 Before section 21, the Office of Legislative Council called the first meeting of the Legislative Study Committee on Wetlands to order. This is that meeting. You are now convened. The first thing on the agenda is for me to review the legislative charge to the committee. You should all have a copy of this, but it is also on the web, and I'm going to walk through it on the screen as well. First, you'll see that there's the creation with the general purpose for the committee to clarify the state weapons statutes and permitting the under the statutes. And you'll see the creation, the membership. I'm going to walk through that. And the assistance, you're getting the assistance of the Legislative Council. Then you come to subsection D, the report, on and before January 15, 2020, you, your committee, submit the written report to the General Assembly to update and verify the requirements for the regulation of weapons under state statute. And the report takes the form of draft legislation. And then if this is where you get the four specific charges to your committee, whether the definition of weapons should be amended, including whether the definition of weapons under state weapons law should be based on protective criteria, such as size or location. Two, the standard by which the state shall review a permit application for the disturbance of a weapon or weapon buffer. Three, proposed exemptions for regulation under state weapons law for specific activities, including whether land on which foreman or a subset of farm use conducted should be excluded from the definition of weapons subject to state regulation, or should be exempt from weapons permitting under state law. And then three, be whether the exemptions under state weapons law should be consistent or similar to the exemptions under federal weapons law. And then four, proposed permitting fees for weapons permits. You are directed to select a chair from among your members at the first meeting. And you cease to exist on January 15th, 2020. And then on page three, line six, you have reimbursement and compensation authority for six meetings. The money's appropriated from the General Assembly. Do you have any questions? The only thing, Mike, was we had pages one through three. And I didn't see that, some of that material. Okay, what did you not see? Was there four, was there four purposes? There's four as directives for you to address the new legislation. On page two, line one, whether what definition of weapons should be amended. Page two, line four, the standard to review permit application for the service. Three, which includes subdivisions A and B, whether a man on which farming or a subset is farming should be excluded from the definition of weapons or should be exempt. And whether the exemptions under state weapons law should be consistent or similar to exemptions under federal weapons law. And then the proposed permitting fees, which is line 14, those are the four. I don't know if it's appropriate now, but it's, I've been sort of trying to remember why we find ourselves here. And I see there's an overview of what is law coming, but I didn't know if we could maybe have that clarity now before we figure out the committee structure. Yeah, I think Michael's going for all of that. So I was directed to do an overview of weapons law, but I also wanted to address why the four charges to you are part of this committee. Maybe that would be it. And in doing so, walking through an overview, I'm going to point out where the tensions are and why you are here. So I could do that in a narrative form right now where you can open this document, this document, which is what I'm going to walk through. This is a chart of state weapons permitting that I came up with is not totally 100% accurate. It leaves out detail from the wetlands rules, but it's a general overview of weapons permitting law and some of the issues that are coming up, which is why you are here. So the first thing you ask when you're looking for a weapons permit under state law is, am I disturbing a weapon? And disturbing its shorthand that I'm using is if you're going to do development or land use or an activity in a weapon or a weapon buffer. And then you look at the definition of a weapon. It's those areas of the state that are inundated by surface or groundwater with the frequency sufficient to support significant vegetation or aquatic life that depends on saturated or ceaseless saturated conditions for growth or reproduction in such areas and do marshes, swamps, those potholes, pens, river, and makeover flows, mud flats, logs and ponds, but excludes, excludes such areas as a growth, mood, or crops in connection with foreign. So on the back page of your big quote chart, you'll see the federal definition of weapons. So in charge one is whether or not your definition of weapons under state law needs to change. And if you see the definition of the federal law, it really isn't that different except for the excluding such areas as growth, mood, or crops in connection with foreign. So I'm going to come back to that excluding clause in a second, but first I want to talk about what a buffer is because you need a permit if you're going to be disturbing a weapon or a buffer. So the buffer is the zone, the area in which you live with a significant weapon that serves to protect the valleys and functions preserved by its designation. The buffer zone for a fast one weapon is at least, at least 100 feet from the weapon border. And the buffer zone for a fast two weapon is at least 50 feet from the weapon border. It can be more than 100, it can be more than 50, if A and R needs the need for that to protect the weapon. So that's at least 100 and at least 50. So that's what you're talking about. That's the zone of activity that you're working in. Are you disturbing a weapon or a weapon buffer? So do I need a permit for my activity in a weapon or a weapon buffer? Well, first question, are you growing food or crops in connection with farming? Because remember, that's excluded from the definition of weapons. Well, you say, yes, I am growing crops. Well, they didn't have to ask, has the farming activity been continuous since 1990? Well, where did that come from? That's not in the definition of weapons, right? That's not in statute that it's excluded that it's been continuous since 1990. That's in a rule of the Agency of Natural Resources that puts a condition on the exclusion of areas grown for food or crops from the definition of weapons. So the Agency adopted that by rule. When was it adopted? That was adopted in 1990, or 89. So what you also need to realize is that statute says when A&R adopts a rule that affects farming, the Secretary of Agriculture for Food and Markets needs to consent to that rule. Similarly, if the Agency of Natural Resources is going to adopt a rule that affects forestry, forestry operations, a solar culture, as the language says, the Commissioner of Forests and Parks and Recreation has to consent to that rule. Nobody can find a record of the Secretary of Agriculture consenting to the 1919 provision. So that is something, I'm not saying it didn't happen, I'm just not saying that it did happen, but nobody has a record of that. Well, and we and the AG can be spent quite a lot of time looking and asking for that, and I think you looked into it extensively, and I think you looked at it in a different way. So why is that, why is that a difference? Because the Environmental Court says if you were farming, and you're continuing since 1990, you're excluded, you're not part of A&R's jurisdiction, you're outside the jurisdiction of A&R. So that wetland isn't an A&R wetland and wouldn't be subject to A&R jurisdiction according to the Environmental Court, it says it's outside the jurisdiction of A&R. So who regulates that wetland that's been in farming since 1990? Well, the Agency of Agriculture does because the RAPs regulate all farming. So for wetlands that have been continuously farmed since 1990, A&R doesn't regulate them, the Agency of Agriculture regulates underneath the RAPs just as general farming. It doesn't say specifically wetlands, but it's a regulation that that land is subject to. So another issue is that when A&R defined what is farming underneath the statute and the rules for the purposes of the exclusion, they did not use the default definition of farming. And the default definition of farming is the definition in 10, PSA 6001. Turned over your sheet, the purple is the definition of farming. I'm not gonna walk through that, but you'll see that it is different from the green definition of farming. The green definition of farming is how A&R has defined farming under the wetlands rules. And it means the cultivation or other use of land for growing food, fiber, Christmas trees, maple sap, or cortical gruel, and orchard crops. And the growing of food and crops in connection with the raising of eating for a match in a livestock poultry, that coins, fish, farms, and these are crops. So that's really very focused on growing food or crops. But there are a lot of other activities that are farming that farmers argue are necessary for farming, whether it's a farm row, whether it's a farm structure, whether it's a manure pit, whether or not it's your fertilizer storage, whether or not it's your bunker. Farmers are saying that is farming that is necessary in order to grow food or crops, but A&R might not interpret their definition of farming to include those types of activities. And so that's attention because when you go to the other side of the chart and you look at the uses exempt from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Clean Water Act 404 permit, you'll see a lot of farming activities that are exempt, farm rows are exempt. Even some structures are, farm ponds are exempt. So there's a lot of things plowing, seeding, cultivating that are exempt under the federal rules. And so that's one of your charges, is are these exemptions, is this exclusion going to remain an exclusion? Is it going to be the definition of farming that A&R has in the wetlands rule? Is it going to be the definition of farming that the Agency of Ag regulates under the RAPs? Is it going to be a type of farming that's defined underneath the federal force rules or more similar to their exemptions? So that's a big part of your charge. And what is part of that charge is looking at language in Act 64 from this past year, which gave the Agency of Agriculture authority under the RAPs to regulate wetlands that are used for areas as brokered across the international farming activity. So the Agency of Ag has our AP authority over that to those wetlands. And the question there is, do they regulate farming the purple box or do they regulate farming under the green box? Well, the Agency of Ag is going to say the legislative intent letters from Senator Starr and Representative Hartridge said, no, it's farming on the purple box, the Act 250 definition of farming, because that's a statutory definition and that statutory definition takes control over a rule because under state Vermont Supreme Court precedent and statute in a rule conflict, the statute controls. So there's arguably a conflict between the language that gives the Agency of Ag authority over wetlands used for farming and then the A&R's wetlands rule and how it's defined as farming. So that's another thing that you will have to address that's part of the tension that's ongoing for this issue. Michael, can I ask you a question? So that the date of 1999 continues to use and the court refers to that. What is the significance of that date? That was the date that the Agency of Natural Resources adopted rules that went into effect or went into effect in 1999. I believe the statute was, I'm not sure. I tried to figure that out yesterday. So the Agency of Ag, they have authority to draft RAP amendments right now. They probably are doing it. It has to be by rule because the RAPs are by rule. So rule generally takes four and a half to eight months to do. So by the time that the Agency has a draft, maybe they'll be proposing a draft to you, I don't know. You'll be able to see what the Agency is doing. If you don't like it, you'll have the ability for the legislative session to address it. But it's very clear that statute takes precedent over it. Statute, when statute or rule comes with the statute controls, the Supreme Court has said the rule cannot stand. And how does our statute, the purple box, compare whether the Army Corp needs to use... Well, that's another issue because the purple box is the Army Corp has much broader exemptions, much broader suite of affairs that are in the fight as farming and poor garden exempt from the permitting requirements under the clean water. So that's one issue of the farming. Well, now we'll go back up to, oh, no, are you growing food or about to no? I'm not growing food or about to no. Can you just rewind for a second? For the party teams in the amending and regarding the wetlands, were they silent before or what's the amendment pertaining? They are directed to adopt RAPs to regulate areas as growth over crossing connection with farming activities. But they didn't do that before? That's why I don't know. No, they technically had regulation over those wetlands that had been farming prior to 1990, but it wasn't specific to wetlands. It was just specific to the activities ongoing in those areas. Just like any farming area. Right, so wouldn't the RAPs have addressed them? Because it was in farming area. I don't understand the change that's needed to address wetlands in the RAP. Well, the change that's needed is if you're going to interpret this authority as applying to all farming and not just the green box, not just the growing food crops, it's all farming. If they're going to be addressing all farming, it's going to be broader. Okay, I think that's another definitional detail. So farming in 6VSA, the title is defined and pointed out all the things that includes that A&R is not referring to in the wetlands rule. Is there a definition of farming in statute under line A&R? Or do they refer to title 6 when they, if they themselves need a statutory definition, they use title 6 definition of farming. I just want to make sure there's not two statutory definitions that could be a conflict. I see that one's a rule, one's a statute, but are there two statutory conflict definitions? Well, first there's about 29 definitions of different definitions of farming or farming or agricultural activity or farmer or farm in statute. A&R uses different versions, yes. They will either reference to an activity being conducted under the RAPs and the