that particular farm doesn't score high enough in order to be able to receive funding. So it's a little bit of a gap filler and when we administer that program we bring along with it some business and viability assistance to the farmer to help them make the assessment about how that project is going to fit into the overall financial viability of their farm. And let's see just to kind of show you one quick I mean this isn't not going to do you much good from a distance but this is just one example it's on a conserved farm and these this father and son the name of the farm is Pullen and Daughters and they're a beef and maple farm and they received a water quality grant in 2017 to through the same water funding to install the newer containment structures and we visited that not too long ago and their farm sits up above the river they had a project that they really want to do to contain the manure it just didn't eligibility it didn't rank high enough to get funding from other programs but now that's in place and being on site you can really I mean it's just holding it back from from the river and it all slopes down so you can really see the impact that that made so just to give you a little bit of an example of what these line items look like out in the out in our communities and then the second line item is our land conservation and water quality projects so we need to be with this funding provides grants for the permanent conservation of land and I can be asked though this section is for natural resources when that's done any surface waters there's an easter that's placed on the property that lasts in perpetuity and it protects and creates right from larger than usual repairing buffer zones or wetland protection zone so they're extra water quality protection center put in place as part of that conservation project they order protected over time each of these been doing this for a number of years and just to give you a sense of the long-term impact of these kind of state investments this is Rosetti Beach and Colchester some of you may be familiar with it but using capital funds way back in 1997 the local land trust purchased and saved this it's really a public general that many you know big beaches it was slated for development of 44 homes at the time so now it's permanently conserved and it features access public access to the beach on Lake Champlain but most important for our purposes today is that the natural area preserves a button bush wetland that filters local stormwater that's continuing to happen it will continue to happen over time in there a couple it's also critical habitat for to engage your plant species so just to give you an example of how these monies get used and how spent now they will continue to protect the lake and provide other public benefits to the state over time so couple other points I just wanted to make as you think about all these different activities as one is that all the money from these two line items go straight to grants there's none of it and any of these projects that we staff select and recommend for a board that happens after a consultation process with the agency of agriculture and also with the folks at EDC about where the water quality considerations and how should the easements be structured so I'll take questions later from your side. Alright I believe I'm up next. My name is Emily Berg, I'm the Clean Water Initiative Program Manager and I'm going to tackle the agency of natural resource line items with my colleague Teresa Thomas so I'll get started. Our first line item that is really applies to all agencies is the innovation and multi sector partner support and this really supports the development of innovative phosphorus reduction technologies that we can begin to implement and develop across the state to solve our phosphorus and other water pollution issues that has been administered in partnership with the agency of agriculture through the phosphorus innovation challenge it's really across the land use sector initiative we also are investing some of these innovation funds into development of programs related to the Vermont Clean Water Service Delivery Act or Act 76 that just passed this legislative session really developing tools to be able to better prioritize and develop clean water projects so that we're investing in the most cost-effective projects and to enhance our ability to do the analysis of the anticipated pollutant reductions associated with these projects so we can plan for the most cost-effective investments and then the third category under this innovation line item is partner support helping to develop our partners capacities to really work out in the field with different land owners and operators to develop and implement clean water projects similar to what Laura had described these entities need funding to support their capacity to do this great work and they're really the champions of these projects on the ground the next line item number seven is related to natural resource restoration so this may include river and floodplain restoration which also has the co-benefit of building flood resiliency wetland restoration forest restoration work and lake shore restoration and it also includes some protection such as river corridor easements and really natural infrastructure is one of the most cost-effective approaches to addressing our water quality problems and this funding really helps to leverage that support to be able to protect and restore our natural infrastructure the next line item number eight is related to lakes and crisis funding and currently the state of Vermont has one that was designated like in crisis like karmite and this allocates about $50,000 a year specifically to implement the lake karmite lake and crisis response plan these funds have been used to help support and leverage funding to implement an aerator as well as some enhanced monitoring to study the effects and make sure it's working and a lot of planning and development work related to the agricultural sector and I believe we have plans for the current year's funding to help support some the newer injection technology that will help reduce the manure surface runoff and so every whenever there is a new lake in crisis hopefully there aren't many established by statute this funding source will help to respond to that immediate response plan and implementation plan line nine is forestry skitter bridge program and this helps loggers and forest operators to be able to purchase and construct portable skitter bridges which is used to transport their equipment over stream crossing so rather than dragging the equipment through a stream crossing they're able to easily lay it down and cross without causing additional erosion this has been a great program that we've been supporting in partnership with Department of Forest Parks and Recreation and it's been a continuous investment and really gaining that capacity to implement those best practices for forestry the next line item is a new one this year this is adapting the municipal road standards for AMR agency of natural resource trail and road networks so in the state of Vermont we have the municipal roads general permit that requires municipalities to bring their roads up to standards for water quality if they are in close proximity to water bodies and to lead by example and also really start to prioritize this work we are this year investing in a comprehensive assessment of the agency of natural resources road and trail networks with our sister department Fish and Wildlife and Forest Parks and Recreation and the results of that assessment will help to produce a prioritized list of projects that will help to stabilize erosion issues along those trail and road networks and then we will be using some of these funds to help to implement that work the next line item is related to the municipal roads general permit these funds under line 11 this is an ongoing program that we were on the third year now of implementing and it disperses funds to all municipalities that are required to comply with the municipal roads general permit if they are willing to participate they will receive an allocation of funds that's dispersed based on a formula of road miles and the requirement is to bring roads that do not meet the standards into full compliance and then we're partnering with the regional planning commissions to implement that program and they provide technical assistance to municipalities and help with reporting the next line item number 13 is municipal stormwater project planning and implementation municipalities are one of our strongest partners to implement practices that help to slow absorb infiltrate and treat non-point source pollution and stormwater pollution from our developed lands and this funding source is specifically targeting the construction development planning of best management practices to control stormwater and then finally for me I believe number 17 is the wastewater treatment facility operator support and this is an ongoing program that we work with experts in wastewater treatment optimization to help provide technical assistance and education and outreach to wastewater treatment facility operators so that they can plan to implement lower cost optimizations to their facilities which are much more cost effective than a larger upgrade and now I'm