 Okay, good evening everybody, I recognise some faces, Andy, good to see you here. So my name is Graham Bradley and I'm the Hazardous Sites Manager with DC. So I'm responsible for reviewing this corrective action plan that we're here today to discuss for the 501 Pine Street Gatehouse Lot. So generally what I thought of, the general agenda this evening, I'm going to just set the context a little bit for today's meeting about the site, about the issues, about the objectives of this meeting. Questions, either questions to DC in our role in reviewing and approving that corrective action plan, but also we have some of the people here today, all other stakeholders on this project. So my name is Graham Bradley with Sites Management Section of DC and my boss, Trish. Trish Cappellino, the Senior Program Manager for the Sites Management Section. And fortunate, Mark Habedank. Mark Habedank, I'm the Remedial Project Manager with the EPA for this site. David, would you like to introduce yourself? I'm David Abrahamson, I'm an engineer with Nobus Group who prepared the corrective action plan. Kurt Schuler, the property owner. So those are the people here that are directly involved with this project. So I really just wanted to give you an indication of what my responsibility is, our responsibility with DC in relation to other stakeholders. The landowner, this is private property and that comes with associated rights and responsibilities. City of Burlington, they're most directly involved with zoning and land use in terms of their local ordinance and zoning construction occupancy permits. So that's in terms of how the land is being used. EPA, as I think members of the public here today know, this property is on the edge of the Superfund site. Hence Mark is here today. And that is the issue there was coal tar from town gas production and that was basically dumped out the back of the gas manufacturing plant. And so back from the 90s and the 90s there was a remediation plan put in place of remedy for that. And that was mainly a containment remedy involving a sediment cap in the canal and wetlands and the ongoing monitoring and maintenance and what we call institutional controls, to ensure the land use is used appropriately. So that's the context of that. And then us, DC, so we're the state authorities here and we're responsible for sure in compliance with the long-winded version, the investigation remediation of contaminated properties rule, which most people involved in this in the state know as the I rule. We're also involved with facilitating brownfield reuse. We're neutral in terms of how it's reused as long as it complies with the I rule. That is our responsibility. And then of course, other people here today, neighbors, putting properties, other impacted parties and we're having this meeting at Andy's request, Friends of the Badge Canals request, to hear your comments, to hopefully answer your questions and look into your concerns and see if there is anything that we do need to respond to or anything that needs to be reconsidered to ensure compliance with the I rule. So that's the different roles and responsibilities. So let me ask you, are you going to stay that far away from that microphone only? I hadn't thought about the mic. If you like, I'm a walker. I prefer to have a... That's a second issue. Okay, I can use the mic if you like. Okay, let's just do this. I taught environmental geology at SUNY Oswego and I was used to having a mic. I can put a longer cable on that, but now you're kind of at the mic. Okay, I'll be careful. So here's a general plan of the site. What we're talking about today is this little blue box here, the gatehouse lot. It's an historical quirk for whatever reason. I think it was of Montgas, they had some kind of valves there and this little so-called gatehouse lot was separated off and so it comes under different ownership to the rest of 501 and 453 currently owned by companies associated with Rick Davis. Other things, notice on this just before I move on. So here's the canal itself. The properties immediately around the barge canal are currently zoned conservation and the rest of the properties on here are light manufacturing. So that's the context in which we're working for. So it's not residential. We're looking at standards in terms of non-residential. Okay, so there's 501. What I've shown on here is, don't worry, I'm not going to give you a whole lecture. I just want to give some background so we're all on the same page. This is the edge of soil that has some kind of coal tire in it. Often that's just a sheen. There is areas where they're able to get coal tire at the ground still. Black, goopy stuff, but most of this area, especially on the edge here, is just like a sheen closest to 501. It's in peat, 8 to 12 feet underground I think it is in that kind of range. But this is what we're dealing with here. You'll see properties that don't have coal tire were actually cut out of the super fun site. Historically, for whatever reason, the gatehouse lot was left in. Maybe if someone had noticed it might have been taken out. Okay, objectives of the meeting provide information. Hopefully that bit of background was useful. Comments and questions. I look forward to answering your questions. Ensuring compliance with the I-Rule. That's our remit. Corrective action plan should be compliant with the specific procedures and requirements established by the I-Rule to protect human health and the environment. So we're primarily focused on human health and the ecology. And we're authorized to do that through the legislature. You can tell I was a professor. I'm eager to give a presentation. I'm just going to go through these quickly. I'm just going to look at each of the media. I have a quick question. Go ahead. What are you defining as ecology here? Pardon? What are we defining as ecology? Oh, I'm not. I just use that in a general way. It's not a definition within the I-Rule. Good question though. I'm going to be careful what I say. Soil. So that's what we've looked at first. Nobis sampled the soil. So now we've just focused in on that 501 gatehouse lot. They sampled the soil both near surface, full locations near surface, and at the water table because sometimes you get contaminants gathering at the water table. The only thing in the soil which was above our standards for non-residential soils was vanadium. And it was actually within a range where we've seen elsewhere that could be background, could be natural. It could