definition of farming under the RAPs is substantially the same as the purple box. Or they will reference 10VSA 6001 and sub-division 22 which is the active 50 definition of farming. The 6VSA 4802, that definition literally is, has the same meaning as 6VSA, 10VSA 6122. The definition of farming under active 50 is the definition of farming under the AgWater Quality Check. So now you're here. I'm not growing for the crops of the international farming. Well, there are three classes of weapons in Vermont. Class one, two, and three. If you're in class three, you don't need a permit. But if you're in class one or two, you may need a permit because they have been determined to be significant. Class one weapon is after review of the functions and values A&R determine in the areas exceptional or irreplaceable. Class two is after review of functions and values from the area of merit protection. So what are the functions and values? That's on the back. This is what A&R reviews to determine whether or not your weapon is in class one or class two. Whether or not it's subject to regulation. Now, a class one weapon, that's pretty easy to determine because by statute it has to be designated by rule. And so appendix A of A&R's weapons rules includes all the class one weapons. So it's really not that hard to figure out where a class one weapon is. You just look at appendix A. But for purposes of class two, what's significant that meets the functions and values that requires protection? Now some of them are on a map. We're not a weapons map inventory map. But some of them are not. And some of them are subject to A&R coming in and determining based on these narrative standards. These are not necessarily objective criteria. They might be subjective depending on who is looking at them. These narrative standards, whether or not it meets a class two level of significance. So this is part of your charge because part of your charge is to look at whether or not the definition and the regulatory standard for a permit needs to be more objective. And what do I mean when I say it needs to be more objective? So I'm going to give you an example. This is the general permit for Vermont, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, a general permit for Vermont for development in recreational facilities. And you'll see that if you're going to discharge and dredge for field material for construction or expansion of the government and for recreational facilities, you can self-verify if it's under 5,000 square feet of permanent and temporary impacts in the waterway. And the self-verification is to send the formant to the Corps two weeks before you engage in that activity. You don't need approval. You just send the formant. But if it's over 5,000 square feet and it's in Lake Champlain, or actually if it's over 5,000 square feet and it's in Champlain, and from Niagara Falls on international waters, then you need to fill out this pre-construction notification. You basically notify the Corps that you're doing it, may have the opportunity to say no. So these are objective. It's about footage, right? You're going to dredge or fill an objective area, right? And that is the question. Do you want this type of objective criteria? And it could include things like you're going to dredge or fill in a bog. And a bog will be defined. So again it's objective criteria. Not whether or not you meet a narrative standard subject to interpretation of whether or not the function and value is significant. So that's part of your charge. Do you want an objective standard? Do you want to maintain the narrative functions and values? The narrative functions and values, it really shouldn't be when you define a weapon. Maybe narrative functions and values should be the standard for permitting. If you're going to impair one of those functions or values, maybe you don't get a permit. So those are some of the questions that you have in front of you. What is part of your charge? What about, Michael, under the, on the back side of your sheet, the blue, provides the very first bullet. Well, we haven't been able, and we haven't dredged standard streams in Vermont for, I guess. Well, this provides temporary water storage for flood waters in the storm runoff. Well, you know that we've opened up, we'd left the streams like they are naturally supposed to be. So they're more full of silt and sand and gravel now than they were 20 years ago, and you go buy some river wobbling in the spring, and you'll see river water all over that property. Is that first bullet? Is that, is that going to create an issue if it's used to grow to the ground? Well, as I said, this isn't everything that's applicable for wetlands law. Wetlands Rule Section 5 includes all the criteria for what the functions and values are. So there's more specific detail there about what the agency would look at for purposes of any of those functions and values about whether or not it's going to be partly fat specific. But the primary question is whether it's a wetland to begin with. Just because there's silt present. The first question is whether it's a wetland or so to the definition. The next question would be whether it has any significant function of value. Shouldn't that be made more clear? If we're going to redo all this, is that an area that needs to be more clear so that if people are reading this they understand that just because their ground gets flooded it doesn't mean they're going to get in trouble with whoever they're regulators. Go to the federal. The federal standard is if you're going to judge your fill and they have a definition of what you're going to fill if you're going to judge your fill in a wetland, you need to have a permit or you need to look at the regulatory structure to see if you're exempt or you otherwise don't need a permit. So that's you think you don't go to this step of oh it's a wetland do we need to determine if it's significant or not. They've basically made determinations of when a permit is needed based on the square footage of disturbing it or the activity involved. So this is another one of those tensions one of the reasons that you're in here so if you're a development community or developer you're going out looking for reasonable foreseeable expectations and you can't say for sure whether or not a wetland on your property is significant you have to go get a delineation and so you might hire your own delineator you might have an argument and that delineation might be different depending on who is doing it there are no standards there are standards but you remember it's people on the ground that make the determination and what's potentially more confusing for farmers is that farmers often get their money from NRCS for structures and for other activities and NRCS will come out and they'll look at a property sometimes they get AR to come out and do a delineation I think they're supposed to all the time but I don't know if they do and sometimes they say no you meet the core of engineers' requirements remember the core of engineers' requirements aren't the state requirements so a farmer might go forward in reliance on NRCS and the core might show up and say no no no you need a permit and A&R might show up and say you need a permit so you have three regulatory agencies in play for a farm whether or not it needs a weapons permit for some of the things that's funded through NRCS so let's say it's a class one or a class two is the activity in allow-use what are the allow-uses here are all the allow-uses I'm not going to read them all but they are not the same as the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers exemptions for example the Army Corps of Engineer has an exemption for farm roads there's no exemption for farm roads or no allow-use for farm roads there is an allow-use for silvicultural roads the roads that are built for silicultural purposes in a buffer zone and the restoration reconstruction and rehabilitation of upgrading of existing roads used for silvicultural the roads are not increased by more than 200% so you've got an ability to say your maple stand which might be in current use of farming is going to you're going to build a road to it for silviculture and you're going to be exempt or because it's in but it's not if you call that farming then it wouldn't be exempt so this is an issue and this is part of your charge whether or not you want fees of allow-uses, add door exemptions if you want to call them if you want fees to be consistent with the feds we're not and then if it's an allow-use then you don't need a permit you're exempt from the allow-use but if it is not an allow-use you need a permit from A&R and then you get to one of your other charges which is the fees right now it's $0.25 per square foot for proposed impact to a class 1 for class 2 weapon it's $0.25 per square foot for proposed impact to a 1 or 2 weapon buffer it's $200 for conversion of a class 2 weapon or weapon buffers to Cropland or for use as a mineral pipeline and if you have to pay the fee after the fact after you've already disturbed the weapon before you got the permit it's $0.50 per square foot for impact when the permit is signed so this is a general overview of state permitting law the intentions are how you define weapons how you address farming as an exclusion or an exemption and if you do it either way how you define farming what are the allow-uses should they be consistent with the feds or not and what fee should be paid for a weapon permit now part of the fee discussion is it's $2.40 fees are supposed to by statutory definition pay for the cost of agency staff time in processing or reviewing the permit application but fees also can serve a regulatory purpose meaning they can be a disincentive to violation of the law and these fees serve both purposes they definitely are needed by the agency to pay for staff at the agency but they are sufficiently significant as to be a disincentive to violation of the law it's a helpful pinpoint what change has happened that has sort of surface the conversation or is it the advent of the raps or a change in rule or did the legislature pass something that we didn't realize what happened I'd love to understand how this wasn't an issue two years ago I don't know this issue two years ago or ten years ago I think honestly what has changed is time of people there's overtime different staff different interpretations different decisions to enforce the required permit different interpretations about the language because of it the law is not always black and white so there's there's definitely different reasonable interpretations that people could make now reliance on prior activity if you're an industry like farming when you've been relying on that needing a permit and now you need a permit that's trouble to that industry so honestly what has changed has been the most significant change so I don't know who to turn to because I don't like to the chair so nobody can tell me this Max Hand was up first so I didn't know if Chris was bringing up the subject for those of us that get our tractors stuck in places where we've been mowing hay for years and now we're getting stuck in there in the last ten years and how do the rules the land when the land is changing is that in this charge and the agency can correct me if I'm wrong but the wetlands grow and contract and so what was the wetland 15 years ago for regulatory jurisdiction might not be a wetland today a vice versa so weather is going to have a real impact on regulation under this field and it's not about the law it's about the conditions on the ground that's kind of said earlier whether or not it's a wetland the issue up north that started that didn't start it but it contributed a lot to it was the there was a farmer up there that wanted to put a pipeline in and to put the pipeline in you had to go across an edge of a class 2 wetland they figured all the way through and then you're going to restore it back to its wetland as it was and it was going to cost him over $30,000 to put that pipe in fees to put the pipe to the edge of that wetland because it was like a dollar or something but the other issue and we've taken care of that because that's going to help the environment as long as they put it back to its original wetlands then they can get by with the cheaper fee the other issue it was a guy that wanted to build a sugar house and to build the sugar house nowadays you have to have it at a low spot so all your maple will gravity feed to the sugar house they built the sugar house the Army Corps of Engineers were in there and everything was fine it gets a sugar house built and somebody from the agency goes and says sugar house is better built and so that caused another look at the laws and the rules and I'm sure that all farmers in Franklin County wanted to build a satellite manure pit where they could take the manure in the winter when everything's frozen put it in the pit and have it there for in the spring so they could down the fields without running there putting it up and down the town roads during the spring time when molds are soft that created an issue but I should think that with our meeting times that we have we can work through this and come out with some of the reasons so one other thing before I sit down on the Federal Clean Water Act jurisdiction over Dredgenville the Corps of Sorry applies to waters of the United States and the Trump Administration repeal the Obama Administration's rule on waters of the United States that will affect the federal jurisdiction but it doesn't eliminate so it's my understanding that we'll be reverting to what's called the Rappanos Standard set by Justice Kennedy whether or not there's a significant nexus between Navigable Water or tributary on this wetland the Obama Administration had set default standards of what is what is adjacent or contiguous I can't remember which term it's adjacent the proposed rule requires that the wetland be adjacent to the traditional Navigable Water so if it's being argued that that definition was irrational or not based on science that'll be litigated so there is a little bit of flux in the federal jurisdiction it doesn't go away prior to 2015 it basically revered to that standard so farmers should be aware that even though Trump repealed the Obama Administration's rule there's still jurisdiction on the core over wetlands on the chart on the right-hand side that column of 25 uses what process has generated that list? these are all in rule and is that accumulated over time? I don't know which of them were in 1990 but I know in 2008 the investigation group that the Natural Resources Board held they