going to pass it to Theresa Thomas who will share information about the Clean Water State Revolving Fund and municipal pollution control grants. Hi guys. So my part is relatively short so I manage the Clean Water and Drinking Water State Revolving Fund. It's a grant that we get from EPA that has to be matched with state dollars on a five to one ratio. So this year that line item related to the Clean Water SRF will fund the state portion of getting the grant. So that's largely used for our municipalities that do wastewater treatment facility upgrades, CSO work. So if you live in a community and you're asked to vote yes or no to a bond vote for wastewater infrastructure there's a pretty good chance it's getting funded from the Clean Water SRF. It's a program that's been around for 30 plus years so I'm happy to explain more if you need but that is what that line is referring to. The next line refers to municipal pollution control grants and these are grants that have also been around for a number of years. They are used essentially to offset typically used to offset loan dollars under the Clean Water SRF so it sort of complements the line above it. Traditionally municipal pollution control grants were available based on categories. So you got a certain dollar amount of grant based on the type of project that you had. This year we are changing to a formula based on priorities set by the legislature back in 2017 maybe. So that's what that line item is about. So we get applications in communities. We look at a variety of factors including affordability, water resources impacts, the types of projects that they are proposing and then they are awarded a percent as a grant. So is that good? Okay. Thank you. I'm happy as Sue Scrivner from the Agency of Transportation. Good morning again. My name is Sue Scrivner. I'm at BTrans and I head up our municipal assistance bureau and the line item number 12 that would come to BTrans would be for our Better Roads program. That is a grant program that provides funding to municipalities to help them in part meet the requirements of municipal roads general permit as well as provide funding to rectify some other problem situations on their road network that are leading to poor water quality. The typical types of projects that we fund in that program are ditching by roads, crowning the roads, repairing cross culverts under the roads. And we also have some funding for slope stabilization type projects as well as upsizing of culverts. These are small dollar the grants go anywhere from $8,000 up to $60,000 and municipalities are able to complete these expeditiously generally within one state fiscal year. And for the amount of million dollars has been proposed to come to BTrans and that we might estimate might provide about 60 grants to municipalities in addition to other funding that might come through transportation. Thank you, sir. Next up, we would have Mike Middleman for the Agency of Administration. Hi, good morning. My name is Mike Middleman. Mike Middleman. I'm a budget analyst with the Department of Finance and Management. We have two line items at the Agency of Administration. We administer one is line 14 for storm water utility payments. 125,000 to five municipalities at $25,000 each were instructed by through statute to prioritize funding for the establishment operation of storm water utilities. And starting after I 20 we will have five municipalities that have storm water utilities set up. And those are Williston, Colchester, South Burlington, St. Alvin City, and Burlington. The other line item. And we're also for that that one for line item 14, we're also having level funding for FY 21, we're anticipating the same number of storm water utilities as an FY 20. And then our second one that we administer is line 20, which is the program audit of all of our clean water funding, which is required by statute as well. We have a report due to the legislature on January 15, 2021. And we have 25,000 FY 20 to get the process started and the remaining 25,000 to finish that audit up in FY 21. And really the anticipated cost is associated with hiring the right consultant. It's a very large as you guys have probably gotten the impression complex program that covers a lot of different sectors. So finding the right contractor to do this work is essentially what we're trying to do and why we've allotted money for this. Since we have Chris Cochran for an agency of community commerce. Yeah, good morning. I'll be quick. My name is Chris Cochran. I work for the Division for Community Planning and Publicization. And a lot of what our work and programs do is programs and incentives to keep our downtown centers strong and vital. As many of you know, our built up areas are a major source of phosphorus pollution. However, the challenge is retrofitting stormwater treatment into these areas. There's a lot of impervious cover. And we this these two line items are they leverage about $600,000 in existing program funds to municipalities to encourage them to find opportunities to sink and treat stormwater within within their downtown centers. So when they make a sidewalk improvement, is there an opportunity to treat that stormwater? Are there opportunities to plant trees to send the stormwater within their areas? And the program again is targeted at our designated downtowns, there's 23 of them and there's about 180 of them across the state. Okay, so we can open that up to questions. If you want clarification on any of the presentations, so it would be helpful if I think that you perhaps stood up to ask your question and tell us which program you have the question about so we can get the right person to respond. So go ahead. Yes, my name is my name is from the Franklin, water shed. My question is online. I do number eight. So we're from the only lake in crisis. Yeah, our funding is right up there with the skidder program. So I'm just kind of wondering if you can explain why a lake in crisis has such low funding. Thank you. I will just clarify that the lake in crisis funding is to support the initial response whenever there is a new lake declared a lake in crisis. And that is not the limiting funding for that that particular watershed or lake in crisis that we have been investing a number of other funding sources for Lake Karma, including $1.6 million from our grant funding to support the construction of an aerating system that will help to address the phosphorus that's already built up in the Lake Karma sediments. And there have been a number of other investments through the agricultural programs, US Department of Agriculture, as well as through the programs that I run to help address erosion and runoff issues. So while the lake in crisis funding is set at 50,000 annually to help with some of that response as a dedicated source, there are many other funding sources and investments that are occurring for Lake Karma. And that would likely be the case for other future lakes if they were established as a lake in crisis. Jack, can I clarify my question again then? Sure. So there is no specific lake in crisis funding we have to compete with everything else. So there is no really lake in crisis funding in this bill, correct? Because we're competing we will compete with all these other line items. Is that correct? All of our funding is administered in a competitive process. We use tactical based and planning as the methodology for helping to identify those pollutant hotspots. So for a watershed, a sub watershed like Lake Karma, that is certainly a priority. And that is a consideration when we make those funds of those funding decisions as we award funds to specific projects. Additionally, under Act 76, we're going to be reformatting how these funds are allocated and clean water service providers will be established to administer funds based on a specific phosphorus reduction target. And that will also support this better prioritization and cost effectiveness approach. And as I mentioned, we are investing in those analytics to help inform those decisions as well. So while we do have a competitive process for administering these funds, we certainly consider those pollutant loading hotspots. And that helps us to target those areas where there are the greatest problems on the landscape to focus our projects. Any other questions? James Narone and Lester, I'm sure everyone here saw the auditor's report a couple weeks ago that the state is not allocating sufficient money or enough money to agriculture, which is the easiest part of the problem to solve. According to the budget that you have up there behind you for agriculture is getting about a third of the budget and agriculture is a half problem. Can you explain that? Sure, I can take a stab or answer that. So the the allocations up here reflect the dollar value certainly we know that there are cost effective reductions to be made in agriculture. That said, there are also statutory and federal state statute and federal obligations we have to do work in all sectors. So it's not perhaps as straightforward as as you may have been may have read in the auditor's report in that we want to make sure we're making the most cost effective investments. But at the there's also a minimum required investment in each of the core sectors that Emily had talked about wastewater natural resources restoration developed