be amphibogenic as well though. We don't know. So the corrective action proposed by Nobis for this on behalf of the landowner was basically an isolation barrier to make sure that anyone sitting on the grass in the food truck parking lot is not going to be ingesting the soil. There's no chance of ingesting the soil. There's not a danger to human health there. Groundwater. Oh, by the way, I'm just putting in what was above the standard here. They checked if you're familiar with different contaminants with volatile organic compounds, with PAHs, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons that are associated with coal tar. Those were below the standards. The same with groundwater. Those were below the standards. The things that came out above standards were manganese and arsenic. It's very common to have high concentrations of natural manganese in Vermont in the soil. The arsenic may be associated with industrial soils. What's the corrective action here proposed? Well, actually it's not proposed because it's already there. It's one of those institutional controls associated with the superfund site. This property and adjacent properties have something called the grant of environmental restrictions. So any landowner has to comply with that grant of environmental restrictions. They're not allowed to put a well in. They're not allowed to use groundwater at this site for drinking water. That's how we protect human health. Soil gas. It's one of the media we check to make sure that there's not vapours, contaminant vapours in the soil. You can imagine if you have a truck, you can't have an invader coming up through the soil, whatever, and they get into the truck, there's a potential hazard there. None above the standards. No corrective action is required. This is my final slide. So this is how the landowner would like to develop the site. Our job is to make sure it complies with the eye roll. But also, as I've mentioned, there's grant of environmental restrictions. Because that grant is between the landowner and the state. So I'm responsible for making sure that they comply with that as well. And that was put in place because of the Superfund site. Can't be used as residential. Take care. Check. It's not being used for that. Can't put in drinking water wells. Check. No plans for drinking water wells. Activity is not allowed to recontaminate the land in any way. Move that soil around. Contaminated soil or new contamination. Check. Shall not cause contaminant migration to Lake Champlain. That's through the groundwater. So in other words, we don't want to be putting additional water in the ground here. That might cause that groundwater table to mound up and push contaminants towards Lake Champlain. They're not doing that. They're actually trying to... The proposal in the Corrective Action Plan is to try and change that recharge as little as possible. Sorry, I'm forgetting about the mic. Walker. So they're... So the green areas, grass, the... What would you call that, beige? That's pervious. So the recharge able to get into that area. Runoff from the containers. Presumably will run into the ground as well. So that's going to remain unchanged. The only bit with paving is that pull out there for cars moving into the food truck lot. So the other thing to think about that is that in terms of they're not... They're trying to ensure there's no change to recharge, but also it's a relatively small lot. There's not a lot of recharge on this area anyway compared to the site as a whole. I think it's about 13% of the area that's going to be paved between Pine Street and the edge of the sheen, this napple here. And what was it? 3.4% of the whole of 501 lot. Graham, why does it matter how much, whether the manganese, the vanadium, the arsenic are anthropogenic or background? If the contaminant is there, why does it matter where it came from? In terms of the corrective action plan, it doesn't. But we're dealing with it anyway. Well, it does, because we run regularly. But the corrective action plan is dealing with it as if it is anthropogenic. But yeah, if it's background, we can't change the whole state to change the background. And then there are controls for digging over 5 feet. And that's in case there's any deeper contamination. As far as we're aware, that deeper contamination is closer to the line. So that's my piece. Hopefully I haven't taken too long. Just to sort of describe the context. And so really, I'm just going to invite questions from anybody in the room, either... And I will answer questions from the point of view of our review and potential approval of the corrective action plan. If you do have some detailed questions about the CAP, and I think David might be able to help with those answers as the engineer. And then in terms of if there are any questions relating to the supervon site, we have Mark here as well who built to help answer those. I don't have specific questions. I do have a statement that I wrote out. And frankly, I didn't know whether it was going to be me and you, and that was all here. So I wrote a rather lengthy statement. But if you find questions in there, please feel free to respond to them. My name is Andrew Simon. I live just down the street in the south end of Burlington. I'm among other things on the steering committee for the Ward 5 neighborhood planning assembly, which meets in this room all the time. So it's a familiar space. I'm a retired teacher. I'm a father. I'm a grandfather. I am someone who drinks water from Lake Champlain, so I have a pretty intimate interest in the quality of the water and the health of the lake. I'm not a hydrogeologist. I'm not a soil scientist. I'm not an environmental engineer. However, as a concerned resident, I did submit comments about the corrective action plan, which I will reiterate briefly this evening. I've helped over the last year coordinate a local volunteer group called Friends of the Barge Canal. Some people who've been involved in that are here tonight. We've organized four different trash cleanups on the Barge Canal site. We've removed tons of garbage. We've brought together teams of volunteers to begin removing invasive species like common buckthorn. And we have also, in cooperation with Jess Rubin's group, Michael Evolve, have sponsored a bimonthly community science species inventory of plant, animal, and fungal species on the city land, in particular, the Zero Pine Street land. And in the process, developing ecoliteracy among adults and kids who've