reviewed all of them and they were either added or this is an A&R rule let's start it off with the Natural Resources Board I think I would like to just say something and it has to do with the genesis of this idea to have this during the last year my committee took a lot of test watching on wetlands we sort of fit it in amongst our things and what became clearer to me was that and I want to thank both the Agency of Natural Resources and the Agency of Agriculture for spending a lot of time in my committee trying to educate me in particular wetlands not my strength but what became very clear to me was that there were conflicts contradictions there were we heard about one example of a man who a farmer who wanted to change his land from cropping to grazing and this is two years ago I had a very unsatisfactory conversation with someone from DEC who said that grazing is not agriculture and I just was sort of dumbstruck by that and there was a briefcase that was quoted to me which I now I think I've subsequently found that was about horses but at any rate the feed for this farmer to switch from cropping to rotational grazing which by the way is good for water quality it's good because soil health was going to be over $13,000 and we came back last year and it had gone down to $11,000 and then subsequently after more conversation went down to $4,000 and then by the end of the year it was a zero and so I really appreciate everybody coming in this Michael it's just wonderful thank you so much for doing this because this is what I really needed to try and make sense of the problem and you know what we were dealing with so that's a little bit of a narrative answer to your question why we're here Do you want to elect your chair and answer if somebody can call the next one? Yeah? I would like to nominate Bobby as the chair this is a committee that came out of the agriculture committees and it was 525 it was in and so age 525 so I would like to nominate Bobby as the chair I'm happy to support Bobby's chair there was a discussion that I think Senator Brabe brought forward that I thought was interesting at least we're talking about which was the concept of co-chairs trying to acknowledge the inevitability of getting ag committees and natural resources committees to flow together and I didn't know if to me that made sense but I don't know if it needs to be reflected in co-chairs or not but like many of us have over the years served a lot of committees on the chair many committees yet my knowledge it would be it would be most helpful if we had somebody like to be vice chair that the chair and the vice chair could work together but you would still have one person to call meetings to do the odds and hands that need to be done but you'd stay in touch with the vice chair to work with you and that's what I would prefer because co-chairs I've been in that situation before he'll take care of it they'll say well Bobby will do it so I don't need to bother and it just works better if you work with the vice chair so the proposal I put in was really because this has been a tough one to crack and it crosses two different committees I just felt like it would be helpful structurally from the get-go to have the two committees that are going to have to come with some sort of working agreement to work on that agreement even as we construct how we're going to solve the problem who we're going to call in structurally planning it together all the way through so I just that is my concern but we not end up with a proposal that whatever committee leads that the other one ends up not agreeing to so we really haven't helped out our legislative colleagues by coming to a pre-agreement in the form of our recommendations for abstract legislation well I would respond to that by saying that my hope would be that anything we do comes out of this as a consensus otherwise it doesn't so it would be unless we can come to an agreement where everybody is on board I'm not expecting this to come back to the legislature and for us to say hey it's all good if we don't we'll agree and it may come to nothing that's not my hope Representative Sheldon would you be willing to serve as vice chair given the conversation which would I think get close to what we're all trying to do I think Mark has at least said I'm confused I showed up here today to be on a wetlands committee and listen to the statement of purpose and I don't know which way the trolley's going I don't know if we're here to take a look at how wetlands are land is becoming more and more wet and how that affects our stewardship with the natural resources or we're here because the land's getting more wet and it's getting tougher to get permits to build barns and pipelines and houses and retail and whoever we pick as a chair I want to know which trolley they're running or how do we resist probably going both directions It's pretty clear that our charges we have four different items in the building which is our duty I'm sure we'll cross all the questions and we'll cover them all but we have four things that we're basically supposed to zero in on and hopefully get it resolved Looks like it might be say it won't be rolled but we might get mired down Well we might Should we get in the lines or maybe not I think it was earlier I think in this last session there was a presentation given I think Jeff Carter was one of the presenters and Heather Darby regarding the changes that have been occurring it was excellent and I think it might be I know it was taped it might be on video and you may have been here for part of it I think Heather Darby was here too Am I wrong Jeff? So that would be maybe some homework that people could do is they could go back and look at that and this might be two hours What's that? I missed what we learned in recommendations There was a presentation made about the increased extreme precipitation events We'll try to find that for you Yeah, Joshua Faulkner is our climate person He described the changes that we can see in a little time and Heather and I talked about changes that we've seen farmers doing that are sort of alchemy So Amy Do we have our slate here? Do you want to vote? Do these need to be separate votes? Or should I also nominate Amy to be vice chair? You could vote as a slate I think All right, hearing no object All those in favor of Senator Starving chair Representative Sheldon being vice chair Aye Are you leaving? We're just moving over here Well Before you leave I'd like to ask the committee if any others had questions of you on what we've reviewed what you've gone over to this point If you don't and think of some jotting down because Michael will be back I do have a question Michael, there was I think a proposed rule that came out I don't know, a year and a half ago or something that also plays into this and that farmers in Franklin County together were trying to move to block in some way Can you chart my memory about that? If I'm assuming I believe that's relevant So the statute gives the ability to adopt general permits for certain activities and excuse me, the agency had proposed two general permits They covered much of the difference There is a general permit that's been adopted So they were proposing a new general permit and resistance to that and ultimately you would drew the permit that was still out there which one did you draw? The farmers with two general permits Yeah Julie was supposed to be here until quarter three and so I didn't know, did you have anything else in your presentations that you wanted to add to the discussion? So I think one of the things that you're going to talk about is the exemptions and or using a general permit structure So I want to just go and look at the CORE's general permit for Vermont again to show you all the different types of activity that the CORE has listed for the general permit and then to show you how there are general conditions for any of those activities that are permitted for the general permit So first you get a list of all the things that are covered by the general permit covered meaning allowed So you get aids, navigation moorings They're all allowed under the general permit and you can either self-verify if it meets certain conditions or you put in a notification if it meets certain conditions So it includes things like mining it includes energy generation and renewable energy includes agricultural activities So this is one of the options I think that you have in looking at examples from the feds and from other jurisdictions about how to address regulations of activities and weapons And then instead of going through each of the 21 different permits, I'll skip over to the general conditions So it'll touch on the general activity For example there's a general standard of avoidance, minimization and mitigation and they give a standard for that and that's for all of the activities So all activities that are covered by this general permit all 21 different sets of activities are covered by this mitigation, this avoidance, minimization and encompassed for mitigation But then you'll get to kind of more specific things like the use of heavy equipment So it'll get to stand specifics on how to use heavy equipment and weapons things like mats should be in good condition how to use mats So there's this is another way to go about instead of spelling out everything in statute you could follow this mechanism where general permits are used and conditions of general flexibility are required for any of those permits So it's just an example And other examples which I don't have copies of right now in other states the list of exemptions are encompass more activities My favorite example is farm roads and some states are exempt under their state law and that's just to highlight to you that it's a state law you can define the jurisdiction you can define the exemptions you can define who is operating the permit administering the permit and you have that authority and it's not something that the feds control it's not like Nipty's discharge program where the state has to meet minimum thresholds in order to run the state program because the court does not art the court rarely delegates its authority on Dredgenfield so this is a state law that you're about to and it's not subject to federal conditions like the Nipty's discharge program is but the federal exemptions if we had a side-by-side with the federal exemptions if we want to talk about that the federal exemptions versus the state exemptions there's probably some state exemptions that we might not like might be able to make that less shorter there may be other state things that we feel should be exempted after looking at the feds that could help in the long run by adding them to our list and you know our committee of course we deal with that but it was our committee that heard from the farming community we didn't hear a whole lot from developers and our intentions were not to try to make it more difficult for them or make it any less on us for them what we wanted to do was make it so if a farmer wanted to have paddocks in a walkway there is cattle to get to the paddocks that you wouldn't have to go and do a big permit that costs lots of money and so it might be good to look at that well these are the federal exemptions up on the screen I just called up the rule starting way down the page section C I'm not going to go into all the said additions the first one is normal farming silvicultural and ranching the second is maintenance including emergency reconstruction these would be damaged parts currently serviceable structures the third is construction or maintenance of farmer stockpons or irrigation disges the fourth is construction and temporary sedimentation bases on a construction site the fifth is any activity with respect to the state program I can't remember what five is six is construction maintenance of farm roads farce roads or temporary roads and then they give a long list of best management practices or conditions for those roads and then that brings me to the last one and then they define for the purposes of normal farming cultivation means harvesting means now that all has to do with dealing with these issues right this is the standard for exemptions what activities are exempt and how to define them but you also need to realize that the permitting thresholds at the feds they don't require a permit for some disturbance so I'll just say less than 2,000 square feet we don't care it's less than 2,500 square feet and you're not doing X you don't need a permit or you can just self verify and so there's that model that you can use that's different from Vermont and there are other models besides the federal model in other states for jurisdictions the other issue that would be good for you to explain to all of us maybe is in 525 is that past both the chambers there was an issue in there allowing ag to regulate what ones that are not regulated by Ann Hart and I don't know if the whole committee understands that with that it isn't dealing with just everybody I don't think could you explain that a little bit more sure so the language from that I think we have the letters that is on have you in all the work you've been doing on this have you compiled what other states are doing or how many of them are doing what's being proposed and how many of them are like us with these inconsistencies I don't know the inconsistencies but it's different states to enter a definition I don't have the document on that I mean I've been looking at that but I don't maybe I shouldn't need to see does that help and we can not spend the time on it the environmental law institution does a weapons survey periodically and I can talk to them so this is the language specifically it's really subsea here remember the definition of weapons it excludes from the definition areas used to grow food or crops in connection with farming and that is in 10 BSA 902 so that exclusion for regulation for areas that grow food or crops in connection with farming is 10 BSA 902 this section of law is the section of law that gives the agency of agriculture directives to adopt or amend the RAPs so what this subsection does is it directs the secretary of ag to amend the RAPs to include requirements for activities occurring in areas that are excluded from regulation by the agency of natural resources under 10 BSA 902 was the areas used to grow food or crops in connection with farming the key part of this is that we're farming because farming underneath this chapter of law has a definition farming underneath 10 BSA 902 chapter that is included in does not have a definition so if you're going to look at the context of this