land stormwater as well as agriculture. And so this budget attempts to balance what that sometimes could be competing priorities. The other piece is not all of the dollar well I guess all of the dollars shown up here not all of the dollars at large are available for all types of projects. The one set up here that that calls into that category is the Clean Water State Revolving Fund line 18 where we're matching federal funds. Those dollars are by virtue of their their funding source at the federal level that Teresa spoke to are really only available for wastewater and stormwater type projects. So there's a there's a balance we're trying to strike there. Certainly we have a significant increase more than 10% in the funds going to agriculture in the for the FY 21 which is in part a reflection of the point you make that this is an area for cost effective investment. Any other questions? Yes, for Lord Petro. You mentioned cover crops earlier and I'm confused on this because as we're talking about the funds that are available for agriculture cleanup these are cover crops are primarily used to heal the ground after we do our corn harvesting. Heather Darby at a UBM field days some years ago basically said that they don't work in the state of Vermont after the after the month of September, their effective list, their effectiveness drops precipitously. So what monies are we spending public monies? Are we spending on cover cropping? And are we getting our monies worth out of them? Because from us on the ground, what we see by the time of springtime comes around, they're not very robust. And also you could you give us a sense of what we're seeing in the additional pesticide application because we're now cover cropping. Okay, so the cover cropping certainly this last year as an example is a very wet wet fault. And that does have challenges for growth, right? But the standards for the state and the federal programs are geared towards getting them in early so that they can grow and be productive. And as you know, Heather Darby is doing a ton of work on looking at shorter day corn and making sure that you can still meet your needs for your animals that you have, if you start growing a less the longer you grow corn, obviously, the more biomass you grow, right? So you got to make sure you meet your minimum nutrition requirements. And she's done a lot of that research and farmers have shifted in many of these spaces. There are alternatives such as helicopter and other things to try and get them on early high boy. So I've been working in those spheres to try and see that but when done properly and able to be caught on a good year, absolutely they're they're incredibly beautiful in the fall. So it's that balance of trying to you can control the weather. But if you can get the practice and you can fine tune it and farmers can put it fit it into their their work in a way that allows them to be more efficient with it, it will improve and we've seen that already. So cover crops are a good practice. There's plenty of documentation to show that on the herbicide piece that is not something like as far as my area of expertise and knowledge that I could really say on a statewide basis what the change is. But certainly farmers were already using herbicides if they were growing conventional corn. And so using an herbicide to then deal with the the turnover of the cover crops so that you can plant again next year is a practice. There's also research and efforts going into not doing that and using other methods or mechanical methods. And in certain years again weather dictates and it depends on what's going on whether the crop is able to respond well to that or not. So research is continuing that area. Obviously it costs money, it costs time, it costs energy and everyone wants to get to a more efficient space. So I think everyone has the same goal of trying to look at better water quality in the end. But all of this is predicated on us growing corn. So we weren't growing corn. We wouldn't need to be spending all the time of money to deal, try and invent a way of making cover crops work. The high boy you talk about seeding from helicopters. That seems to me a really ludicrous way of solving this problem that is trying to grow corn in our climate. Right? So if we just took the corn out of the equation, we wouldn't need cover crops. Is that right? So I think that would be part of your public comment that you don't think that is a priority for the clean water funding. Thank you Laura for answering the questions. I've learned recently that there's a connection. There's some kind of requirement for farmers crop insurance to to use the herbicides to knock the cover crop down. Can anybody clarify that for us? Are they required to use this in order to get their crop insurance? The farm service agency and other organizations typically would do that type of work of crop insurance and so we would have to find out from them what they're called. That would be a federal program, a federal USDA program if it is the state we don't have any crop insurance with the state but it might be a federal program USDA. So we need to clarify that because that requires I mean that required a doubling of the use of Roundup between 2015 and 2016 according to the data from the Vermont agricultural and so and I found that this research that indicates that that Roundup is 18.3% phosphorus. We're using tons of it on our ground so we can if we don't face the factor in the late crisis we don't face it in our water quality where I don't believe we're going to meet our TMDL. So your question is whether there is a federal requirement for the use of pesticide and is that something Secretary Ted, your agency could that's only one piece of it. I mean it's huge, huge. We're using tons of the stuff and and so okay. So what we'll do with the question is that we don't have the ready answers to as we're making note of them we will do a follow-up document posted online with the answers that we have found to the extent we can. And then I think if there's not another specific question you have about the presentation I would ask that you save the rest of your time for the public comment here. Okay, thank you. Are there any other questions about the presentation and then we can start the public comment period but we want to make sure we you know get the time allowed up until 11 o'clock. Sir, go ahead. Reed Hampton, I was wondering under the age grants can farms get a grant for tiling and tiling installation and retrieving the bull that's involved in all of that? No. What they can and what we do support is research into tile drainage. So at the end of the pipe putting in infrastructure to do monitoring so like a sampling portal if that makes sense but not the actual tile itself. We have had conversations and there is a gap if you were to try to study above ground and below ground surface runoff and subsurface runoff you would need to be able to control how that drainage is structured in order to get good monitoring sites from a statistical perspective. We have not yet invested or made that investment to lay line so that we can make sure that we have watersheds that are truly paired but that is an area that could be discussed if there were interest. Okay, we've got two more hands up and we'll finish with those two and see if there are any hands up. Go ahead. Hi, Jim Sharp, City of Wellington. Thank you all for your time and effort. It's much appreciated. I think my question is on line number 13. All these numbers are addressing capital needs and not necessarily operation and maintenance and that's a big draw on the funds for municipalities. So the clean water implementation program has been really accessible. Municipalities have really benefited from that with implementing capital projects. My question is, is there any thought of perhaps upping the percent match that the state will provide municipalities in recognition of the long-term operation and maintenance costs that are used? Thanks. So for those larger developed communities we do have a 50 percent match requirement. That 50 percent match local match requirement can be met by also accessing the clean water state revolving fund program to help leverage funding sources but we do acknowledge the need to operate and maintain these practices. It's required by stormwater regulation and Act 76 also creates a structure for those non-regulatory projects to support a partner to be able to do the operation and maintenance long-term to ensure that the state investment is maintained. That said, we set the state match requirements at the program level and the clean water initiative program that I work with. We have set that match requirement and it is possible that it could be adjusted as we move into the future but we would need to do an analysis in terms of the funding available, how we best leverage and posture and the different funding sources. That is part of the equation to make sure that funds are spread out as equitable as possible across many communities and so it's part of the whole planning exercise that we are certainly open to having the conversation with our leadership and with those municipalities to see how we can best support the great work you're doing. Thanks, James. Okay, we've got time for two more and we'll get into the public comments. Yeah, I'm very