come. I've also spent the last year learning about the history of this land that's now designated as Pine Street Canal Superfund site. One of the salient pieces of the history that struck me was the fact that in 1992, EPA, under very different leadership at the time, proposed a remedy for the site that involves basically removing all the contaminated soil, piling it into a toxic waste container, and opening up the rest of the site for development. The plan was almost unanimously rejected by Burlington residents as unwise and even dangerous. The subsequent revised remedy worked out over almost five years by scientists as well as local residents, removed almost no soil, largely left, as you pointed out, Graham, the land alone to reconstitute an ecosystem, mandated regular monitoring of soil and groundwater, and created institutional controls to restrict the land use on the site. This was formalized in 1998 in the Record of Decision and the Grants of Restriction. I note this history because it was, in fact, government scientists and engineers who proposed the rejected remedy. It was local residents as well as scientists who organized to scrap the original plan and who actively participated in the study committee. The corrective action plan proposed by the Nobis Group for this tent of an acre parcel at 501 Gate House leaves me with some questions and concerns. I do understand that some of these issues step outside of the strict boundaries of the state's eye rule, and thus outside of your division's purview. I still want to mention them in the record of this meeting. I also acknowledge and thank you, especially Graham, for the responses that you've provided over most of a year now, actually. And I appreciate that responsiveness. I note that in passing that, we, that is to say, the group that's now become the friends of the Barge Canal, has expressed a concern about some of these issues to the Development Review Board, to the Design Advisory Board, to the City Council, to the Department of Public Work. So we have expressed a lot of these concerns in more appropriate jurisdictions. The things that struck me in the corrective action plan are the fact that, one, I felt like it failed to acknowledge that how the site connects and impacts on the surrounding parcels. Even though it's a small site, it shouldn't be treated in isolation. The proposed changes to the land, like cutting down all the trees, which now stabilize soil, create habitat, sequester carbon, and contaminants, will clearly have a significant impact on the rest of the 501 parcel on Zero Pine Street, which is the city-owned parcel, and consequently on the Barge Canal and the lake. It's noted that the hydrological gradient, and this is in your corrective action plan, goes generally to the west-south-west, and the changes to the soil layers will likely have unknown impacts on the rest of the Superfund site. Even if monitored continuously, these impacts would be difficult or impossible to correct. Who has ultimate responsibility? This is a question which I think we should could address tonight. For paying for future mitigations necessitated by this 501 gatehouse project, will the developer take on this raw liability, or is it the taxpayers of Burlington or the state of Vermont who will pay for these impacts? Our expectation, and the city of Burlington's expectation, at this point is that the rest of the 501 parcel will be surrounding the gatehouse lot, will be moved into conservation zoning. Are the impacts on this future conserved land being adequately taken into consideration in the corrective action plan? Another concern is that I feel like you're favoring various kinds of isolation barriers over long-term remediation strategies. The remedial construction described in section 2.1 of the corrective action plan described five different categories of isolation barriers, but this is the sole remediation strategy for the site. Long-term effective remediation, such as bio, myco, or phytoremediation, are completely left out. While the isolation barriers may be acceptable to I-rule criteria, we suggest that a concern for real long-term remediation for future generations' use of this land would include other strategies. Indeed, the very definition of remediation needs to be reconsidered by state and federal regulators. I've been reminded that from a regulatory point of view, the remedy at the PSCS, which is the Pine Street Canal site, is complete, and that the procedures and requirements established by the I-rule to protect public health and environment define the limits of DEC's regulatory authority. That was a quote, I think, from you, Graham. While this may strictly speaking be true, I assert that your charge to, quote, protect public health and the environment is a higher calling than facilitating brownfield reuse. You may not see them as contradictory, but I would like to engage that discussion about protecting public health and the environment and balancing that with brownfield reuse in the sense of economic revitalization. I found that I had questions about the soil management techniques and perhaps our novice representative could respond to that, too. Described in section 2.2 of the Corrective Action Plan, it seemed to me that there was potential contaminant migration into the air and soil to other parts of the Pine Street Barge Canal site and surface water so close to Pine Street. Where will soils that, quote, exhibit signs of contamination such as free-phase product, oily sheens, olfactory signs, and that exhibit PID readings greater than 10 parts per million above background be segregated and stockpiled on this 0.12-acre site that will be covered almost entirely by the proposed food court is covering a pile of soil, contaminated soil with 6-mil plastic adequate to the task and will it be inspected daily as is proposed. We've certainly seen past examples in Burlington. I remember the whole pile of contaminated soil at Letty Park that were inadequately stored and there's some bad memories left over from those situations. I wonder about the stormwater impacts. The CAP anticipates that stormwater from impervious surfaces will not be allowed to enter the city's stormwater system, so a robust plan for stormwater management must be included. Directing the stormwater to pervious sections of the property and or onsite infiltration structures does not seem adequate as a plan, especially given the increasingly heavy rainstorms caused by climate disruption. The reassurance