regulation as a whole which is one of the statutory construction provisions look at all the regulations as a whole another statutory construction provision is that you give effect to legislative intent that you assume that the legislature knew what it was doing and that you interpret language to give it an effect as opposed to it not having and then statute controls over rule and statute rule so there's an argument which is represented in the letters from Senator Starr and Representative Partridge to Secretary Tevitz that the there was an intent for the agency of agriculture to regulate activities that were carried on all areas used to grow food or crops in connection with a broader definition of farming so all farming not just what is the limited definition so there's questions in regards to that from any of the members if you want to let's sink in and catch it at the next meeting it was to have rags on I believe that's what you're telling us where there's no rags because does not have that jurisdiction ag didn't have any jurisdiction that at least there'd be jurisdiction over the wetlands for growing food and crops in a legitimate way and by people at the ag agency that are that spend a lot of time dealing with those issues it certainly wasn't to make it easier for anybody because we all want to protect our wetlands but yet we want farmers to be able to grow food and crops and pasture animals if they have to not have to pay I think my goal is to have real clarity for farmers so they know what to expect and clarity for everybody clarity for farmers because Marquis project that I referenced earlier you know the farmer ended up well he may have changed his mind now that the permits were free but that was going to be a project that improved soil health which also improves water quality but he wasn't moving forward with it because he couldn't afford the fee so I would really want to clarify in particular for my aspect for farmers to expect and what they can do or what they can't do I would just say I certainly share the principle that we should strive for clarity that I don't know if it's possible but while the overlap of just the federal stuff probably makes it harder I'm curious it's been referenced that a lot of the conversation is going back but there has to be implications for developers and I'm curious to your opinion Michael what are the implications of let's call it a chain interpretation of laws and rules on developers as it's today compared to a few years ago are you aware of any I don't know of any discreet issue regarding a change in interpretation I think as I referenced when I looked into the flow chart there's there's a preference for more objective standards for what is a wetland and what activities require when the agency was in during this past year they did distribute draft language that included some of those changes really into where it's objective standards saying that you don't need a permit if it was under 2,500 square feet instead of that and so I do think having that kind of objective criteria would be something that is attractive to developers at for the right moment that's going to be conducting activity any other questions Michael Chris at some point I'm not sure when we'll see a schedule is sort of the natural resource impact because I'm feeling like part of this driving conversation is sort of a utilitarian view of wetlands like how can I use them how can we eliminate interference with development for instance and so although I get that people own land in order to be able to use it there is an inherent natural value in different kinds of ecosystems and I would like somehow to have some good things in the balance a little bit to say we don't necessarily there are places worth not developing further or using further for instance where I've stopped on land and they can do a tremendous amount of damage punching up land and when it's big I mean I've seen it on my own farm I've seen it on farms all around but your courses are exempt because they're about to use courses anywhere so I'm talking about this is a general question how do we I get clarity useful people but somehow we also need to be able to value under the law these sorts of ecosystems and be able to say no purposes so you bring up a great point and that this marquee piece of property that I keep referencing what the farmer wanted to do was put a lane way in so he wouldn't punch holes in the pasture and that required the $13,000 permit to start with he could have done nothing and it just not installed the lane way and allowed a lucky mess to be created so I think that there is a you know this is the conversation I want to have can you just have one more question it's about fees, didn't we address the fee issue and cultural projects that are abiding by the raps we did we did on new or storage facilities under I'm sorry to hear correct there is we have to find it I don't recall at the top of my head I'm sorry you're saying that yes I'm remembering that right yes yes so I thought the fee thing was pretty cheap but anyways yes it's right here it's the water quality improvement projects that sounds that I can't remember yeah I don't know so those are the water quality I see that 22 and 23 so I need to update the flow chart down with that because that's not on the okay if there are no more questions from Michael I see Julie's here now and for just a little bit off schedule, not much good for legislations fee within five minutes so thank you my uncle Julie but you're going to give us input in regards to the level we were still working on yes so for the record I'm Julie Moore I'm the secretary of natural resources and with me today are Laura LaPierre who's the wetlands program manager in the department of environmental conservation and Cam Smith who is in the office of general council in the department of environmental conservation not having had full benefit of having been in the room for the whole of the last hour I thought I'd start by doing a little stage setting that I hope isn't redundant with what you may have already heard about the important role that wetlands play in the landscape and the direct contributions of wetlands to wetland areas to the greater public good wetlands are a critical part of our natural environment often when folks think of wetlands images of thriving marshes come to mind and that's with good reason wetlands provide critical habitat for fish, animals, plants and contain a wide diversity of life that's actually found nowhere else 80% of US bird species rely on wetlands for breeding habitat 43% of rare species in the US rely on wetlands for their survival and wetlands goes 31% of the world's plants which is a pretty impressive statistic considering the land area they represent in Vermont we know that our best estimate is that there are about 4% of Vermont's land area so certainly have an outsized impact but there are also pieces of wetlands that may have a far less iconic look while playing an equally important role in the environment these wetlands primarily function to reduce the impacts of floods maintain surface water flows during dry periods, absorb pollutants and improve water quality and protect lakeshores from wave action wetlands are also dynamic living systems subject to a broad array of changes on a variety of time scales as rivers change their course and erosion and depositional processes take hold along the banks new wetlands can be created and old wetlands can be filled shrub scrub wetlands grow into forested wetlands, beavers create impoundments that expand wetlands beaver dams break and drain significant wetlands and human activities can have direct and indirect impacts on hydrology that also dry out or create wetlands over time this is really right now a critical time for wetland regulation and conservation at the state level just last week the EPA repealed the 2015 waters of the US rule removing clean water water protections from thousands of acres of wetlands and thousands of miles of waterways the 2015 WOTUS rule is the first step towards substantially weakening federal protections for wetlands EPA's proposed WOTUS definition would basically only cover traditionally navigable waters their tributaries and wetlands adjacent to traditionally navigable waters when it comes to Vermont 10 BSA section 905B gives ANR statutory authority to administer state a state weapons program this includes the authority to identify wetlands that merit protection and administer permitting program for proposed impacts to wetlands and their buffers that said the wetland rules are challenging to administer and this is really a significant program for the agency of natural resources both from an administrative and illegal services perspective just by way of quantifying that currently we see more than 600 projects a year that need to be reviewed for wetlands impacts this is up from about 400 projects a year between 2011 and 2015 the average number of ag related projects is far smaller we believe it's about 10 per year most of these are as a result of land conversion to some other use such as solar or subdivision and most of those projects are referred to us by NRCS staff in the average year we permit about 100 of the 600 projects that come before us in large part because we are working with applicants to avoid and minimize impacts to wetlands to the maximum extent possible and so by virtue of the statistics I would argue we are really successful in avoiding the vast majority of wetland impacts and the average number of acres of wetland impacted and lost through permitted activities each year in Vermont has run about 4 acres per year for the last 8 years so a very modest level of impact the permitted filling or construction has allowed 4 acres total impact statewide per year and how many have we gained so I I'll get to that you're stealing my thunderstorms and thunderstorms alright wait I've got those numbers too last session the administration introduced a proposal in the legislature that was intended to increase the clarity and objectivity of the agency's wetland permitting program addressing what I thought were both some of the administrative aspects of the program that are most burdensome both for staff at the agency as well as the regulated community through a few statutory changes included revising the definition of wetland to be scientifically based and consistent with the definition used by the Army Corps of Engineers redefining class 2 wetlands based on objective physical characteristics of size rather than the narrative standard that we currently have clearly defining activities that trigger permitting jurisdiction again consistent with the Army Corps of Engineers and then defining activities exempt from state permitting jurisdiction replacing the agricultural exclusion and silvicultural allowed uses with an exception these changes were intended to allow agency staff to focus more time and energy on proactive protection and restoration of wetlands the proposed language in five large deep paths effective wetlands protection is really critically important the state relies on flood storage and water quality protections provided by wetlands both in terms of being protective of public property to public and private property and to meet our water quality goals and the agency works incredibly hard to manage and protect this complex and sensitive resource Wetlands Protection and Enhancement sometimes also referred to as natural resources restoration projects is core to both the Lake Champlain and Lake Meagock TMDLs the pollution budgets for those lakes and about a third of the total phosphorus reductions we need to achieve in each case we have participated to come from natural resources restoration projects as a result we are investing heavily in restoration for example the Fish and Wildlife Department acquired a parcel of wetland habitat within the last year just in excess of 60 acres and also carried out a restoration project at their existing Malitz Creek wildlife management area which was roughly 20 acres of hydrologic restoration and 10 acres of buffer plantings NRCS is also an important partner in this work and as of July 1st has completed more than 61 projects totally close to 4,500 acres of restoration and there are two more easements that will go into effect between now and believe in October 1st with an additional 200 acres in addition the Wetlands and Loofy program administered by Ducks Unlimited on behalf of the US Army Corps of Engineers acquired two sites conservation and restoration in 2019 totally nearly 430 acres and they also completed wetland restoration on a site conserved in 2018 totaling 134 acres of the confluence of the Middlebury River and Otter Creek and this site will ultimately be donated to the Fish and Wildlife Department by the end of 2019 for management as a wildlife management area so the restoration component is work is ongoing it is really significant I would argue it's a cornerstone to our overall water quality programs and is buttressed and balanced with the protections that are afforded through our regulatory program and with that I would be happy to answer questions and allow the people who know all the actual substance and details to answer questions so there are questions for any point simple can we get a hard copy of your comments? Sure let me clean them up a little bit because I wrote on them but I'd be happy to provide you with my notes so how many acres did we gain all together? I think if you added including the additional 200 through NRCS that are scheduled to come online later this year we are north of 5000 acres I believe since 2011 but you don't know we lost 40 we lost 4 times 8 so we've lost 30 or 40 acres but I so come ahead we are coming out ahead but I think what I would ask or what I hope is the take home message for that is we need many more acres of wetland restoration in order to achieve the phosphorus reductions prescribed in the Lake Champaign and linked them from agate MDLs it's an important piece of that work for people and I would say we've got to enhance these regulations because we're just losing our wetlands isn't quite accurate I would offer that the statutory proposal we brought forward last session was designed to provide a similar level of protection that the current statutory framework provides but with greater clarity and objectivity that was the direction I give into the wetlands program and I think there was sort of a collective confidence within the agency but that's the outcome of that work we were almost there it doesn't it was it was crazy Matt? how long get crazy does a wet place have to be qualified as