straight and I've talked to a lot of people in the different commissions and the agency and this question is pertaining to wetlands. It's not a, how should I say, a registered cease and desist on some of our property that we were actually going to plan hemp to this year. Shannon Morrison, I don't see her here, she was saying that not to use that land until she gives us some type of decision. I was on the phone with her a while yesterday but the question I have is where the heck can I have the state purchase the wetland that we own because it's a tremendous, tremendous liability to my family and myself when we can't use our property and at the same time we got a tax bill on that derby property last Friday and yet our taxes went up again. My question is there any money up there where the state can own that land because to me it's worth nothing and pertaining to what the state is saying that wetland should be worth $35,000, $40,000 an acre because that's what they made our family lose this year but not plant 15 acres of hemp on there and that's the low price. So the question I have can I get some of that funding where the state can own the land. We no longer want land. It's driving a lot of us out and we're two of them that's getting the heck out of this state because of no money that the legislature makes these laws and yet has no money expects us to spend thousands, 40 to 50,000 everybody to bring in compliance to wetland compliancy that's dead wrong. So the question can we get financing where they own this land. So I guess the question is do any of the programs out of the budget survive funding for the land like this? Sure. So the natural resources restoration line which is line number seven is money we have available to purchase land like that. There are a number of factors. Obviously the $3.2 million that's budget there is not sufficient for the the types of needs you're talking about but those are the that is the place where those projects could apply. Generally we're looking for areas within the landscape that are particularly sensitive or provide a service a significant source or excuse me sink buffer or sponge to a receiving water whether it's a lake or a river stream. So there's a lot of factors that go in but that natural resources restoration money both restores wetlands and river corridors and other natural areas that have been made that may have been developed at one point and could be restored to a higher function as well as conserving important resources. Julie quick question who the heck do I see to get answers I've gone through probably 20 plus agencies commissioned through mr. Tabott's office miss birds here she's been probably as helpful as anybody out there but I just I'm back 360 degrees to Shannon Morrison the one that originally said we're in violation of wetlands I'm getting no where's four and a half months you guys if I ran my business like that I'd be out business a week and yet we're paying this big money to the state employees and yet we're getting no results as tax payers that are financing these people something's going to be done very very seriously done and there is a lot of us a lot of us that are just getting fed up with this wetland is such a gray area and I appreciate the the frustration ever to get out but I'm damn mad today I'll be honest with you real mad I can follow I can follow up with you offline thank you thank you we'd like to start the public comment portion to make sure that everybody who's planned for a two-hour meeting has an opportunity to do the comments if you have questions within your comments we will we can do one of two things it'll be up to you we can have you try to answer your question during your five-minute comment period or we'll take note of them and we will issue regardless we will be issuing a response to questions that may come up and during your comments so everybody has their their five minutes at a minimum maximum to use now so we can get through the list and there may be time at the end to take additional questions so with that I don't know how many do you have a question about the public comment period no I wanted to comment okay we have a list and what we plan to do did you sign up to comment did you sign them the comments I should be on it okay there you are yes your number 18 and then I believe we have two people perhaps online all right well we have online audience as well so they had the opportunity to take part in the public comment period online and we don't have anybody who's asked to so we should be able to get through this five minute per person comment period before noon and maybe open it up to some more questions so the first the first individual to sign up for comment is James Maroney you can stay where you are stand or sit and family has offered to help us keep track of our time we don't want to be a period to be rude to you but we are trying to you to make sure everybody has the need for time thank you my my questions have to do with the act for us s96 at the beginning of which in the definitions section the word secretary is not to find but would that be you there are five secretary I believe that is entitled ten s96 works in title ten so I would be the secretary okay then I would direct my questions to you on page 23 I'm sorry on page 3 the act refers to targets and it's my understanding that I understand that the target has to do with the TMDL and it's my understanding that the TMDL for agriculture is 59% am I correct I believe like why yes right my next question is the definition of clean water service provider which is not really given here can you explain who is eligible to be who or what entity is eligible to be a clean water service provider is that that have to be an NGO does that have to be a what so that we haven't prescribed what type of entity could be a clean water service provider we're in the process of developing a request for proposals that will be published broadly and any entity that with an interest is encouraged to apply there will be constraints on the amount of money from that the clean water service provider can use for their administrative services okay but that's over on page six there is there is the word person used with respect if a person is proposing a clean water project would that imply that a person might be eligible as a clean water service yes assuming they meet the criteria okay thank you on page for the state is going to do an analysis of what needs to be done in in various sections and I'm quite interested to know it says for Lake Champlain not later than November 21 and for Lake Memphromagic 2022 and 2023 for Lake Carmine why so slow I mean we've been at this for 50 some odd years don't we know what is required so this is setting the non-regulatory targets by sector and we have not done that analysis yet I think it's important to keep in mind that the work of the clean water service providers is only is limited to the work that isn't required by another regulatory program so it's about a third of the overall reduction my next question is for Secretary Tubbs secretary Tubbs do you believe that the state can meet has a plan to meet a 59% reduction in agriculture's contribution that is certainly the goal and I know all partners both the agriculture agency farmers conservation groups USDA are all focused on that and the goal is to reach that and we are all in on that to reach that do you believe that that target which is huge can be met and still support the conventional what do you mean by conventional for that conventional farming conventional farming is the cause of of the 45% or whatever it is that agriculture is contributing from can we still maintain the conventional paradigm I would I would suggest that we're going to have all forms and types of farming we're going to have conventional we're going to have organic we're going to we're going to lose farmers and we are we are all those factors have to play a role in meeting our goals it can't be one sector it has to be all people in and all conventions as far as you do one more question for you secretary Tubbs do you believe that Norman Boulog disproved the Malthusian prophecy or proved it questions thank you next we have Michael Colby I mean the regeneration Vermont and I think first of all we all have to get put a spotlight on Doug Hopper's report and put all of this into context and let me just quote from Doug Hopper's report who did an audit of all of our clean water spending and he said 95% of all state clean water expenditures do not yield any measurable results 95 95% of all state clean water expenditures do not yield any measurable results and and this project this budget is more of the same it's ignoring the main problem which is the kind of agriculture that we are promoting in this state confinement concentrated animal feeding operations that's what's causing the problem we've got about 26 million dollars budgeted to try to clean up that mess the agency of agriculture in the state has a budget of about 25 million dollars what are they doing primarily they're promoting and protecting and enabling that pollution to continue and then we're going to chip in 26 million dollars here to try to clean up what the agency of ag is enabling year after year after year it's not working for any of us and yet we continue down the same road the auditor of accounts is