in the CAP that changes in hydrogeology during and immediately after storm events is not expected to have any substantial impact to offsite hydrologic conditions that would thus cause migration of contaminated groundwater to Lake Champlain. It doesn't seem that reassuring to me. Again, we are talking about a small project site that could have huge impact on surrounding parcels and on Lake Champlain. We note that the largest combined sewer overflow site in Burlington is here, next to DPW, in back of DPW, and lies to the southwest of the 501 gatehouse lot in the direction of the gradient. This CSO, while not an ideal system by any means, keeps the stormwater from basements and businesses and filters it through the barge canal before it reaches the lake. Last, I just want to say that some very fundamental reprioritizing and rethinking needs to go on. Besides the expansion of the official definition of remediation, we should be looking at a new understanding of the quote, the sensitive receptors mentioned in the eye rule. As we have documented over these last months, there are many types of sensitive receptors at the barge canal, animals, plants, and fungi among them, along with human beings. All of these need to be taken into consideration when considering the right course of regulatory action. The state of Vermont and DEC have too long elevated economic revitalization over other priorities. I believe that the numerous crises that we are facing to reorder that thinking, we must recognize that supporting the wildness of the barge canals, damage, land, and water is ultimately a better reuse of this brownfield. Brownfield, I hope, into Greenfield. Thank you. Thank you, Andrew. There are a lot of questions in that. I was trying to decide, now, do we stop and address that issue? Because I'm sure I won't remember. All of them. There was a lot. Yes. As you know, the middle section of what you said there is basically contained in the email. You said that provided detailed answers to each of those. So I'm kind of... Thanks. So I'm trying to decide, do I just read out my replies to each of these? I don't think that would... No, I agree. No, I don't think that. I don't think that's necessary. I think that some of these questions will come up in the discussion. If... I'm sorry, I forgot your name. David, if David, you wanted to address any of the things that I brought up? Can I go first? I just want to address one or two things that are based on sort of regulation. So, in terms of impacts to surrounding properties, I've sort of tried to lay out that the eye rule... We don't regulate land use per se. It's basically how to mitigate those risks to human health but also to the environment. As defined within the eye rule by the standards that we have to work to, the concentrations of various contaminants in the soil, in the groundwater, in the soil gas. Et cetera. So, in terms of off-site impacts, I've got to think about how can that... How does that contamination travel off-site? Or how does whatever is going on-site, how could that impact off-site contamination? And the main sort of way that could happen is changes to the hydraulic gradient, as you mentioned. And it is important to keep in mind that in terms of that catchment area where the water is coming from and going to, this is a relatively small area. And the focus of the Corrective Action Plan, which David can speak about in a moment, is to minimize that impact to recharge. And it is worth sort of comparing this relatively small site where a small portion of the site will be impervious compared to 453 Pine Street where it potentially a much larger area of that property may end up with a pervious... sorry, semi-pervious or impervious cover. And so there, because of its size, there's a much greater potential for changing that hydraulic gradient and influencing contaminant migration in the groundwater. So there, they're looking much more closely more investigation and groundwater modelling to address those impacts. So it really is a question of scale and it's not just the scale of the site, it's the fact that the proposed cap and I'm defending my decision here, it's up to David to talk about the cap itself to maintain recharge on that property. The other thing that just stuck out in terms of what you said was in terms of favouring particular remedies, corrective actions for the site, favouring isolation barriers rather than say long-term bioremediation, accelerated natural attenuation as it's sometimes called. Where charged with ensuring that the proposed cap is fit for purpose, it meets the requirements of the I-Role. Someone wants to go above and beyond that, that's up to them, that's where required to follow the, by the legislature to ensure that corrective action plan is fit for purpose, it is in compliance with the I-Role and so if the isolation barrier does that that's acceptable. So if I could just jump in for a minute, it sounds like you jumped through the I-Role and if you go specifically to section 35603 objectives of the I-Role, it lists out how a corrective action plan should be written in order of priority in its capping, leaving stuff in place and trying to manage on site. We have prioritized that use to stop digging stuff up and taking it off site and putting it someplace else or putting in some sort of active remediation system that removes some of the contamination but not all of the contamination. We've looked at lots of bioremediation use of phytoremediation, in the end we still have to get rid of the thing that sucked up the contamination, whether or not it's cottonwood tree trying to take up chlorinated solvents, the cottonwood tree now has all the chlorinated solvents and it does not destroy it as the same with mushrooms. We've looked at that, the metals stay in the mushrooms and then you take the mushrooms off site and you have to do something with the mushrooms and so it removes it from the soil but it stays in the media that actually removed it and so Graham is right and what was put together is exactly in line with what the I-Role says it needs to have and in order of the priorities that have been put there to Brownfields we need to jump in on this. We are directed to prioritize redevelopment of Brownfields to stop the redevelopment of green space and stop sprawl and bring development to infill. That is what we are charged with and what we are supposed to try and make happen. When we get new bosses we can have a different discussion but we do have people