 Good afternoon, everyone. It's Thursday, March 25th, 12 o'clock 1 p.m. And this is a joint meeting of Senate Agriculture, Senate Appropriations, Senate Natural Resources and Energy. And we may be joined by some colleagues from Senate Transportation. So it's great to have us all together because water is an interest to every committee. We all come to it through a little different lens, but we have a shared interest in maintaining clean water, improving water quality in the state, and also in doing it in the most cost-effective ways. So you are really sort of eyes and ears for us out there in the world working on all this, and I'd love to have a chance for all of us to hear your presentation. There are a lot of us. So rather than pause and have introductions all the way around, we'll use up 10% of our time doing that. I think we've most of all of us have met in the past. So let's just jump right in and turn to today's emcee on your side, Mr. Weinberg. Good to see you again. Thank you very much. And for the record, I'm Jeff Weinberg. I'm the former, recent former Commissioner of Public Works for the City of Rutland here as a member of the Citizens Advisory Committee on the Future of Lake Champlain. We have several committee members also here who are going to keep me out of trouble, hopefully with all the committees. Laurie Fisher, who is a former chair and almost like member emeritus. I don't know, you're there for her. Hillary Solomon, who like me, hails from Southern Vermont. Mark Knott, who's the current chair and lives in Grand Isle. He's an attorney and maybe one or more also joining us later. And I encourage if the chair would indulge the members to jump in. One of the things about this committee is the various members have different perspectives and expertise. And they bring a lot to the table. There are 10 citizen members of the committee, which was formed by a legislative act in 1988. It first met in 1989. And it works through a memorandum of understanding with committees of similar makeup for the state of New York and the province of Quebec. So it is very much focused on Lake Champlain in the basin that supports it. And I have been asked to sort of begin the presentation here. Now you should have all received electronically this document, which is, and I will, and I'll put that up on the screen share in a moment, which is our 2021 action plan. Our charter empowers us, or more to the point, charges us with the responsibility of researching the current situation and water quality concerns, habitat concerns, and also economic concerns for the lake and the tributaries that feed to it from the state of Vermont. And we meet typically about once a month this last year that was reduced significantly because of COVID. But we've resumed that as well. And we receive lots of briefings and information from various experts, both within the administration here in the state of Vermont, but also from others, various NGOs, federal officials, that kind of thing. And the Lake Champlain, of course, basin program very much. We also take a comment, as you folks do, from members of the public and get a lot of feedback regarding public concerns for the state of the lake and where things seem to be headed. So hopefully we will be a useful resource for your efforts to, like ours, to improve water quality in Lake Champlain. Now, if I could just do this share screen, and I hope everybody can see that. Yes, sir. Okay. So our action plan is summarized by the bold face on the front page. It's just two pages, and we try to keep it really to the point. And we have six areas that we are encouraging, focus, action, investment, or whatever on going forward. The main thing that we've been advocating for years and years and years is adequate funding to support various activities relative to water quality in Lake Champlain. And of course, right up front is the phosphorus TMDL, the restoration plan. Of course, the legislature has very much stepped up to the plate on that. And there are advancing opportunities through federal funding to COVID and potentially infrastructure funding that could be coming in a relatively near future. And obviously want to encourage looking at these issues and challenges as part of the state's response, which the governor is already doing in some respects in his budget. To get into the specific areas of recommendation, priority areas, I'll just go through them. I'll summarize. I'm not going to read them because you've got them. But investment in natural and developed infrastructure, this goes along very much with the restoration plan. Connects the issues of ecosystem restoration and wetlands restoration, floodplain restoration with climate change. And there is a direct connection between carbon sequestration and those things. But we also need to focus very much on, and this is kind of my thing, I'll let the other members of the committee focus on their areas of specific expertise. But one of the main issues that unmet challenges that is challenging us relative to phosphorus is urban lands and the stormwater runoff relative to street sidewalks, urban lands. And the phosphorus contribution to the lake there is dramatically more than it is from wastewater treatment plants or many of the other sectors. Agriculture and urban lands really are very, very big. We'll get to agriculture in a minute. But there is going to need to be a substantially more public and private investment in dealing with stormwater runoff from developed areas if we are going to meet the targets on the TMDL. Adding to this challenge, of course, is the situation with the three acre rule, which there has been some relief provided limited for municipalities and also access to public financing for private property owners that need to do this. But basically because of the impact on the business community through COVID and the fact that the agency is a former DEC commissioner, I think I can say this, the Department of Environmental Conservation has underestimated the typical cost of meeting these current requirements for stormwater treatment that a great many private and nonprofit and even some municipal challenges are not going to be met without additional financial assistance coming from outside. And