saying this is not working the farmers are saying this is not working they're getting paid less than the cost of production do you know what this budgeted you know the cabin creamery and Ben and Jerry's are making about a billion dollars each in sales a billion dollars the amount of money we're spending to clean up their messes is about 1.3 percent of their annual sales so they're taking billions of dollars billions from our land from our farmers from our tax payers where has Ben and Jerry's in cabinet and in the funding mechanism nowhere their lobbyists got him out of paying for all this we're sending billions to Unilever in London we're sending billions to Agamart in Massachusetts and yet we're cleaning up their messes we're caught with the bill and the worst thing is the plan is ridiculous it's the same thing we hear Laura we hear Anson talk about best management practices and required agricultural practices well let's ask them how many exemptions did they give farmers in this state last year to break those I know at least 70 70 times at least that I know of and I have to file FOIAs all the time just to get this data where this agency has told farmers go ahead spread manure on snow it's okay we don't see that we don't see that go ahead you're struggling Anson you said you provided farmers a blanket excuse to spread manure on snow which is just a big big no no huge you don't do it where does that go it melts it goes into the waterway you said you approve that because the farmers were hurting economically wow talk about just keeping the crazy wheel going we have to have money in this program to transition these farmers away from this kind of agriculture or we're losing we're losing for farmers we're losing for taxpayers we're losing for migrant workers are we going to talk about that bogeyman do you have 1500 migrant laborers are working in the shadows in this state making have no protections for worker protections and you know the state there they said let Ben and Jerry's come up with a program to protect them really really New York state at least had the political gumption and the humanity to pass laws to protect these people you pass the buck Ben and Jerry's will take care of those workers and we know how that's working out it's just a publicity stunt we have to focus on transitioning the farmers that are causing the problem there are about 33 farmers in this state with more than 700 cows capos it's the largest growth sector in in farming in dairy the big ones we have the same amount of cows in small guys will we lose eight percent last year answer statewide close to 10 close to 10 percent so what are you just cheering them as they go over the cliff keep going keep going enough we need a plan for transition we need to listen to a what Doug Hoffer said this is this is putting money through a shredder absolutely through a shredder i don't know how much am i out of time yeah thank you you know let me just say there are a lot of people in this room i've been in their living room carmai to button bay and my i tip my hat for you to being here and my heart breaks for you there they had they bought their land they live in their place because they love water they love water resources they love this state they didn't want this battle it came washing up on the sheriff's shores and into their lives listen to them respect them and do something for them thank you miss show out up today and next up we have silvia night silvia night i live in brillington i live for about 26 years in charlotte everything on earth is connected what we do to the land we do to ourselves what we do to the land also goes into the water until we stop using poisons on the land we cannot have clean water we're putting tons of like to say tons of atrazine tons of metola form on our land in the champagne valley every year not just 10 years every year this model of agriculture does not work is poisoning us it's doubtful i learned this year that i received additional information this year i should say because i heard this problem before that like that roundup contains phosphorus and leaves phosphorus on the ground and puts it into the water we have tons of phosphorus going into our water from our agricultural practices you see somewhere i have okay 2012 more than 27.8 tons of glad to say report onto vermont land with a loading of five tons of phosphorus this has been completely ignored in this whole discussion in 2016 approximately 49.3 tons of glad to say we're used on vermont land with a loading of nine tons of phosphorus we can't ignore that we can't ignore that i hear nothing about this in in this whole discussion is being completely ignored it is significant it is not not to be ignored so i'm doubtful that we can meet the TMDL without stopping the use of roundup now we have GMO corn all over the place so i think this forces us to look at the model of the agriculture that we are supporting in this program so our state needs to embrace a different paradigm we need to embrace a paradigm a regenerative organic agriculture and use the dollars in this budget for that purpose i'm a tax payer i'm looking for change in this program thank you thank you uh thanks to Pete Zimmerman hi i'm Pete Zimmerman i my home is on Button Bay uh just about a mile south of the state park i would want to preface by saying that my family and my wife's family have been involved in farming and forestry for generations so i am not anti-farmer um one thing that's interesting is talking about paradigms conventional farming well what i think many people are talking about with conventional farming is a pretty modern evolution we didn't have that form of conventional farming a few years ago um this in extremely intensive farming which i don't think anybody can can deny is causing much of the problem i live on lake Champlain and the condition of the lake is a scandal people are afraid to go in the water animals are dying from drinking the water pets down the lake lady lost two dogs from drinking the water um it's a scandal and what i've heard today is a parade of cheerleaders for how we're going to help the farmer my understanding is it just up the lake from us we have a new manure pond being created with significant subsidies that's going to contain some manure for a little while but it's then going to get spread back on the fields and it's going to get right back into the lake same all it does is defer some of the problem for a little while what i'll give you another example um we have farmland directly behind us where the farmer has recently put in tile drainage and has recently eliminated the buffer zone between his uh his cropped fields and the drainage ditch uh one of my neighbors has taken samples of what's coming directly out of the culvert it's poison that goes into the drainage ditch drops into the stream goes directly into the lake it's poison what i've heard is all cheerleading for agriculture i have not heard anything discussed about enforcement of rules and laws that we already have through the 1960s and into the 70s we had problems with air pollution and industrial pollution a human cry eventually ensued and a lot has been done to clean up our air pollution and the industrial pollution that used to pour into our waterways what's happening now is we're getting the same form of pollution coming from agriculture not the same form but an equivalent style of pollution and it's coming from agriculture and unless practices change and unless the people who are pouring the pollution into our streams and lakes are held accountable that's not going to change i understand it's a worldwide problem agricultural practices are changing worldwide but we can't just shrug our shoulders and say that's the way it is and allow the lake and all of our streams precious natural resources to simply become samples thank you uh see a couple of staff signed in so i think it was a sign-in sheet so i'm going to skip through and um the next public comment i believe is from andrea andrya i'm from lake karmai and we are the one and only lake in crisis and we appreciate that designation and we appreciate all the work people have done to help our jobs of money the aeration system a little and a half then we also had the fixing of the feral septic system at our own state park that was substantial amount of money and the manure was used to be spread on the state park home lands and that practice has stopped so we put a land agriculture there's been a lot of help performers with all the copper popping and things like that which we've seen the change in the landscape all of which we appreciate so we put a lot of tax money into helping lake karma but this summer with our lake in crisis biking along a little dirt road ham and shore which is right along the lake shore manure is being spread and it probably is meeting the requirements of agriculture the rules but it doesn't make sense we spent a couple of million dollars just recently to help the lake and we're spreading manure not up against the shore but 10 feet from a dirt road 50 feet from the cottage and i don't know 100 feet from the lake shore so it seems counterproductive so i'm asking that reconsideration let's perhaps try and banning manure spreading in this lake in crisis watershed and try and help the lake heal and see if our phosphorus numbers come the last i've heard they