that are giving us priorities to implement within the DEC. And the governor has selected this specific area 501 Pine Street 453 Pine Street has a priority for redevelopment. Redevelopment can be If you point the microphone down maybe. The microphone won't help. No. Oh you mean to hear, hear. The camera is fine. So redevelopment can be green space and it can be something built and directed to prioritize redevelopment on 501 and 453. Well you're absolutely right Trish. I just want to say you're absolutely right that I have not studied the I rule in depth. And I don't expect that I ever will because it's not my profession and and I know that professionals such as people in the Nobis group do know the I rule really well and that I can't point to specific passages that would support my position. But it's good to hear you say that about priorities. I do think that it's an important thing to underline that the priorities come from the top and that economic revitalization is a priority of this particular administration and that other administrations might have a different viewpoint on it. I appreciate all your comments but I just wanted to point out like where we are bound and what we are trying to move forward with this specific document. Did you have more to add Graham? Is there anything else you know because I gave you quite comprehensive replies to each of your questions? Is there anything? Any of those specifically you would like to talk about? Well, I would like to sort of throw out that you have studied the other remediation strategies and that you've chosen the most cost effective and the one that fits in best with this particular project that I'm hoping that, you know, these more long term strategies that ultimately will benefit the land and the city and the people here and the animals and will be included into the options in the future. Even though they take longer they need to be studied more and they need more and they do bring up their own problems like what do you do with the mushrooms? Anyway, I don't need to say anything more. You go to conferences on cleaning up contaminated sites and bioremediation accelerated natural attenuation take up whole sections of conferences it's a recognized technique that works in particular circumstances it's just that circumstances was not chosen in this case Well in a way the Pine Street Barge Canal is an example of deciding on a natural attenuation strategy because instead of scraping off all the soil and containing it in a container it was decided that the land would be left alone and the result is that there are trees there are plants there's an ecosystem that's evolved from a pretty devastated site so in a way it's an experimental site for natural attenuation of toxins, wouldn't you say? When you say that I'm trying to remember the wording of the objectives. There is an objective within there for the superfund site not to unduly influence how the site is developed particularly 501 and 453 so that was left open at the time for those sites so they didn't want to pick a remedy that strongly influenced how those sites adjacent to Pine Street itself would be used in the future. As you've said there's ongoing talks about potentially extending conservation land on the rest of 501 and if that happens we will look at that in the context of the I-Role as well particularly if there's public access and the last human health risk assessment was done in the early 90s so again just in terms of our remit of ensuring compliance with the I-Role we're anticipating that a human health risk assessment would be required as well You're talking about let's just talk about 501. Not the gatehouse lot I'm talking about the rest of 501. Let's focus on this cap. Putting it into context. Andrew you had a concern over the soil management and I think Graham answered that but whenever we're proposing to do work on a former industrial site we're going to have that contingency in there in case something does show up while they're digging say putting in a utility and they see something we're going to put it on 6 mil poly then we're going to have to stop things and see what happens so they'll be in part of this cap there would have to be a qualified professional overseeing all the soil work that's going on out there anyway so it's merely a contingency we're not anticipating finding anything we didn't find anything during the phase 2 investigation out there and why is it that Vermont gas held down to that small property you seem to have the answers to that what what I believe just based on what I've seen there used to be kind of a valving pit there there was a small building above ground and they called it the gatehouse so I presume there were some gas valves in there for some gas work that continued to be used by VGS after after the manufactured gas plant was shut down I believe so and how long do you anticipate the soil that would be dug up would remain on the site it would per eye rule it would be no longer than 90 days but it would likely be probably somewhere between 45 and 60 days if it had to be removed because it had to go through waste characterization and then you have to procure transportation disposal if it needed to go offsite and where does it get removed to it depends on what it what it is again we're not anticipating anything here so if it's non-hazardous quite often it goes to a landfill it could go to a coventry it could go to landfills in New York and depending on the concentrations of whatever might be in it it could even be used as daily cover of the real landfill material so could you repeat that last line louder I'm sorry the last sentence you said I had a hard time hearing so whenever you're disposing of soil the receiving facilities will look at the concentrations of contaminants that are in it and they'll make a determination of whether or not it goes in as just landfill material or if it's used as daily cover at the end of every day they cover up the cells so they don't smell and they use soil and they try not to use clean soil so they'll use maybe mildly contaminated soils or something like that within the permitting within their permit and are those landfills contained most are I know coventry is thank you I'd like to add something my name is Joanna I came up to Burlington in 2017 to go to see a Vermont and I'm living in under hill now I have a lot of love for Vermont I have a lot of love for Lake Champlain and now for the Barge Canal I connected with this land first in this past