a wetland? so under our proposal under the existing regulatory framework under the framework the systems that you have presented so right now it's based on and I can't let Laura answer this in more detail but it is based on the attributes of a wetland not a specific size and the updated proposal that we brought to this body last session created size thresholds the idea that those would be more intuitive for the applicant and also frankly reduce our administrative burden because currently we often have to visit sites twice once to evaluate the functions and values the attributes of the site and then a second time to confirm a delineation I tried to follow that but if you come up with a figure like we've saved four acres of wetland that depends a large part of upon what you designate as a wetland and if you by attributes of other things determine well that's a wetland then that doesn't get talented the four acres represents the regulation a process a formula that I can't understand so so in order for us to permit impacts wetlands they need to be considered class 2 wetland which has a certain set of attributes there are other wetlands on the landscape often referred to as class 3 wetlands that we don't regulate and that would not be impacts to them would not be included in that four acres Mr. Chair if you were to redefine your wetlands the different criteria and then go back and look at the report that you just gave us the number of wetlands that have been saved would be changed on your report it would be different but the hope is that or the belief is the belief is that the framework we proposed in the statute at the beginning of last session or the draft legislation at the beginning of last session would result in a similar level of protection Chris so thanks for the report it's encouraging to hear about the restoration rate being greater than the loss rate but I'm curious how we got into this posture to begin with like why do we have so many more why do we why do we have so many more acres to restore how did they get to a condition where they needed restoration so we know that while wetlands represent only a small fraction of Vermont's landscape about 4% our best estimate is that we've lost 35% of the wetlands that would have been on the landscape sort of pre-colonialization so whether it's through development of urban areas or through agricultural enterprises we have lost about a third of Vermont's wetlands and so the opportunities are represented in fact one third to bring some of those wetlands back online and obviously the opportunities are far better often in the in an agricultural landscape setting than they are in an urban landscape setting agricultural impacts tend to be temporary whereas once you pave over something it's much harder and more expensive to restore and so the total number of acres ideal that you'd like to see restored over what time period is it I think we have an estimate of that number I don't know more if you know it's part of the Lake Champlain to MDL but we could certainly look into it and get back to you we have a model showing that there's over 4,000 sites in the state of Vermont that could potentially be restored that depends on more details on the specific site and the land ownership as well but there are many wetland restoration opportunities that are out there there's no specific target in the TMDL for how many acres of wetland we need to restore however if I could just understand a little better so for acres that are eligible that could be restored can you characterize how they get to that commission for instance you were saying well compare your pre-colonial baseline a long time ago so do most of those acres currently called lost represent do they predate our regulation and management of them? yes that statistic I cited that 35% of wetland acres have been lost was using a 1988 baseline and really our wetlands regulations went into effect in 1990 in Vermont sorry what percent predated the regulations? so the total amount of wetlands that's estimated to have been lost in Vermont is 35% and that's compared to a 1980 baseline so that's really historic loss just to follow so when was the golden age of wetland destruction? do you want to know is it George Martin of Europe? I would defer to Laura so you know through the 60s I'd say up until the early 80s NRCS was actually working to drain wetlands to have those soils more accessible for farming so after 1986 there was a change within that agency with wetland loss are there questions? Rachel? are there any instances where if I a farmer or a developer and I need an EPA or an Army Corps or an NRCS permit does A&R accept those permits? if I get a federal permit does that work for the NRCS? no so our regulatory jurisdictions are different part of our proposal is an attempt to align them to the extent possible and in particular make sure we're using a common set of definitions but the jurisdictions are distinctive separately are we hearing this proposal today? are we hearing this proposal today? also I the one that last year? yes but none of us have been part of this so it's like a little odd that the natural resources community weren't part of it you're going to be getting it you almost got it last year but it couldn't move good you could run through as well I have this high level overview that's up on the legislature's website we did the royalty updated this to reflect where we got to during the last legislative session including some of the changes that were made as a result of H525 we do also have a more detailed document that kind of walks through line by line almost of the final version looking at the full regulatory framework and I'm happy to provide this to the working group I didn't bring that with me today and are you working on a proposal for this next slide? my hope would be we would largely pick up where we left off in that we still feel like it sort of checks these major boxes that we were looking to see improving the clarity and consistency of how a wetland is defined creating a more straightforward process to determine if a wetland is subject to jurisdiction having a size based threshold as opposed to having it be more of a narrative standard that are defining what activities need or permit and again this has sort of two wins rolled up in it and that I think it improves clarity aligns us with the same four categories of alterations that are considered by the Army Corps of Engineers have a much clearer statement of which activities are exempt from the permitting process and then also clarifying the permitting standards which gets into the mitigation sequence which is certainly a piece I know that there's a lot of interest in having greater clarity in the regulated community but that's sort of a rule making piece where that detail work gets done following the changes to statute this number six empowering the consulting community is one that was addressed in H525 where we've been directed to start to do the work to look at a self-certification process and a life-sensing process for consultants doing wetlands delineations I never sure before you've gone to the summit just this very day Chris and I had a conversation where this person bought this property with a consultant helping them along and so they purchased the property to post-solar made and they got folks from and the 10 wetlands and I mean consultants are now to be held responsible and right now because there isn't a licensing or professional status for wetlands ecologists in the state of Vermont there's sort of no recourse whereas I'm a professional engineer and if I design a faulty structure or a faulty wastewater system I'm liable under my professional engineer standing I could ultimately lose my license we don't have that same framework right now for wetlands ecologists and I know that that presents a number of challenges for landowners who may not get great advice all the time it is it's creating those standards for what would be the minimums expectations for a certified wetlands ecologist and then looking at licensing and the ability to pull the license should that advice be offered so where can we find that this document is on here it's in the website for today and then the last piece is one that was also work was done in relative to in age 525 which is looking at the wetland permit fee structure and creating reduced fees for water quality improvement projects as well as a number of agricultural projects so I'm happy to share an updated for a proposed legislative language if you're interested that would cover all seven of these pieces and would be updated to reflect the changes that were affected through age 525 but we'll get at that larger framework I'm still trying to understand the numbers 5 o'clock today in Vermont as individuals purchase larger parcels of land that are agricultural land the last several years one of the practices that has been in place is to buy the land take a look at where the dam areas are in the fields and where you can't operate heavy equipment and hire someone to digit and put in the underground drainage thereby making all those lands less wet than they have been and certainly less wet than they are likely to be in the future when you share with us the gains that we are making in restoration of wetlands where in your calculations is the measurement of what I've just described of the ditching of hundreds of acres to make them less wet how does that fit in or is that just a separate category currently land that is being used for the growing of food or crop in conjunction with farming is not considered a wetland and so modifications the hydrology of that land are also not anything that's considered by my agency so when you're coming up with the figures to demonstrate the restoration of wetlands and the public might interpret that as saying wow we got more wetlands than we used to it doesn't include the the practices that are going on today that at the same time are reducing the number of acres so those wetlands I would argue are piled up in the 35% of wetlands that are considered lost already and that they're not functioning did we lose in the last 5 years pursuant to this practice that I've tried to describe we don't know because they're not they're excluded from the definition of a wetland currently which prompts me to ask how do we state that we're making progress when we don't count things that some people believe ought to be counted when we're trying to come up in measure so I think it's a question of where you draw the baseline if we're using that 1980 baseline then this is gains I think you're right relative to pre-colonial times we're well in the hole in terms of being on wetland on our lands thank you and Mr. Chair when you're measuring practice of anything it's the baseline that is more important to determine whether you're making progress than the statistics that you get and back to 5 o'clock follows I think isn't there like an exemption for a certain size exception like a half acre in our proposal there is what is it right now is it just the 5000 is it 5000 square feet that's a threshold we wouldn't be able to access the general permit I believe as opposed to an individual permit but the determination of what is a class 2 wetland and therefore subject to our regulations is currently based on attributes of the wetland functions and values not a quantitative numerical and part of the reason for seeking this change is we feel like it would provide greater clarity to the regulated public and still afford the wetlands so so I'm assuming that the drafter referring to is the one that was presented at the very end of the session with a half an acre exception we were in senate agriculture from the first week of the session with that drafter I mean we were I thought that the drafts changed though and we heard about one with a half an acre we took testable from some of the environmental groups they were aghast and very opposed to this in fact I think one of the comments was this turned the whole permitting situation upside on its head so I don't know what to say about going forward with that one they didn't come to me because the size threshold I think was part of the discussion throughout there were changes as we work through it all but not on that particular standard I don't believe I think that the square feet more square feet but then at the very end it was the square feet equaled about was it a tenth or an eighth of an acre which is not very much and then we went to and that's what we had testimony from folks who were extremely opposed to that idea that may have been under the non-reporting general permit which was issued I think early last summer to create an exemption for certain water quality improvement projects under our existing statutory authority including animal trails and walkways but also replacement septic systems and improvements to existing storm water management practices and the threshold for those improvements before we have to come into our regulatory program was about a tenth of an acre five thousand square feet do you have any type of a program to purchase wetlands because I know there's some agencies federal fishing game some of them have money to do so we do the department of Fish and Wildlife and that was one of the examples I had mentioned and I'll just go back to make sure I don't watch my numbers but the Fish and Wildlife Department has acquired just in the last year alone about 60 acres of wetland and they're balancing both water quality considerations and some habitat priorities they have the Champlain flyway is a really important asset for them it works out well from a water quality perspective and that it also has a real value for Lake Champlain but so they purchase 60 acres of wetland habitat in the Champlain or in the Champlain basin and then some additional restoration work in the Mallets Creek WMA it's not a universal truth that we would buy any wetland parcel brought to us certainly we work with landowners to try to direct them to appropriate programs we're looking at our existing conservation land holdings and opportunities to build on sort of that framework that exists rather than acquiring remote parcels in part just a reflection of the resources the agency has to appropriate to steward those things for the foreseeable future that said NRCS in particular has significant resources those tend to be easement purchases and aren't always something a landowner is interested in but there is a considerable amount of resources available through NRCS for wetland restoration I think it would be beneficial for the committee if we knew all these different programs and