haven't come down much despite all the money so that shouldn't be too expensive we'd have to help the farmers do something else with their manure we understand it has to go somewhere but please don't put it in the watershed we spent so much money helping it just until the lake heals a little bit and changes can happen in agriculture so thanks for efforts but it's still blooming we were there last week we have sign on the back to your room thank you Roy Shep? No, Shea. Shea, I'm sorry now hi everybody my name is Roy Shea and I live in Ferrisburg I'm not an eloquent speaker I'm not an accomplished speaker and it might be a little bit difficult for me to disguise my frustration my disgust the lake Lake Champlain is a disgrace make no mistake about it little history lesson July 23rd 1609 Samuel the Champlain discovered this lake he had a Jesuit missionary priesthood that recorded that you could see 60 feet down think about that that's how pure and clear the lake was nowadays on the Vermont side you're lucky if you can see six feet down and on some days you're lucky if you put your hand in you six inches you won't be able to see it you the Vermont government you let this happen to this lake that is a crime and an even more crime is that you continue to let it happen talk to our legislators excuse me they're totally intimidated by this sacred department of agriculture that allows these industrial farms to desecrate our lake you let poison poison is defined as a substance that does harm illness or kills a living organism myself and a neighbor have independently taken samples of point sources from the farms ecology from the farms E. Coli over 25,000 parts per million off the charts E. Coli is a poison that the department of agriculture says oh they're using good farming practices well your good farming practices don't do anything for the health of the lake and more so you're letting poison go into our drinking water okay how long is it as poison leeches into residential wells then you're going to have a problem and you continue to let it happen I don't know what the answer is you favor the agriculture large agriculture farms over the lake the lake that could be a huge source of revenue for this state for this industrial operation called the dairy industry that contributes less than 2% to the GDP of the lake but for some reason is sacred the department of agriculture says we have fines that we will give the the farms if they disobey or we find an infraction are you kidding a $5,000 fine is well worth the cost of the infraction you don't do anything for the lake you really don't I'm mad, I'm mad as hell and I'm going to tell you something our influence is spreading we're talking to more and more people we're having more and more meetings and we're educating them on what is going on what this is what is happening to our water and you're letting it happen thank you Robert Wright well let's see yeah let's see I guess 70 to 78 years another place but I see happening to our lake I just make it so angry I can hardly speak where is the money to help farmers transition away from practices that damage the lake where is the money to help them stop putting phosphorus bearing compounds into it phosphorus bearing fertilizer phosphorus bearing pesticides where is the there is money I see to try to control and constrain some of the runoff that's out there now isn't helping very much it doesn't seem to be let's stop putting more and more and more in let's restrain the fine ways to go back on the large farm industrial farm motor farm that's what's killing the lake I would just like to add my voice to all the other comments that I've heard recently about thank you sir Evan Marowski I'm from Panton I reiterate things that Michael said and James said and my other neighbors independent area about sort of the out of hand nature that we see conventional industrial dairy to be and it paints a very different picture from how we hear it represented and things under control with our best practices in place it's a runaway ship it's not under control and I would like to I can without going too far into a broader view we had a meeting at Panton to address a manure spill that I actually photographed, videoed, and it got some BPR and it raised the issue and that issue is to hone in on one thing the exemptions to happen Michael talked about the 70 or so exemptions to happen and we can make excuses that this is a seasonal thing and the weather always does this thing there's always going to be a weather incident we can't fall back on that excuse time again the situation that I photographed I think highlights it because it shows the temporary status that when you spread on snow and you spread on frozen ground in any situation it is inevitable that it's going to go to the lake and at our Panton town meeting I tried to get an understanding with the agency of agriculture just ban the practice in my view it would be better off having a manure pit overflow so that we can pinpoint on what farm that was and we can hold that farm accountable rather than spread it over the landscape where no one's going to see it and pretend it doesn't happen this, the farm I wasn't able to get an answer during the meeting from Laura but the admin depended a reporting on it and the farm spread the farm was giving a verbal permission I believe of 104,000 gallons of manure they could spread which was reported as five days worth of manure five days of manure on a lake shore farm the farm spread 540,000 gallons 40,000 gallons which also affected Dead Creek so if the state gave verbal permission of 100 and some on gallons of manure to me that's an incrimination of your department that you are okay with 100,000 gallons of manure going into the lake because if you're putting it on snow if you're putting it on frozen ground it's going to make its way to the lake and anyone wants to respond to that is telling me how it is not an inevitability I'm open to hear that Reed Hampton Smith I I live on Button Bay right adjacent to the State Park last week we had a huge algae outbreak that covered the whole Bay very much I think the root of the problem really is why the state legislature all of its wisdom make the agency of agriculture self-policing as somebody who started a business with two people and ended up with 225 I've been through Act 250 12 times I've worked with the DEC and everybody and I believe in doing stuff the right way but this is just horrendous they are I've seen in the five years I've lived there tons of trees come down a lot of sculpting of the land where this discharge that Evan took was right next to my property which is just a small swale which has a five foot culvert underneath the road followed by another four foot culvert just around the corner and all of this water goes down into a swamp and then comes down a truck to bloom for a week so that's all I got to say thank you Ernest and Donna Rae who wants to start Ernest and Donna Rae Ernest that's why I'm early annual charge I am a camp owner in Lake Harmaia and also a member of the board of directors association and I want to first appreciate what the state has done for us and to follow through and install this duration system in Lake Harmaia as I understand it it's one of the few in the country we have always thought of Lake Harmaia in the vein of having this duration system as sort of a laboratory and a lot of kind of words but the state can't fix this wall to find Lake Lake Harmaia what was us so there we've noticed a lot my wife mentioned a lot of farming practices that have changed born and around the shore which is helpful anyway in my interest today I support a lot of the statements made today coming to new folks and others to try to improve and get away from dairy farming I used to believe that we had too many cows and I'm thinking my view a little bit in that I know that there is a lot of acreage in Lake Harmaia in our watershed what it's imported in from other farms outside Lake Harmaia from the senate committee and others I mentioned I thought it was unusual that in Lake Harmaia why about anyway I'm going to focus today on what mechanism or what data is going to be available as we go forward on a regular basis so we can track how Lake Harmaia is doing in other words we have a model in Mexico soon and every year it's projected to be this based on all the factors that we're going to model and I would hope that in our ag we're doing this on an annual basis what the model says and what the actual result is in the field so that we can help people in the lake and perhaps other places this is improving the phosphorous load in the lake is decreasing I think that's very important straight forward field data support I'm not quite sure how at some point anyone is going to say now meets the standards of zero water zero anyway, please develop some sort of straight forward format so we can know what's happening there's a lot of different information that's been along with that the number of acres changing EMPs reduction of manure on an annual basis coming into the watershed there needs to be information at the end of whenever the TNBL is at 2023 is that there needs to be clear information because we're told that their best management practices are being used because they're tempered in the the aeration system is a temporary stop-dam measurement some