I want to bring a lot of attention to that because quite frankly, the three acre rule is necessary to meet the Lake Champlain TMDL. It is the next necessary step, but it will fail if there isn't substantial assistance that is going to be available to businesses that don't, you know, it's certainly not good for anybody if the business has to make a decision between essentially closing its doors because it can't afford the investment required. That does not improve water quality and it certainly doesn't help the economy in the state locally or at the state level. So we can give some specific examples of things we've heard about that, but that's my little sermon on that. Can I respond to your sermon just very briefly? Yes, please. Senate Natural had the congressional delegation this morning and I'm sure the whole Senate will be working with the American Recovery Program, et cetera, but it seems as though there's some promising information in what's in the earliest notice about the availability of federal funds for exactly these sorts of projects. The challenge is the Treasury, which has to define the precise rules that 60 days to do so. So we might not see precise rules until close to our typical adjournment date. So the work to be done, but for maybe once in a decade or generation, there could be significant funds available. And that is the best news possible because there are a number of items on our action plan that could be either accelerated or become more successful if we were able to apply some of those funds. I know that the demand is going to be enormous, but some of those funds to the needs that we identify here. So that's wonderful, timely news. The next one is investment in public access and the recreation economy. This is an item we've had on our action plan for a number of years. Basically, this serves multiple purposes. Obviously, there's an economic benefit if more and more people have the ability to access the lake and the waters feeding the lake without having to own property adjacent to it. We believe pretty strongly that this is an underserved need. And in fact, during this last summer, which was very favorable weather, but also drove an awful lot of folks to want to do outdoor recreation in Vermont because of the COVID restrictions and the limitations of travel and also on indoor activities. So I believe we saw about a 50% increase in the demand or the activity and use of our waterways. That's wonderful, wonderful news because the reality is people value what they know and what they experience. And the more Vermonters, especially younger Vermonters, who have the opportunity to experience and enjoy the natural environment, specifically Lake Champlain and our waterways, they will value it more because of those experiences, especially that was true for me as a young person. And so that is really an investment in the future kind of political constituency that will be needed to sustain these efforts going forward. So it's an immediate economic thing. It is a long-term sustainability, if you will, from the standpoint of keeping these priorities in front of Vermonters current and future. And it's also a crime need that we have, especially in the area of the South Lake, where there are very limited opportunities compared to some other regions for public access to the waters. Oops, didn't know I could do that. The third one is aquatic invasive species prevention need support. This is another one that is a continuation. We saw, there's the 50% statistic in this one that boat launches saw a 50% increase in use this last year. We know that the lake is constantly being threatened by new invasive species, which can change the whole ecosystem and the economics in some cases of businesses that depend upon recreation on the lake. Fortunately, the lake notwithstanding its hydraulic connections to the Hudson Canal and Hudson River and also to the Great Lakes is cleaner from a standpoint of invasive species. I believe Laurie stated in a previous one of these that we have about a fourth of the invasive species as are typical in the Great Lakes and about half of those in the Hudson River. So while we are hydraulically connected and we have concern for the fact that they're out there and they can come in, we have done a reasonably good job. We need to keep this up, especially looking at boat launch facilities where volunteers are doing wonderful work, but those are in limited areas and they have limited resources. These lake associations have limited resources and ounce of prevention is worth multiple tons of cure on when it comes to preventing invasive species from becoming established in our waterways and I don't think anymore needs to be said about the importance of that, but it's one that we have continued to support. I have a question for Jeff. This is Jane Kitchell. I have a question. It's just more of informational. I know Lake Maury, which is in my Senate district. There's a very strong Lake Maury Protective Association and they actually have played a very important role in partnership on funding. One of the big challenges of course has been mill foil, which was taking over the lake. Is there a comparable organization for Lake Champlain? I realize it's such a large body of water compared to others, but are there organizations? I realize a lot of what we're saying is the state must do this, the state, you know, that we need more money, but my question really gets to whether there are partnership organizations that exist maybe for different sections of the lake. Yes. I'm going to defer to Lori Fisher. She is the expert on that, but my understanding is there are organizations in several organizations along the lake in separate areas, but go ahead, Lori. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you for that question, Senator Kitchell. I direct the Lake Champlain Committee. We're a regional watershed by state organization that focuses on water protection and a healthy ecosystem. We certainly have gotten involved in those same programs on Lake Champlain. Lake Champlain also has a successful and ongoing program for water chest harvesting in the South Lake and that's a public-private partnership with state funds. The Lake Champlain Basin Program, which Jeff mentioned before, which coordinates efforts to reduce pollution and implement the Lake Champlain restoration plan, has since, I believe, 2007 had a boat steward program running on Lake Champlain where there's educational information going out at all the major boat access sites on Lake Champlain and there last year there were washing stations set up in the North Lake. There's a lot of coordination, particularly on Lake Champlain, on these issues of aquatic invasive species, not only in our region, but also key people sit on national task forces focused on everything for how do you manage and how do you prevent species and get that information out and the focus really on Lake Champlain is very much on keeping additional species out. We have 51 right now and keeping the ones that are here and limited to Lake Champlain from spreading into other inland waterways like Lake Maury. Thank you. You're welcome. Okay, the next item is investment in agricultural transition to sustainability. We have the Chairman Star and members of the Agriculture Committee are on here, far more expert in this than than I am. I believe Mark Naught is on and we actually, Eric Clifford is a member of the committee, I don't believe he's on today but he brings an awful lot of expertise in the state and the challenges facing farmers in Vermont to the rest of us who are not nearly as knowledgeable about that. The committee's recommendation in this regard is for the Agency of Agriculture, Farmer and Markets to continue to provide dairy farmers with better access to alternative models of agriculture, more profitable for them and also better from a standpoint of ecosystem protection and water quality protection. And this is a transition underway. It's being driven largely by economic forces beyond the control of anybody in Vermont and there is potentially an opportunity, as much as this is very much a crisis for agriculture in Vermont, there is nonetheless an opportunity to try to save as much of the economic sector that we have in Vermont by transitioning to other models, more sustainable models, more profitable models. And there has been quite a bit of that going on but we don't see that the circumstances that we face today are going to change anytime in the immediate future and that it continues to be notwithstanding the amazing progress that the agricultural community and the farmers in this state have done to reduce phosphorus loading to the lake and that should not go unstated and unrecognized. But nonetheless it's a heavy lift and more progress is going to be needed and this is one way to support this ongoing transition in agriculture at the same time benefit the environment by working these things together. So we want to work with that. I don't know if anybody wants to amplify that. I think Mark just joined. Jeff, this is Bobby. We have been working in the committee but also in approach we approved money for ecosystems enhancement through the agency put extra money in to expand and update and upgrade our slaughtering facilities and working to we're also working on trying to get better pricing for our dairy milk but the goat farming has been expanding with Vermont Creamery and that that's really just getting going with a new farm coming online with I guess about a thousand additional or more goats. So we're working in that direction and you know we put quite a lot of effort into that even though it hasn't panned out too well yet but we're still working to enhance that marketing business. So we're working along you know hearing a lot from farmers as well as people that deal with water quality and A&R and I think we're on the same page and it's just transitioning over. It's hard to teach an old dog new tricks. I appreciate that Mr. Chairman. The next one is the recommendation of the committee which may generate some questions. It did the last time I did this to basically a remove or discontinue the memorandum of understanding between the agency of agriculture farms and markets and the agency of national resources department of environmental conservation regarding the enforcement activity for water runoff for basically point source pollution from agriculture. It is the view of the committee that the relationship between the two agencies has not resulted in the desired coordination that the effect of it has been insufficient enforcement bad public relations which may in fact be overstated and amplified in the media. In other words it may not actually reflect what's going on but nonetheless it's been an issue and also the farmers themselves find as we are hearing that they are getting caught in the middle of agencies that have shared responsibility for this and too often kind of point at the other guy and meanwhile illicit discharges take place or no actions taking place. It's our view that the agency of agriculture is exceptionally good and well suited at doing what we just spoke about which is this transition. They're exceptionally good about providing technical assistance and achieving compliance achieving compliance on farms. That's essentially what they do with great success. However when that doesn't result in compliance notwithstanding all of those efforts there needs to be an enforcement follow-through and the current MOU has not functioned to actually get effectively or consistently to that last step. It's our view and as a former DEC commissioner I can speak to this that that's DEC's bailiwick is that enforcement if they're not doing it or not doing it adequately they should be held directly responsible for the lack of effective enforcement and it should not be a situation where the the the regulated entity is being whipsawed back and forth between two agencies which we believe has been happening. The chairman mark non can speak to the specifics of that as well if there are any questions on that one. Yeah well we should get to the bottom of that because you know we're putting a lot we as legislators and and groups we're putting a lot of money into trying to clean up our our point source uh pollutions and and all of our uh pollutions and if we've got a couple of agencies that aren't adhering to um their end of the bargain I mean we should know about that and and calm in and in