who they're like they're run by the feds or the state certainly there are private NGOs working in this space too wetlands if that was maybe more widespread and people knew about it some of these wetlands people would be glad to get verbal and keep them wetlands they got paid for the buffer strips that we all see around fields where people sign up they can get a small stipend for keeping that in strips and fine people because I don't know too many people that don't believe that that's important so do you have a question I was just I'm trying to go back to the laws of wetlands and the base year was 1980 so what does that mean in these days or months so do you have a sense for how many acres and 4% of the per month land area or what the 35% of the wetland acres lost would be it would be equivalent to Grand Isle County the wetlands lost that's is that what you meant the area I'm trying to get a 35% equals how many acres about the size of Grand Isle County Grand Isle County is what she said go look it up I remember the Grand Isle County we can get back to you I wanted to follow up where Bobby was going and I'm thinking and you had mentioned that wetlands have values and functions for TMDLO so I'm trying to think of how many acres and where do we need those acres and what kind of programs would be in place and you just talked about some of those programs that are out there and kind of take it from a volunteer voluntary approach to restore some wetlands yes I can give you plenty of examples where wetlands have been restored and they look good not every farmer would want to do it but on the other hand some would and I know right now farmers are cash poor and this would be a great time to have a program out there that we could look at some of those productive lands that you could purchase market value for above market value and I was thinking of that 33,000 permit fee that you're talking about I think you'd find all the land you wanted so there's a lot to unpack there but let me see what I can do all of our natural resources restoration work including the wetland restoration work is voluntary water permits the required agricultural practices waste water permits those aren't optional natural resources restoration projects really occur at the discretion of the landowner we have booked a significant amount of phosphorus reduction associated with natural resources restoration projects but at this point haven't allocated it between wetlands riparian area plantings flood plain reconnection that's work that you all directed us to do as part of Act 76 or S96 this last year it was both to come up with coefficients associated with those different types of practices and start to give a sense for what the target is what the magnitude is we're due to report back to you in November of 2020 so work in progress on that regard in terms of having a higher degree of specificity on the magnitude of exactly what needs to be done there are a considerable number of programs so Fish and Wildlife Department certainly runs an acquisition program NRCS runs some easement programs Senator Leahy as part of the Lake Champlain work was able to secure about 6.5 million dollars this year to help us implement the Lake Champlain TMDL and we dedicated think about 1.5 million of that again to wetland acquisition and restoration through the Fish and Wildlife Department so there are a lot of resources in that space we need to be thoughtful about which pieces of land where we're both restoring and acquiring ideally these are marginal farm lands that don't have a significant agricultural benefit to the extent they're in agricultural areas and we're also looking for opportunities recognizing they're far more limited in the developed landscape where you may have pockets of green space that have been filled over time but could serve could function as a wetland with an investment in some restoration activities so very much aligns with a lot of the statements you're making and would say it's a work in progress but we're committed to answering those same very questions so would I also hear you going to come up with a list of the restoration programs and who has those whether it's NRCS or Federal Forest Service or I think we may already have most of that information compiled and could provide it in terms of what the restoration opportunities are so I'm happy to share that with this committee. Yeah we could get that and Charlene is our person Chris you have a question? Yeah I guess it's a little bit of a concern I completely agree with trying to sort out the wetlands rules as they apply to agriculture where they don't but to the extent that agriculture is carved out where it's we're in an opposition if we start talking in here or in the acumenity about general operation of wetlands law that applies to non agricultural lands as well like development came up earlier or permitting fees and stuff like that so I feel like a fair amount of work that you would ordinarily discuss in the National Resource Committee about wetlands management has already happened in an acumenity and so we're starting behind in this discussion and that's why it's a little awkward I now we've got both kinds of committees and hope we'll catch up and I hope that A&I will bring Title 10 to the committees of jurisdiction so we can see it and develop it there as opposed to respond with after the fact Well I don't want to feel bad but I propose to the saint rules committee that we get away with natural resources and put that into ag so it would be agriculture slash natural resources that's funny I did just the opposite but anyhow I think it's important to work the whole issue and of course our intent last year was to get the ag stuff in pretty good shape and send you the bill but hopefully starting for months early we'll be right here to do something good this year any other questions for ever doing and that's I appreciate the talk about restoration whether it's what's themselves or street banks or reparations we don't have a breakdown on those amongst the three groups which is personally understandable how does the amount of money spent on those things compare with the amount of money that is spent on alternative activities like sewage treatment plants and what's the ratio between the expenditures and those two areas I can get you that information it's detailed in our Clean Water Investment Report I think the ratio is going to depend on what your measure is I assume you'd want to know it unitized so looking at per pound of phosphorus addressed is probably the most effective way to make that sort of comparison it's also and we can get that information and it does exist in the Clean Water Investment Report I think it's important to keep in mind that not all of the money we have can be spent on all of the projects of course and so there's some other constraints there but we can absolutely give you a breakdown of how money is being invested by sector in the relative cost effectiveness of those investments and I guess the question is to what extent are restoration maintenance of what lands have a better dollar for dollar deal cemented rebar yeah natural resources restoration projects we know are some of the most cost effective projects that's why we booked a third of our anticipated reductions into that category they're also in some ways challenging because nobody's required to do that we need a cooperating landowner partner who wants to participate wants to participate either sell their land or assume an easement on their land and let the restoration work be done and so sometimes take a little longer to come to fruition we issued a municipal roads general permit and then it has a clear schedule and municipalities need to abide by that schedule we don't have those same kinds of sidebars and constraints on natural resources restoration projects so while they're cost effective sometimes they take longer to come to fruition we look forward to the ratio of money to ask for some absolutely we all set any other questions for Julia if not thank you very much you're welcome and should I send the items I noted you would like to go to Shaolin probably to you Michael you'll keep that anything thank you very much we'll take a little break by lunch and then Ryan we'll call a meeting to order and Ryan are you ready let's go good afternoon for the record Ryan with the Vermont HBCA agriculture from the markets and an overview where I hope to share the regulatory landscape that farmers in the state of Vermont need to navigate not just with state level land use policy and the requirements that need to follow but also additional requirements that need to follow for the Vermont HBCA agriculture from the markets to the agricultural practices to comply with state water quality requirements as well as Mr. O'Grady shared overlapping federal requirements specific to wetlands that are administered by the Army Corps as well as US Department of Agriculture leading to federal requirements are currently heavily regulated in the state of Vermont for activities they undertake on land use for farming as Secretary Moore shared in her presentation farming activities on land use for farming as is written into the definition of a wetland in title 10 is excluded from being a wetland in those activities the area is jurisdictional to the required agricultural practices and farmers need to comply with the requirements therein to make sure that they are not negatively impacting or causing a adverse impact to water quality but farmers are not unregulated in the state where there may be an exclusion for areas that they are actively farming or an ordinary rotation there exist regulations and requirements where they cannot convert on farmed parcels that they may own or lease and they cannot convert that to farming without a permit from the AGC Natural Resources that is the law today has been since 1990 and hopefully it will continue to be the regulatory standard moving forward also as Secretary Moore shared the 10 or so applications and I will defer to wetlands program staff and the council as to what the exact number are but for those activities that are occurring on agricultural actively farmed land a conversion to another use that is not farming is also jurisdictional to the AGC of natural resources so I believe some of the activities she shared were solar panels going in or other non farmed activities so while there is a clear exclusion for farming and farming activities under state wetlands requirements farmers are still subject to the regulation of the AGC Natural Resources and they can't just go out and drain farm fields as made in the case from 1840 up until the establishment of wetland protection requirements both by the federal and state governments so in addition to those areas on farm that are used for farming that is excluded from the definitions of state wetland and farming activities are therefore not subject to regulation they're in there exists requirements from the Army Corps if it's a jurisdictional area if it regulates a jurisdictional water where yes as Mr. Grady shared there are a number of exemptions to their requirements but construction of a number of structures even if it is a farm structure as an example would be jurisdictional to Army Corps permitting and is not excluded from federal oversight similarly there exists both the swamp lusters requirements for farmers under the 1985 farm bill that farmers need to follow when it comes to conversion of land to growing quantity crops they need to follow as well as when they enroll in a USDA NRCS financial assistance program they need to follow the wetland protection policy that USDA outlines for the construction of farm structures in agricultural property that are conservation practices and so for specifics on Army Corps requirements and USDA requirements I would encourage the study committee to reach out to those agencies to get input as to what are the specific requirements that apply in Vermont to farming operations because I can't frankly really speak to the level of detail they want to get from them but yes suffice it to say there is overlapping and trans confusing and trans inflicting requirements for agricultural producers in the state of Vermont the required agricultural practices as everyone around the table is familiar with is part of the agricultural not going source pollution control program which sets requirements for all farms in the state of Vermont to ensure they are complying with standards that won't cause an adverse impact to the quality in addition to those requirements there already exists in the 2016 amendment as well carried forward in the 2018 amendment for the construction and siting of farm structures for example in flood plains or set back from surface waters as well as additional property boundary and surface water set backs for new and existing production areas so there exists requirements for farms to protect sensitive environmental areas within farms and as directed by the legislature in 2019 the agency of agriculture will be working on promulgating rules which include requirements specific to those areas that are not regulated by the agency of natural resources the areas used for farming that may have a farm about low characteristics and that is something not prepared to share today but rather something that will be forthcoming in the future coming back to some of the questions about the land use make up of the state of Vermont over time I did some looking and to historic census data from both the US census as well as the USDA and the national the ag census that they do as well and an attempt to look at land use by farms in the state and what does that constitute like how much of the state is talking about when we talk about wetlands we talk about farming we talk about developed land forestry as Secretary Morris shared statewide about 4% of wetlands are mapped and that of statewide land is used for farming based on estimates from the agriculture based on the amount of agricultural land that we have in our databases to analyze so when you look at the change from you know one interesting thing I found you know in 1840 there was six sheep for every person in Vermont when you look at the 1840 census of 75 million sheep when you apply a similar but kind of different you know honestly the heyday of the wool market you look at the 2010 census we're looking at 4.5 people for every dairy cow now obviously dairy cow weighs more than a sheep but there is you know definitely a change in the contraction in the land since the 1840's when one source says the void of marketable trees and then you go to the day where you know we