summer and joined friends of the Barge Canal and I found a lot of meaning in getting to know all the non-human neighbors there through our citizen science days and through learning how to restore habitat that's undergone a lot thank you learning about restoration techniques including removing common buckthorn and building community all along the way and I want to echo some of the concerns that Andrew shared particularly about potential stormwater impacts and you mentioned that compared to 453 the scale is much different as in-depth studies going on to find out what those impacts might be to me that feels disappointing considering that the DEC does have this priority to protect human and human health and the environment and as shown in the eye rule that this plan shall not cause contaminant migration to Lake Champlain pollutants travel and when an ecosystem is not protected and respected and able to serve as a natural buffer for these pollutants it it just enhances the risk and you mentioned that part of your job your author is to mitigate these risks and I heard also what you said about this um conscious prioritization of development projects on brownfield sites and I guess I just wonder about how that prioritizing comes into balance with this um with this promise to protect human health and the environment and with this promise to mitigate risks um I wonder how the capping method that's being used here can be justified when other remediation techniques are available that are more kind that are more supportive actively supportive to the existing ecosystem there it just seems like a contradiction that it doesn't in fact mitigate potential risks and I just want to answer your question better about particular contaminants um and risks that you're concerned about in terms of stormwater specific to this parcel yeah that aren't currently happening I don't have specific uh compounds to name but I'm just aware that phosphorus is one from land in general um but I'm just aware that uh with stormwater events and particularly in Burlington with our uh sewage system I remember like multiple times I've been walking around I think of the Halloween storm a couple years ago where I was coming home at night walking through sewage sludge and that's I mean certainly eutrophication and phosphorus is an issue in Vermont Lake Champlain that's not what we're concerned about here with this particular property I've been involved with research Carmine into phosphorus entering the lake there um so I mean the issue with stormwater here is are we changing the recharge to groundwater because any change to or sorry is the developer changing any uh recharge to groundwater anything that might push contaminants closer to the canal further towards the canal and the cap is being developed in such a way that it's not going to um change that groundwater recharge and that groundwater flow in any significant way and remember that there is also ongoing monitoring um around the canal and the lake and the so-called performing defendants those responsible um for maintaining that uh we're in touch every week um it seems like every week we're getting results from um the maximists in that um and those that grant of environmental restrictions is not going away that is there in perpetuity between the state and the landowner so they have they're required to maintain um that situation that a not um alter the hydrology in any way that encourages contaminant transport towards the lake so Graham if there were a migration that was noted by the various monitoring wells and um and the five-year um testing by EPA who would be responsible for um addressing that well now we're talking about monitoring on the super fun site if it was determined that um a development on uh say the site of the former manufactured gas plant caused um a migration of contaminants that was noted in by the the various wells who is liable for that um that um uh addressing that if it needed to be addressed if there if there was if I could ask that real quick the responsibility for that lies with the property so the responsibilities as Graham mentioned it's part of the deed restrictions for these properties so that's part of the institutional controls whoever's the property owner and the signatory to that deed then bears the responsibility if one of the institutional controls are seem to be broken and the institutional control that I'm asking about is is migration of of contaminant toward the lake so correct um could it be determined what caused that migration if they're say was this this development this on this small piece of property could it be determined that that was the cause of it yeah certainly I think you could piece that together um you know if you there's a lot of monitoring that happens on the super fun site and if there was a change to hydrogeologic you know the makeup of the site and the hydro geologic conditions of the site that would probably be noted within the monitoring that's ongoing within the site so that would um you know raise a red flag on their way then we'd start looking at why that changes occurred um so we don't you know we're approving this cap because um the proposed remediation is designed to prevent that happening at this site if it was to if we were to notice it elsewhere then we'd have to look for what we all do respect there there are um there are um consequences sometimes that you hadn't anticipated even environmental professionals sometimes especially on a site like this that has as EPA has noted 56 contaminants of concern and especially with the coal tar that you noted was 120 feet west of of the the site the gatehouse site but still if there were um things that pushed that coal tar toward the west toward the lake I mean unintended consequence groundwater would run through those pores pick up PAHs from the napple and continue naturally towards the lake but groundwater is moving like that all the time and what we're not changing the situation with this these actions on the site it's it's to do with the um uh what you know what it how much recharges what is there any change to the recharge what's the area what's the thickness of that layer that geological layer that's transporting that groundwater through the ground you make a small change to recharge on a small lot of there that groundwater is coming from a gradient traveling through that thicker layer underneath this is relatively small impact compared to the total movement of groundwater through the site and and it's