of that is very important in regard to we'll see how that goes over to you but we need to know at the end of that period whether or not the TNBL will reach and if it's not then we have to go back and say EMPs practices for the whole concept of their environment we have Ernest right I already made a comment thank you Alfred coming Alfred coming let's take it back Robert Cormier hi I'm Robert Cormier from Franklin Vermont and I'm a board of directors on the Lake Harmy watershed and now first of all thank you all for coming here to this and it's us the people in this room that are going to make this happen and make the changes and we've got to start working together what's fascinating here is there's people that suddenly have the names like it's epiphany it's like oh I've read your comments on this article especially you sir and you know we are the ones that are going to work and we're going to fix this I'm from Massachusetts when you walk into the state house in Massachusetts you touch the sacred cow the sacred cod no the sacred cod hasn't been caught in Massachusetts since probably about the 1950s and part of the thing is that we're misinterpreting the statue on top of the state house it's not about the it's culture we've got to start to pivot to a different crop right here ag is not our problem in the state if you re-talk about the reoccurring theme it's have it's dairy it's dairy waste that is our biggest thing it's waste quality waste and how do we start to pivot we are stuck in this rut of dairy yet the country is starting to go down on dairy consumption the millennials are driving the food train right now yet we are continuously feeding them dairy and guess what they don't do they don't drink milk they don't eat Vermont cheese Cabbage cheese just because they won an award in 1898 it's garbage it's the velveta of cheddar cheese millennials don't eat cabbage cheese they eat high end cheeses from small dairies from small dairy operations and that's what they owe we got to get that kind of go there what budget is it's a waste of money it's 36 million dollars we took that 36 million dollars and invested it in global foundries along with the agricultural budget we'd probably make a billion dollars in profit which we could tax it 10% make 100 million dollars we're already in the profit range right there we've got to look at what we're doing with the money and we've got to look at what we can do to stop things for free and what the biggest things to stop is you've got to stop the spreading and it's the concentration spreading I mean we're spreading we have a leaking crisis bill yet they're spreading they're saturating right up on the lake that you have a leaking crisis that's the biggest irony that we have I mean to talk about insanity I mean it's absolutely crazy what we're doing right there what I call it a state sponsored pollution the state is encouraging them to pollute we're seeing it we're spreading on snow we're seeing it with leaky pits we're seeing it with every single thing that they do you want to stop the things you want to stop this the biggest thing that we need to do is two things you've got to get water out of ag water they've got the fox guarding the hen house their mission which is right is to encourage agriculture so what happens is they do something wrong they fix it that's their job, that's what they do they encourage agriculture you get water out of ag and you put teeth in deck with water it's going to start solving this and you stop blaming everybody and you start blaming the point sources the point sources that we know is not the guy growing tomatoes it's not the guy trying to grow hemp it's the giant CAFO my saying is we have the wrong people growing the wrong food in the wrong places so it's the giant apathetic CAFO that is on the river that is trying, that is a business and how do you know it's a business they put LLC on their trucks they advertise the fact that we're a corporation this is what corporations look like in Vermont it's not Enron it's not Ford Motor Company it's the Pleasant Valley farm down the road with LLC on it that's polluting and contaminating everything that we have I'm not anti farming I'm anti women, I'm anti pollution and that's what I think the both of us are and these people are going around and they're polluting and we've got to stop that we've got to start to pivot out of dairy at some point in time Department of Agriculture I know you've got to be having it at the water coolers conversations they're starting to pivot out of dairy what next do we go into people aren't drinking dairy we have to start having hard conversations with the cities they're a big problem too Lake Carmine, it's ag Burlington, no no it's probably Burlington itself and until you start going to them in Boston, guess what Boston you've got to buy a four billion dollar sewer treatment system in 1993 that's coming here you have to have those hard honest conversations but we're getting ready to go into a data fight if we don't start working together we don't start sharing our data with one another, we're not going to solve the problem they're not going to solve the problem up there we're going to solve the problem working together thank you Judith from Boston yes I'm from Lake Carmine also and I want to caveat I want to say something with my other Lake Carmine colleagues who thanked you for doing what's been done up at Lake Carmine but I will caveat that with it wasn't without a fight you guys fought us the entire way and we had to go ugly and you even brought up armed guards to one of our TMDL meetings because I don't know somebody thought we were going to I don't know, rebel or something when we were just simply angry so that is Lake Carmine and what you've done and it wasn't without a fight so my point is we're not done fighting yet just simply because that aeration system went in we're now seeing it's kind of like job done let's focus elsewhere so the lake in crisis bill put Lake Carmine as the lake in crisis because it did have organized people who are willing to stand up and work hard this is a full time job fighting for water cleanliness in the state of Vermont it's a full time job for people so now we worked hard we got the lake in crisis bill the secretary was supposed to look at what we should do and here's our answer 2021 you're basically telling us that there's no such thing as the lake in crisis and we don't need to put any specific monies dedicated to that lake in crisis but go fight for it all over again you want to see us fight for clean water rip at that lake you ain't see nothing yet because we're committed we're committed we're going to talk to all these people and we're going to come back and you have to hear the message it isn't working what you're doing isn't working so on Lake Carmine after we declared the lake in crisis and you put in the aeration system for a million dollars you know what the installer told you I went to every meeting it's not going to work if you don't stop the flow it's not going to work if you don't stop the flow then as you turn it off it's going to stop working well I've been breaking down take it that's a task we understand that but I sat there and watched two weeks ago while if I check the source it may be that illegal KFO on Potato Hill Road that we told you about two years ago that you didn't know was happening and I believe you're now in court with it, correct? Potato Hill Farm Road you're in court trying to figure out what it is that you built without any oversight they came in and I would swear up to 100,000 gallons dumped on the eastern shore of the lake in crisis where is the sense in that it could have been a simple BMP band manure because that's where we're heading now am I right we're all heading band manure in a lake in crisis or we're going to head to another solution because how about putting money in a alpha put money into a lake in crisis bill and maybe we can go to the landowners who are renting out their land to be an absentee landlord to be a manure dump maybe we can talk to the landlords and say hey how about leasing the land to us and we'll turn it into a pollinator field it's simple but we can't have to go and spend all of our time competing for the few dollars that you're putting towards well the no dollars that you're putting towards a lake in crisis so my point is please go back and rethink that and use the assets that you have because we do have organized groups we have the watershed we have LCCA we're working with the farmers watershed alliance we're working with everybody but we're a lake in crisis and now we have to go back to the drawing board and get angry again and start calling you guys out for the jobs that you're not doing so I don't know I'm not sure where we're going it's a simple solution if it's a lake in crisis put money towards it thank you thank you I have future efforts in negotiating this budget I work for the conservation districts as ad program manager and I want to also highlight that we appreciate seeing the funding have come through the FAP program to support rotational grazing which we think keeping landing grass is an important practice thank you for including that with the ad budget we also want to say that we appreciate the block Francs the administrative overhead of the granting processes. So we want to support you