now have in the Lake Champlain Basin 72% of the watershed is forested 16% of that Lake Champlain Basin is used for agriculture 8% is developed land and then 3.9% are wetlands or other national features so we've had an inversion in the land use in the state where the conversion and loss of those natural wetlands used by farming is now a regulated activity where farmers cannot convert a wetland without a permit from the agency of natural resources so the loss and negative impact to wetlands that was occurring for centuries is now a regulated activity that a farmer cannot do without a permit from the agency of natural resources Ryan did you just state that the percentages of that land that choose for development versus farming I will run through the statistics again it's like double that 16.6% agriculture 8.1% developed land based on aerosol to be used to work with DEC do you know what it was 50 years ago 50 years ago I don't have that information the counterbalance I have to that 70% open 30% forest and state life in the mid 1800s so while the share of land use for farming has contracted since that time when we look at a more narrow time range from 8.7 2017 this is where we're going to access the statistics we're looking at a decrease of 228,000 acres of total crop land in the state of Vermont in the work period of 30 years from 1997 to 2017 we've seen a decrease of 95,000 acres of corn grown for silage to 81,000 acres of corn grown for silage in 2017 what we've seen a contraction in the amount of land used for farming and a change in some of that land and a decrease from growing corn silage we've also seen an increase in stewardship by farmers 124% increase from 2012 to 2017 and conservation tillage and no tillage about 33,000 acres are now in some sort of conservation tillage practice as reported in the census and cover propping has had a double 102% increase from 2012 to 2017 with 40,000 acres now in cover propping as reported by the 2017 census so change in land use decreasing amounts of farming increasing conservation tillage in use which is what the goal of access for 2015 was in many ways and the state specific cost share in conjunction with the USDA figures have shown a real adoption in those implementation of conservation practices like the Avinard practices and you see in farm fields from no till cover propping reduced tillage practices like that the numbers that you also heard from Secretary Moore that the last quarter is going to go up what she says it could go about 5,000 acres is 4,488 acres and now permanently in the Wetland Reserve enhancement program or the ASEP WRU program there's criteria by which are eligible for that one of them is actively used farming and so we have a lot of farmers that have voluntarily put their land into conservation and permanently in many ways in the WRU program in addition the conservation reserve enhancement program is a program that has a 15 year contract and folks are enrolling for another 15 years so 30 years of our parent force offers being implemented two more points I just wanted to share about land that farmers manage if we're looking at land managed by farmers in the state of Vermont 44% of the land they report are managing the census over a half million acres is Woodland and so when we talk about regulations that restrict and curtail use of agricultural property it has impacts beyond just the parcel of land that farmers manage and they manage many more acres and that Woodland very often has a lot of important natural resource functions so it's important to think about what land farmer manages how great is the land you're seeing on the landscape looking at impervious surfaces of farm based on the 2017 census we're seeing 6% of the land farms manage are reported to be in farmsteads, homes, ponds or roads and so less than 10% of the land they're managing is some version of impervious surface so a pond to me is an impervious surface one it's in that category I think that the agriculture has mapped has a 1.4% of the land is in pervious surface so when we look at all the land that farmers manage a very small portion of that is in the infrastructure which Feast cows manages the manure stores the equipment shed and has these in some way significant impacts to land that alters the hydrology or flood streams or fields of land so your questions asking about efficiencies of programs one of the reasons why agriculture is tasked to reduce is it going to be responsible or in the TNDL their share of the reduction is 67% of the phosphorus that needs to be reduced is going to come from agriculture planning sectors and one of the reasons that they were tasked with that is because of the relative cost effectiveness on a per kilogram basis for that reduction the preliminary state auditors office report that came out this summer showed that agricultural so this is based on reported implementation from the state of Vermont agricultural projects that are most cost effective capturing estimated 8.3 kilograms per 100,000 this is more than twice as cost effective in the first projects and five times as cost effective as road projects in the early stages of implementation of the Vermont Water Act seeing that agriculture is indeed a cost effective place to invest state resources to have a tangible and significant and cost effective benefit for our quality continues to hopefully be born out by that report so I've spoken about farmers already regulated there's no conversion allowed, conversion of farm uses is regulated the RAP provide a plethora of requirements for the management of agricultural land as well as specific construction setbacks for natural resource features already they're also regulated by the Army Corps of Engineers and USDA provides another level of regulatory oversight for commodity crop production so as far as recommendations for the for for questions I suppose that are posed in Act 64 2019 ensuring that the exclusion and the definition of the level for agriculture is maintained is important to ensure regulatory certainty for the farming community in Vermont and so far as they know that farming activities they are conducting to comply with our quality requirements on land that is actively farmed they don't have to check with the state for wetlands oversight they will have to continue to work with USDA and Army Corps but that is a very important consideration that the agency would like to see maintained in any subsequent conversation about operations to the current regulatory the legislation the definition of the wetland so how can we answer any questions after I've been in Vermont for a long time thank you Ryan Chris I know that at home people ask a question on deep water so if you're farming deep watering deep watering if you're in a class 3 wetland it's also currently farming and crop land production can you tile such a space or does that end up stumbling in the conversion issue that you're talking about if the land is actively farmed the alteration of the hydraulic through the installation of agricultural subsurface tile drainage would be allowed except the agricultural practice the issue on tile drainage we haven't fully developed all that help yet I was under the impression from hearing the federal people and that paid for a while it was so that the crop land could grow better crops and it wasn't because the farmers were out there beating the drum that we want to do this it was a better government line to make sure that we had good soils that would grow good crops and promoted it I don't know you folks have done a study in regards to that I thought you were in the process along with minor institute so first to your comment about crop production and food security I think you're accurate in your characterization that drainage of fields will improve productivity can help me food security goals as it relates to the 2018 amendment to the LRAQ to include requirements for tile drainage there's been a significant investment locally in Vermont by multiple different partners as well as the minor institute looking at the question of when you go from an undrained to a drained condition what is the benefit change to water quality and the data that has come out of minor institute which does have some different soils than many parts of the state of Vermont where we see classical tile drainage has shown that there can be an improvement in the net water quality when draining and managing appropriately in agricultural sub-circus tile drainage the literature review that was prepared by the Basin program shows you can have more soluble reactive phosphorous from an undrained field than a drain field in total but again finding the definitive answer as to what is the again it comes down to management which is what the RAPs are about to manage the application of nutrients on the surface of the land whether it's a drained or undrained field to minimize minimize the potential of non-points whose I'm running off of that particular field recent studies have shown that when your rejection can have a significant even over a tile drain field can have a significant reduction in sub-circus phosphorous losses again there are studies in the literature review which shows increases in total phosphorous drain conditions so that the literature is interactive the question is a difficult one that we don't have consensus on but the agency is funding state-wide sampling of tile drains to try to get a sense of what are the conditions we're seeing in these drain fields and what are we happy to report compared to that we're happy to share that questions Ryan are there any enthusiasm between both agencies we're sitting down and saying is there a way to expand the RAPs to include wetlands both wetlands with loss of termization sort of thing and also by like restoration that was included in RAPs and I the question the RAPs set minimum management standards that are enforceable for how farmers manage land and incite the construction of structures so in so far of incentivizing the conservation of the conversion of farmland to wetlands that's definitely an area we collaborate and support the RCPP program as a joint programs funded by RCS that agency that has resources applied for together six years ago and continue to support that work and voluntary conservation so I absolutely think that that's an area of we both certainly support the resources from the water fund or federal partners going to the conservation and protection of permanent wetland easements or 50 to 30 year wetland easements depending on what the farmland would like the integration of that within the structure of the RAP cultural practices I don't at this time I'd have to think it's an interesting idea and I don't know how to meld that together and sit here and talk other questions I do have a question as you know we ran into issues during section where it seemed the implications of the administration's proposal caught you guys who are working on the front lines off guard a little bit and you would raise concerns with how it might play out to the degree that we expect to see some kind of language from the secretary of ANR do you has that evolved for understanding of how it's worked have you fought through those challenges do you believe it is my understanding that the administration but me has come to a point where there's been a court as to the regulatory framework moving forward that will work for agriculture as well as the international resources so I am hopeful that proposing the C will follow my expectation that differences have been resolved over the last few months it sounds like you sure about that we were told that a couple of times last winter the brother who is the road where is it the page that's when things are certainly black and white text but the high level conversations we've had with the regulatory framework comfortable with where that language is hopefully that's really good we're going to hold you let's wait to see the text Matt any questions up this way thank you very much thank you I appreciate the study I appreciate the opportunity how are you how are you doing on your rules there in effect and we're working on a proposal we have not filed with ICAR we do not have a pre-filed draft and are ready to share this time but are working and communicating to develop a long time very good thank you from Julie another issue was adding adding the federal agencies that NRCS and those folks in might even I don't know where the army corp is in office but if they have somebody in the mouth maybe get them in to see what their rights are they'll then match up with ours and with Farmland most all the projects that farmers do are somewhat subsidized by one of the federal agencies and if they don't get clearance from the army corp that it's falling they don't get money and so I would think that as we move forward we try to track our ranks as close to the bed ranks on ag landing noises as possible we may have a few things that we think should be different or more stringent but I know the federal people when farmers were clearing land a few years back they all owned a lot of the bearer farms bulldozers and excavators and haul trucks I mean the beds came down hard on quite a few of those people and I think the words out there do things according to the ranks and the laws there are others that you'd like to have invited in for next meeting or talk about the meeting that today's meeting where we should go further Chris I've been wondering if you know it's sort of mentioned in broad strokes that wetlands are very valuable natural resources in terms of cleaning up water and I don't think that's controversial but I guess I'm wondering if to me it would be valuable to understand that a little deeper so having some we're not going to all become biologists but some kind of impartial scientists come and just describe that to us in 15 minutes the thought being you know if we need to understand that to the degree we permit development and weakening of wetlands we've got to pay somewhere else we're going to then have stricter practices we're going to have more mitigation down the road just to me that would be valuable if it's just me then we don't need to do that but that seems like it'd be sensible I don't know about water quality just really understanding what do we get out of wetlands when you grow up on a farm that's some bigger than you you usually get the dirty work to do what a guy does but I used to have to go get the cows up and I didn't drink like if it was hot you get hot and sweaty I never drank water that came out and swarmed I always drank water I wanted to drink out so I don't really know about the quality of