being monitored on the superfront site to check to make sure that there are no changes to either um if there's any evidence of napple and I've got to say that um there isn't evidence of napple in wells directly down gradient the place where we do see coltar is over here where this slew was um here um that's where we're primarily looking at dissolved phase contaminants to see if there's any increases in um concentration in actual fact the the focus on the uh on the um superfront site in terms of dissolved phase contaminants is uh between the lake and the canal that's uh where the highest density of monitoring is current my name is Esme and I um my understanding after hearing this meaning is that the purpose of what we plan to do with 501 is purely economic revitalization um and not to worsen any of the environmental damage not to better it either necessarily I don't I'm not quite seeing that in this plan um and so if if the goal is to not cause further harm as well as promote economic revitalization I'm wondering sort of what the expected outcomes are economically for this development project maybe the landowner the proposed like food truck project how is that going to like positively impact Burlington as an economy or maybe even as like a communal space like what are the ways to measure like success moving forward as a result of this project like what can we look out for by making this choice like why is this the best choice I just have to say that is kind of beyond the scope of this meeting it's not really a zoning meeting or you know it's not an economic development meeting yes employee people okay service that's already being provided down the road yeah okay I might add something to that since Curtis got ahead and responded and that my name is Ruby Perry I also live a block away and I have attended the previous meetings and thank you Charlie and left comments and made comments and my main comment I want to make today is that I am not sure that those kinds of things actually haven't been addressed that at the two board commissionings that I went to a lot of concerns came up and one of them was what is the economic benefit and other ones were what about the traffic and what's the benefit and how is that going to be balanced with people who are trying to move along Pine Street and there's also a lot of environmental comments and I stayed after the comments you know in those meetings we get to make public comment but nobody responds and I stayed after and there was no discussion about those things it was not considered the purview of either the DRB or the design review board so not traffic not environment not commercial benefit there was a slight discussion about aesthetics with lights but it really never got discussed it seemed like everybody on those boards felt the same thing that you did was that our charge is to look at this very narrow thing and respond to the very narrow purview that we have and I wonder where the real discussion takes place I appreciate that Graham scheduled this meeting he was asked to schedule it but I'm glad that he did because he gives a chance for this public discussion to happen that hasn't happened despite municipal participation besides I mean you have gone through the hoops right I can tell by the side of your jaw that you've gone through the hoops but no real discussion has happened and I'm not comfortable with that I'm not comfortable with the public being represented well I'm not comfortable with the economic benefit whether the lake and the barge canal is actually a sacrifice film to somebody's entrepreneurial instincts is there some way should we not be balancing that at some point along the way I'm also I'm not sure about the institutional control so I'm not sure that David is totally right I mean I know that the accepted there's plenty of evidence that the accepted rules will work that if you do this this will happen but the fact is that you are going to disturb the soil you are going to cut the trees that have those are substantial trees that are holding that soil which has a relationship to the water moving across that land there's also anecdotal evidence that I suppose a mountain is in a meeting like this to gossip but anecdotally the owner of the I think of it as GB plant but of course it's the innovation center now that he's concerned about he cited a plume of contamination moving southwest under his parking lot from your spot where you own and I don't we have tried to track that down to see where that came from you know is that where did I come from where do we look I mean there are as you say gazillions of documents but who's monitoring that you would know that you would have seen that is there a plume of contamination moving southwest out of the barge canal we know that the superflame site does not follow a boundary a yellow boundary on a map but can you answer have you heard nothing about that I see you shaking your head but I wonder about you anecdotal evidence of a plume moving underneath I've not heard that this is the first time hearing that and if it were you feel confident you would know that I feel confident that there was significant movement of the plume that it would be borne out in the monitoring that's being done can you say that one more time if there was significant plume movement like you're describing it would be evident there is a there is an annual report of all of the monitoring that's conducted of non-aqueous phase liquid coal tar in the well the concentrations associated with the coal tar of different contaminants and monitoring of sediment as well in the canal and EPA and DEC review that every year oh they need you to say from for the camera who you represent and your name please Mark Habedank and just by way of gossip again for anecdotal evidence because we've talked with so many people the friends of the barge canal about the history of the canal as well as the the ongoing documentation we understand and maybe you know David this you seem to have a little bit of historical knowledge too those mounds that are right behind 501 gate house which we've speculated about what are the mounds from and finally here that what they were was St. John's very trucking at some point was going to build a warehouse there and that this was long enough ago so that you probably were not involved but to test that its efficacy of that they brought in all that soil and dumped it there and what happened we heard overnight that probably an exaggeration the soil sunk afoot