a group meeting you know both of them at the same time and and deal with that because it's not certainly not our intentions to allow that to continue. Okay if I'll just move to the last section and then open it up for other comments or questions. The last section or last recommendation is the next generation toxic pollution. There are two basically concerns here the first is um our database the state's database or it's the information that it collects on the use of tech agricultural chemicals and other contaminants that are spread on the land uh you know at at homes uh golf courses uh and at farms and so forth has been minimal so we really don't have a a good handle on what is coming in and where it's going and uh you know what to what degree it's being it's being used. We have some information but um when we try to drill down on this stuff uh we run into um data quality concerns uh regarding the base information of what's going on. We are very concerned and Laurie can speak to this one if there's any questions. We're very very concerned about this next generation of contaminants um I'm going to put my former DEC hat on for a minute. The two statements number one the federal clean water act is arguably the most successful um environmental legislation in the history of the United States and I think I can defend that statement um till the cows come home so to speak. Tosca the the federal law concerning uh pesticides and those kinds of contaminants hazardous chemicals and so forth has not been uh as successful and there are a lot of problems and so all manner of new chemicals are being developed by industry all the time. Most of them wonderful providing great benefits but not terribly well understood and they're going out into the marketplace and they're going on into the market. We're finding out sometimes years later of the long term at the very least consequences or effects of some of these. These things in PFAS is kind of the poster child for this argument now but there's much much more than that. These things are now becoming ubiquitous not only in our bloodstreams but in the environment and now we're raising raising concerns for long term public health concerns or environmental concerns. So we we think we need to raise the awareness of this and try as much as Vermont can to get a handle on what's being used and what we know about it so that if there's a need to regulate or to control or to better research the effect of some of these new contaminants and chemicals that are getting more and more used that we get ahead of it rather than react to it after it becomes ubiquitous and across the board and our waterways and and elsewhere. So that's a nutshell on on that last bullet. Mr. Wimberg on that last bullet if you could if we could follow up maybe after the meeting and and learn more about the kind of the granularity of the information that you believe would be helpful that would be good for us. I know that we've been working with DEC. We share your concern and frustration over PFAS for instance. So we have very protective levels on five but it's a family of five thousand and what we asked well yeah we say ask we were always polite. We asked the DEC to start formulating rules if possible to regulate by class or at least subclass so that we're not you know four thousand nine hundred and ninety-five chemicals behind and just trying to catch up. And so Vermont is partner with other states on that and I think we're actually sort of on the leading edge of figuring it out but you're right. TASCA, Toxic Selfish Control Act is it's one of its first provisions was to grandfather in fifty nine thousand chemicals currently in commerce at that point in time and it's not been it's not oriented to being protective it's oriented to to letting chemicals into commerce. All right and it's it forces regulators to be reactive and we're basically advocating to try to do exactly what Mr. Chairman you just described which is to be more proactive. Lori, can you speak to the what some of the specifics that we learned just to give a sense of the concerns that we have regarding at least the data? I'm sure and thank you Jeff and thank you committee members for this time. As part as Jeff noted as part of our due diligence to develop the action plan every year we are am I still here I just want to yeah my screen just switched okay. So as part of our due diligence we get presentations from area experts etc and one presentation was from Nat Shamba former chemist at the and the agricultural agency since retired but who has been doing work for the Lake Champlain Basin program to further review some of these issues and one of the issues he brought out was the increased dramatically in the use of both glyphosate and atrazine you know they're associated with agriculture and the glyphosate which is I think commonly known as Roundup that increased dramatically and was supposed to decrease the amount of atrazine when in point of fact that didn't happen and also what came out of that testimony is that there's poor tracking of the just the amount of use and the sales that we don't have good data and tracking associated with that so one of the recommendations nor do we have a really good understanding of we're not monitoring in our water systems for those so one of the things our committee made a recommendation that is part of the ongoing long-term monitoring the state and the Lake Champlain Basin program look at identifying opportunities to gather more information on herbicides and pesticide use as part of either the long-term monitoring program or separate from that and our chair mark nod has been advancing that through the various channels with the Lake Champlain Basin program I think you know we don't have a definitive answer on what they're going to do but I think it next will go before their technical advisory committee and we're hoping that there will be some gains there and so that's one of the things we tried to outline in this we need a better process for really tracking what the chemical use is what the sales are and also why these are going up when we have a pesticide advisory council whose mission and both agencies have a mission of toxic reduction why are we seeing these increases? Miss