in doing that process and we appreciate that process and we'd like to advocate to continue that. And let's see, the energy in here is really intense. It's really great to hear everybody's perspective. Everybody's here interested in reducing classroom saluting in the lake and it's a big task. So I just want to acknowledge that we're all doing our best. And that's all I have to say. Thank you. Did I miss anybody? Because we are at the end of the... Jennifer Decker. Okay, Jennifer, why don't you go ahead? I think you're gonna come and wait and miss the sheet, which is fine. I'm here to stand for water that is healthy for all of life. I really appreciate everybody's comments very much. I wanted to just say that in addition to all the concerns that have been raised here today that there's PFAS laden firefighting foam being used at the Burlington Airport due to the military uses. The F-35 plane is gonna add additional pollution to our region, so many of us are working to ban that. The PFOA, PFOS are forever chemicals that don't break down in the environment. They're associated with many cancers, infertility and miscarriages, immune system prenatal and early childhood developmental disorders. Curious, if you can think of someone you know who has a child who has a developmental disorder, can you think of a child or an adult who has cancer? Can you think of someone you know who has a neurological condition that's developed and they don't know where it came from, maybe a sort of a mystery illness? Can you think of someone with Crohn's disease? Can you think of someone who has epilepsy? My niece grew up in the old north end of Burlington where she was exposed to high levels of lead. She then moved and lived in Addison County where she was an outdoor active kid. We spent a lot of time in the water and we spent a lot of time eating really great local Vermont produced food. Then my niece moved not far from the Burlington airport where we now know these fire-pending phones were used. Then she developed epilepsy. So my question here is, what is the cost of not doing enough? Are we considering all the costs of not doing enough? So I'm here to speak for the children. I have friends who have enrolled their kids in campus somewhere and the camps just routinely take them into Lake Champlain. I used to swim in Lake Champlain but I won't swim there anymore. I drive to the Waterbury Reservoir and I swim there all the time. But I've thought a lot this summer about giving that up because I don't wanna make the drive and I don't wanna add anything more to the load that the next generations are carrying. We have a whole generation that's inspired right now to take care of the earth, to end climate change and to clean up the beautiful world that we all share. We could take whatever money and resources we have and we could pay people to do the work, to clean our really incredibly beautiful state. Some people might be paid to help uphold some of the obstacles to change. Please try not to be one of those people. I learned recently that there are some regulations at the federal level and such that make it hard for people to stand up and say, we're gonna change things here on the local level. That sounds like a really great excuse to me for the peaceful political revolution that we know that Vermont stands for. We can't uphold human laws that contradict good science. What we invest in, we get back in return. I would love to see the next generation inspired by steps that start here today and I would love to be a part of the change. Thank you. Thank all of you. Yes, oh, there's one more, I'm sorry. Hi, my name's Jane Clifford and I actually am a dairy farmer in Starksboro, Vermont. My husband and I own an upgrade Clifford farm. It's been in my husband's family since 1793. It is the longest continuous dairy farm in the state. I'm very proud of our farm. We work very hard to meet the regulations. We work very hard to follow the rules. And yes, there are some people that in every walk of life that don't follow the rules. We also own a piece of property in Heinsberg unlike Iroquois, small little lake. This year it is so infested with milk oil and is so cloudy, swimming is not an option. There is not a farm, there is not an animal, there is not manure being spread within a very large radius of that little lake. But there is a significant amount of dirt road runoff. There's a significant amount of camps that have not upgraded their septic systems. The lake, Lake Champlain, the watershed, it's all of us. We all have a responsibility to do the right thing. But I'm disappointed that you think it's okay to always point the finger at me on my farm and say you have to stop it. You have to stop milking cows, you have to stop spreading manure, you have to stop, you want us to stop producing a high quality product that we take pride in, my livelihood. We employ seven people full and part time. My husband works seven days a week, 365 days a year. He loves it, he's dedicated to it and so when I sit here and hear that just get rid of them, just tell them to change and do something else, I'm very insulted. I agree that it is a problem and I agree that not everyone is doing the right thing, but to totally discount an industry that definitely is the backbone of the state. Vermont is the most dependent dairy state in the country. $3 million a day of new money from selling dairy products. Yes, the fluid consumption is down. Consumption of cheese, consumption of soft dairy products is up considerably. Does this country make too much milk? Absolutely. And do we need to do something about it? We are in the process right now of working on creating a growth management system. But again, to discount people, I'm a person. I love what I do and I'm really proud of it. And again, all of us have a responsibility. Okay, that concludes the public comment portion of the meeting. I want to thank each and every one of you for coming out and being heard and taking part in this discussion in this very civil and passionate discourse. That's what Vermont is about. That's why we're here and I really appreciated hearing from any of you. I also want to tell the staff who presented today who have worked very hard on this budget to balance all of these competing pressures and interest and want to thank them for the work that they did to pull together the budget. It serves this board and to pull together this hearing. And I will, these comments will have been reported. They will be posted and once the public comment period is over in September, there's still time to comment online and make yourselves heard and we will take everything into consideration as we move forward on finalizing a budget this fall. So with that, I'd just like to hold up to anyone on the board who has anything to add. I do have one brief question on what happens next. I'm Jeff Batista from the auditor's office. How does this public consultation event, other comments and survey that's still out going to formally factor into the decision-making process for the project? So what will happen is that all the comments will be pulled together in what is a very lengthy and detailed document for the board and for the public that will all be posted and we will draw our conclusions from the comments that we received in this hearing into our final decision-making. And we've heard a lot today, we've heard a lot of opinions on where we might want to shift some funding and we'll be taking all of that into account. And we will then finalize a budget that I believe by statute, the budget is presented to the Secretary of the Administration, that is me who is responsible for presenting the governor with his proposed budget for final development and then it will go to the legislature. There'll be another round of hearings on this budget and the rest of the governor's proposed budget and competing proposals from the legislature and the public of the legislature. And at some point, the legislature will decide what the final budget will look like and it will pass through that process. I just wanted to ask, is there ever a time when we could have this meeting like on a weekend Saturday because a lot more people could fund, could come to this if you would allow that? It certainly is something that we should consider, yes. And I think with our process, we may have plenty of time to do that before the final budget meeting is recorded. I've looked through the future points will the public have input beyond the comments today? The every meeting of the board, the Clean Water Board is public and we post and publicize the meetings on the website and so there's always time at the end of those meetings if you want to have formal discourse with the board and that's available. Thank you. We will be sending out updates at every step of the budget process to our stakeholder email list. If you haven't signed up for it, there is a sign-up sheet right outside and that's a great way to hear about all these opportunities to come to board meetings, to participate in these hearings and the online questionnaire. Are we considered stakeholders? Yes, absolutely. All of you are considered stakeholders and we really appreciate your participation. Thank you. Of course you're all stakeholders, appreciate it. So with that, we'll adjourn and thank you again very much for coming out. That's a wrap.