because it's not stable there's an underlying we're also getting off topic a bit here and I'm kind of I want to hear what you have to say because I'm also managing the rest of the site but I think it's worth saying the scope of this meeting really is 501 gate house lot since you asked specifically about subsidence this area was wetland by the lake and there's a lot of organic material there's a peat layer in there there's a peat layer in there and actually that peat layer has acted like a sponge and most of that sheen, coal tar sheen we see in coal tar tends to be contained in that peat layer peat layer you load it on top it's going to compress and potentially push the contamination out so whatever work has to be done whatever work is proposed at the site that is top of my priorities making sure that you don't compress that peat layer you don't move contamination around so is that in the plan I haven't heard that discuss David so it's a bigger that is on other parts of the site it's not an issue for the gate house lot which is not the buildings that he's putting on the one that's upright the gate house lot as far as I remember it's east of the peat layer just that small the peat gets thicker like shunt so it's all buried so you really have to be able to see into it in 3D there's a geologist that's our thing thinking in 3D actually 4D because we're thinking in terms of migration as well the one gate house where he's going to be putting the container if it hasn't changed from when it was a time review board one of them will be vertical and one is oh that has changed so are there still 2 containers that will be on that lot oh there are 4 containers and how much do they weigh did you have to say that anywhere has anybody evaluating that you can understand as a member of the public that's part of the geotechnical engineering design now who did the geotechnical engineering design who did that then then I could look at those documents and get those questions to answer do you know who did that then oh there hasn't will it be required we're addressing the environmental concerns so when will the geological concerns are not the environmental concerns no that's linked in together the groundwater flow so now I'm asking a yes no question will that be done what about you over there whose name I already forgot Mark that's a question for the property owner I don't know if there's geologic geotechnical yes sorry but was there a report about the geologic movement that would be happening so I mean this is a geotechnical issue it depends on the soil properties and the peat is further west that's the problematic layer in terms of but it's also in terms of loading we're just talking about containers here different issue at 453 where there's buildings and there's a lot of work being put into the geotechnical design this is a food look so there is no geologic geotechnical design because you weren't required to do that you can understand my concern about that but I hear that and I don't want to take up more time than is a lot and so I appreciate arriving at that raising the question which got to go into my mind oh yeah thank you good questions I don't have any more gossip I would have mentioned it but what there is one but I'll save it for another any other questions on the corrective action plan oh you want to stand yeah my name is Colton I am a mentor of kids in nature and I am just like concerned about and like and I know this is kind of outside the spectrum of the what your the correct is very specific with the corrective action plan and that's just the definition of human health what does that mean how are we engaging with our health and I think that the environmental correction plan is overlooking like a lot of concerns that have been raised here tonight and I also think that looking at human health like what precedent is this setting for human health and how we're engaging with our environment and how we're engaging with this is like one of the last wild spaces in downtown Burlington and there are actually like animals that run through this neighborhood I live right up the road here and I see I have like 10 sightings of fox this area and multiple sightings of deer in this area there are pathways through and they live amongst us if you walk the streets at night you will actually see animals out so with that said I think that we are integrated with the health of our environment and I think there are you all are looking at this from like your perspective of like the job that you've been given but I think that on like a human to human level like I believe that there is broader like the term like that you're using human health is much broader than the categories that were laid out in this tiny presentation and I also think that the direction the precedent that like a project like this is kind of setting for us engaging with wild spaces one of like and I know maybe you wouldn't define this as a wild space you clearly all of conservation land around the I know but but within those boxes and within that little teeny tiny box there is life living that's going to be destroyed and I think that that is very much integral with the health of the lake with the health of me living in this neighborhood with the health of all the other with the health of the kids who live in that neighborhood with the health of all the people who live in that neighborhood and I think it impacts everybody who drinks from that lake and everybody who swims in that lake I appreciate your comments I really do like last night I was watching four skunks and two raccoons on our porch the animals through yeah and I spent a lot of my time doing that yeah I in this room I've got my hat on as a DC I get that and I just want to say thank you for all taking time to be here I know you have lives outside of this Andrew for most of the questions I think they might be one or two extras most of them I already responded so we'll be thinking carefully and there is still a week to there's the public comment period is kept open for a week after the meeting so if you think of anything else or if you want to put what you said in writing tonight feel free to contact me I just realized I don't have my email on there but I can I can give that to you if anybody wants to and that's the way to make public comments is just the email you that's the easiest way yeah make sure I get them and respond to them otherwise I think we will end it there for this evening okay thank you very much everybody thank you