Fisher so sometimes I think we've talked about phosphorus as the a proxy for many other things so it's benign but when it's when emitted in too high a level we get algae films it's a little hard for me to imagine but I haven't seen the science behind it so I guess that's what we're looking for if phosphorus is moving what else is moving with it I guess it's the question and does that include pesticides or herbicides things that are atrazine? I don't know if you have data on that or it's just you know seems like a prudent question to ask and then to begin testing for. Yeah go ahead Mark. I think with some of the work and following the resolution that the Vermont Citizens Advisory Committee put forward to the Executive and Steering Committees at the Basin Program stemmed from presentations we heard not from not just from Nat but also from Kerry Guillaier at the Agency of Agriculture regarding the monitoring and sampling and the database management that the agency does and you know one of the things that was presented and I think went to this assumption that with the increased use of cover cropping for ag practices that we would see a reduction in the use of defoliants atrazine and glyphosate or roundup and what they what it's shown is not just an agriculture button forestry and then and also rights of way there's been a dramatic increase and not a reduction in either but a huge increase in roundup as that roundup ready planting and defoliant herbicide application increased throughout the country not just in Vermont actually throughout the world. We also saw an increase in use of atrazine which had been trending down and so that caused some alarm and when I presented it to the Executive and Steering Committees and our federal partners there I believe like many the assumption was that with cover crops which have been a huge part of the reduction of phosphorus loading from the agricultural sector all over the country and particularly that's the applause in Vermont for the work we've made towards solving some of the challenges with the TMDL. I think the assumption was there would be a concurrent reduction in use in chemicals and actually what happens is that while extension UVM extension and others are working on mechanical solutions crimping of the cover crops as they grow in order to stop their growth and release whatever is being planted whether typically corn but whatever the crop that might be planted on those fields it needs to be released and defoliants herbicides have been the tool of choice and so there's some concern because we're not doing good edge of field or monitoring and sampling in our water bodies for what that chemical cocktail might actually represent let alone what the health or human impacts of those we know that atrazine has some challenges glyphosate science is still out there on whether there's long-term negative human health impacts it is recommended not to be sprayed adjacent waterways and yet where it's finding its way in there is a USGS plan I think it will be implemented this summer to do some analysis and also seeking some additional funding to see whether neonicotinoids which is another class of chemicals that we understand have significant negative impacts on our pollinators particularly to try to address what's making its way into the water with these change in practices so I guess to answer your question while we did see good payload reduction the chemical contributions while we've reduced payloads are poorly understood and the database is is not well managed so that's what we've asked for both from the state and from our our partners at the basin program well great we should think the committee and I suspect the ag committee too would be interested in you know we're always trying to get better data in order to make an informed decision so well let's schedule to follow up and learn more after today thanks and and Jeff if I may you know we've heard testimony that the pesticide advisory board really wasn't meeting in proper sequences the board was too large to really work well together and we're working on on putting together a new I guess you're say more with more expertise in the areas of chemicals and and the new chemicals that we would call that the innovative agricultural innovative board and it would be made up of a smaller number of people but with more technical expertise to recommend you know different chemicals to the agency that should be used and shouldn't be used and we took testimony earlier this week and have more scheduled for next week and probably we'll be working with Chris in his committee in natural resources on you know formulating that group but we had the secretary of natural resources in yesterday to give us you know her point of view and and so we're we're moving forward hopefully we'll do better that sounds like it's very consistent with that last number six recommendation that the committee's made so thank you so much senator so I'm just looking at the clock we all have the floor in about 20 minutes and I I know that some people came right from another committee meeting so I'm trying to make sure we break with enough time for people to grab a sandwich between meetings are are is there anything we haven't covered in the meeting so far that you all wanted to make sure we heard about during your visit leave it up to the other members of the advisory committee to chime in if they want to add something okay did you were you able to say all the all the floor oh lory did you get everything that you wanted to say I had a quick something but I wanted to make sure you had had enough time but you're you're muted go ahead first hillary and I see mark it's raising his hand so I'll go out why don't I go if there's time because I want to let you guys go and I'll go if there's time I just want to wrap up and thank the the committees for allowing us to present this we look forward to any follow-up you might desire from us we come to you every year with priorities I think that the committee consensus that we're at a unique time with our opportunities for our COVID response funding that might be flowing through and additional funding flowing through the administration and our all-star congressional delegation to look at the allocation of those funds and the policies that might be supported with the lens of the priorities that we've presented their long-term investments necessary for a high quality environment that's so critical to the long-term economy the health of Vermonters and beyond and and COVID has spotlighted some of these issues and maybe amplified the urgency of how we might be addressing them we know we have a whole suite of issues and lots of demands for limited resources but consensus is that a healthy Lake Champlain watershed is a winning investment every single time and there's opportunities to jump on on that now okay before we go to Senator Sears just a quick to follow up on that remark although it's committees of the appropriations that we'll be looking at the budget in the end committees of jurisdiction often make recommendations over do you have any documents that tie together you these high level goals which I I'm pretty confident everyone in this meeting supports and the particular programs and funding levels that exist now and that you might propose any increases for if you could connect the two that would be helpful I think for everyone who's here we'll we'll do what we can with the materials that we have and then with you know developing that consensus from the committee okay great Senator Sears yeah I'm sorry I'm just part of the meeting I had another meeting at noontime today and if this subject that was already taken up that's fine you can let me know off offline I want to know if the polluters who cause the damage to Lake Champlain are being held accountable before we spend taxpayer money and some of those funds that Senator Bray was just talking about on the cleanup of Lake Champlain I did I get this feeling that the polluters have not been held accountable that they have scaled away and I really need to know how we're doing on that thanks Senator Sears I think we as a committee we've discussed and I think our most prior years we specifically addressed a polluter paced principle needs to be reinforced in all of our policies in the state of Vermont it was either last year's or possibly the year before as I think we use that language I can't speak for the entire committee in my perspective as an environmental attorney and land use attorney in general the polluter paced principle has not worked around the country let alone in the state of Vermont that and we hear from committees and membership that we have to make tradeoffs and that the tradeoffs are we don't have the resources to provide sufficient enforcement or we have policies that limit enforcement or as Jeff noted we don't have the resources to the three-acre permit rule that Jeff discussed earlier is the next level as we're sort of ratcheting down on polluter paced we just don't have the resources to support them even figuring out what are the best engineered solutions to catch up with our updated regulations and our better understanding of what their impacts are so let me give you a little genesis of my question I live in north pennington Vermont I live on contaminated property now by st. Govane plastics right we're trying to do our best to hold them accountable they've already ponied up quite a bit of money but I see us with this huge bill to clean up Lake Champlain and those that polluted it getting away scot-free and doesn't seem right to me and I'm going to have a hard time um throwing money until I see some results from the effort I realize it's not easy I realize that it's difficult and that the business interests are always fighting to make the taxpayer or the individual who was contaminated pay for the pollution but it's got to stop somewhere and I say it's time to stop it and I just feel so upset to hear that we're going to allow millions more of the federal relief funds into Lake Champlain when we're not getting money from the polluter this doesn't solve my problem that's my final comment I appreciate you know you all taking the time and that senator bray said we have to get to the floor but I'm going to be buying that as part of the cleanup effort senator bray thanks senator sears if you might give me 30 seconds just to give a sort of broader let's do one one last question or comment and then I think we do need to publicly excuse ourselves and head to the floor um so what we've learned as we study Lake Champlain like the Great Lakes or any other of our significant water bodies is there's significant legacy pollutants there they are from policies or practices that happened before regulations existed we didn't have wastewater control systems that jeff or bob disher ran until the 60s we didn't have good water supply um treatment facilities until around that time two in the 70s clean water act didn't happen until 72 um during post-war rail cars of phosphorus were shipped to vermont at ridiculously cheap prices with all agriculture agencies saying use this it's for the better good and so we have literally millions of tons of pre-existing load that we have to deal with so um present polluters I think we're ratcheting down on past pollution it's all of us and we bear the brunt of it and the challenge is it's more expensive today and we'll get even more expensive tomorrow and it's public trust resources and it's our kids that are going to bear the brunt of it again so I uh I think that's the context for I share your frustration but lakesham plain has this legacy that um is multi-generational and the present polluters are us also okay well that's a little bit of a down note to end on but on the other hand it is a sobering task we know it and um part of the earlier conversation about getting data I mean I think we all feel the responsibility fiduciary responsibility to spend taxpayer dollars well and that means knowing what we're getting for the money we're investing so unless there's anyone else who wants to make a closing remark I would just say thank you everyone on this committee for your for your year round and years round work on this and helping us put our understand in the state house what's going on out in the waters of the state that's very helpful look forward to following up with you on some of the more detailed questions that came up today thank you very very much thank you