that water if it's coming out of those wetlands but it might be interesting to have somebody come and explain that quality stuff somebody from UVM just some sense of the scale of the science that's what I'm saying but I also think that Julie talked at the beginning of her presentation about some of the other benefits of wetlands and I think that that's that would be valuable to hear maybe a little bit more about and by the same token I think that it would be helpful to hear about the benefits of regenerative agriculture and soil health principles and that's something that Ryan can potentially do because there I really see an opportunity in terms of water quality in general for farmers and obviously we're Ag is going to be a major part of the Lake Champlain cleanup I think it would be helpful to hear a little bit more about how that manifests itself what are the practices that can be put in place where farmers can be part of the solution because I think that is that working group underway those in ecosystems services some slowly Ryan Ryan The first meeting will be held on September 30th from 10-4 to say to those calling Waterbury the press release is just about to go out Chris mentioned earlier that since some of these will affect the development community we haven't heard from them I think reaching out to them would be helpful I don't know what the current feeling of the state of the situation is now and if they even know this it's purple Anybody in particular who home builders is that who you're like home builders association Home builders association Don't they develop or they don't develop I mean they develop land that's not wetlands right Well I was thinking about hearing from the other communities that are affected by wetlands regulation Yes They don't build No they like to get out in the main fields They don't like that It's not me the one I feel like they're not this conversation is going beyond the agriculture community it seems to me so we need other people here Sure Well if we were going to propose something that would affect them you're right we're going to have an end Alright so maybe I'm too early I don't understand Your early bird gets the word So stick with it So what were you discussing about No We don't have enough time We don't have enough time We've gotten to January I don't know for me to explain We haven't had enough time I went to a hearing in the Ethanality It was about climate change etc. And we invited all sorts of people in and I wasn't on the committee and they asked them so what do you think about climate change and we invited a whole bunch of people in and we didn't learn much No We didn't ask them if you were in charge of trying to get to a net zero situation in 20 years what would you the home builders recommend Instead of having them come in and give us their list of things they wish to lobby the legislature on in the next 12 months So I I don't know what this committee's task is and what its goal is right now Is the goal to preserve wetlands or is the goal to facilitate their development to facilitate the development of all wetlands I have a lot of Now my When Michael went through our four goals that we're supposed to be trying to achieve You want to run through those again Michael? Clarify the rules Harmonize and recognize the definitions that exist So what I heard him say was how do you define how do you define army? What army lab do you So when I think you just I'm before I ask this question Commissioner Secretary Moore was in here and she gave us a bunch of questions and we asked her How did you come up with these numbers? What your definitions for your numbers She was quite candid that if you change the definition of a wetland you might get completely different numbers When we leave here do we plan to leave here with more wetlands developed for pipelines and commercial industrial equipment and and heavier machinery and more tidal drainage or do we plan to leave here with wetlands performing their tasks of purifying water and dealing with species and doing whatever wetlands do naturally because I don't know what our goal is here Michael run through the four items Before I go to the four the overarching purpose of the committee is in sub A is to clarify state wetland statutes and permitting under the statutes I think you can do that in a way that meets both of those objectives Senator McDonnell I think you can clarify the statutes so they can understand the permitting process continues to protect wetlands while also providing greater clarity in the development process He thinks we can't Well I Yeah So is there someone that you would like to get in because if they want to get someone from people that do have to use wetlands to develop properties that we should hear from them and find out what the hardships are that they have to go through and that there are some of those some of those regs that aren't important or they need should have others What's difficult is without a proposal before us, in a limited amount of time for this committee to work it's kind of impossible to understand the implications of changing the definition of wetland at least for me, because I haven't taken my committee needs to take testimony and understand those ramifications and I don't know how I can make recommendations without that Without a document No without a sort of due diligence on taking a broad spectrum of testimony and if this committee is prepared to try to do that maybe but even still we'd have to reduce I mean we're talking about a much broader change than simply affecting agriculture and I don't know those ramifications Well anything that that we were doing didn't deal we were trying to steer clear of wetland rules and regs that affected home builders and all these others it's all we were trying to do is clear apply it and have it understand being able to be understood by foreign people and getting that straight and down but I think some of this will seep into other That's your wetland comment Yeah it's going to seep I think it can and I don't know how we can evaluate them without understanding them Harry Chris? I'm listening to this discussion and I for me it's about agriculture and keeping agricultural use of the lands and I can tie that in with a change in climate to create some real challenges on some of our heavier soils in Addison County and probably elsewhere in the state but I want to stay away from having a discussion about what some of the potential use of that land would be that's all covered under ANI's permanent program back 250 local planning in zoning I just want to focus on the future of agriculture using that land for agricultural purposes if it's ceases to be an agricultural use and changes to some other use to me that's not what we're discussing but aren't we talking about the definition of wetlands and that's going to have broader implications for the entire state of Vermont and specifically moving as part of the charge of whether or not you were going to recommend whether the definition of what should be amended should be based on objective criteria such as size and location that would apply to more than just agriculture and the proposal that ANR offered last year which did have a lot of agricultural provisions in it but it also changed the definition of wetlands to be based on objective criteria that would have applied to more than just agriculture and what Julie was talking about is so that would be better defined it wouldn't be up to two different, three different people going out and calling it two or three different things that it would be more unified and uniform and that very well may be but without doing our due diligence we can't be sure of what happens when we do that and do this all the time to understand that and it will take time to do that I thought it was a good one an hour and two or three minutes yeah I don't do it with what you guys do but who is that we'd have to hear from the regulated community and we'd hear from the environmental community and in this instance I think there's consultants it would be good to hear from and hear from the wetlands folks that I don't I don't think that we have a sense of the ramifications from all those folks so why don't we we've got five or six six weeks why don't we see the other thing I recommend is that we don't hold all the meetings here we go out with our like maybe we should decide how many meetings do you think we need or if do I do use them all do we have six or right after today we'll have five more okay so we had six and also five more that's if we do four hour meetings three and a half to four hour meetings that's quite a lot of hours and and like I think we should do a hearing because this deals with we're trying to deal with the ag stop in Franklin County and do one over on the other side of the state in Caledonia Orange almost this group is from Addison County I think we should do one to one wow quarter of yeah you guys all gain up on me yeah the yeah I think down somewheres in Addison where we could get people from Rowland County to come up a little but at least for the next couple we should but then maybe the third meeting out we could get these people to you know the environmental people the like public rights I mean we'll take testimony from whoever shows up we are going to just listen to Michael and the bureaucrats we got to make up our own lines what we're going to do I don't know what to do about that I like the idea doing some outside as long as Addison County is in there we're fine with that you can find a spot maybe down to that place in Bruteport there's several places we can do it we'll have to see what they and what's available the big deal on doing those meetings is not to have them right during the corn season because they're all farmers are all chopping corn they're going to tell us their stories what they like or don't like about what I know how we'll hold them on rainy days yeah it rains every other day Chris if we have the five to go knowing the wrestling that will have to happen around the specifics of our end product as a bill presumably it would be something that will then lead to much more testimony during session so to me I could see a couple of regional meetings where we have interests come in invite them in public and then come back to them together to really bear down try to work through from the administration's draft or whatever but I just we also don't have a lot of time in the sense of we spend weeks on this in session getting frustrated so I just I don't want to lose the opportunity that this working group gives us I do three out meetings and two back here or two and three or whatever but I would reserve plenty of work time for us if the session was any indication of the details that's tricky I'm following up on what Amy said in five minutes about other witnesses so when we're talking about managing an ecosystem that happens to be called weapons there's a lot of complexity to it and I'm feeling like we're talking about that definitional boundary what we're including or excluding without having a better that system we're talking about managing so I don't know if that means UM scientists advocacy groups with a knowledge resources council or others who have expertise in the area better understand what we're talking about managing before we start altering definitions they seem so small that they have a compound impact on how they're done so was Julie going to send us her recommendations on the language change or the definition of that? I think that the administration's proposal was presented during the session and then there were changes that happened as a result of the committee discussion and we can provide again the original proposal but I don't know how valuable that is given all the conversation that went into what we ended up with at the end of the session we could take that Chris proposed change and send it to these young witnesses young witnesses I think it's always helpful to have people look at something so there's a proposal but I'm also thinking a little bit about basic knowledge like environmental science or what are we talking about managing and how might it change if we change the definition one other thing that didn't get mentioned briefly was maybe this is the there's something like that or someone else anyway climate change so we're I know that over at some county way when Irene came through it was estimated after that Middlebury was spared three and a half million dollars with the damage because of what so there's this other big role they play and I want to make sure we keep that in mind that we're in a era of increasingly extreme weather it would be helpful for anybody to live in an actually an overview talking about certain places on the area of tensions and somehow that was annotated in one of those body charts where there's like arthritis here in the area of physical love and that feels like those are some of the things which is really important because that's what we're just talking a little bit the charge right it's our too the charge so that would be these that I can elaborate on so we asked somebody at UVM that we could get in I was just going to look to the extent that any input anyone could provide so a very interesting presentation by Taylor Ricketts from the Gund Institute at UVM and they had done a paleospatial synopsis of all the wetlands in the Auto Creek facing Joe and I figured this wrong and you look at all the farmed wetlands and what would be the benefit of those particular wetlands being re-instituted to the wetlands and what their contribution to the disaster so that was a scientific overview of wetlands and the function of where they are the woman who was just sitting here is an environmental consultant so I can give you her car she was going to email you she's interested in giving testimony she's a wetland scientist who works for Kudel Environmental Consulting what's her name? her name is Karina Daley yeah if you the agency can certainly provide more information I also can give you a list of the consultants that you refer somebody outside of the state government okay so it sounds like you have a contact at UVM a gun that you might want to hear from you also a couple of you asked to talk to consultants so Karina and potentially others they'll have some consultant names that you could send Michael and then potentially a developer and then an opportunity for public comment as well and an offsite location well I don't know if we would do that one that offsite I think you want to do that maybe it might be good to do the education thing first before we're offsite get more on the same page as a group on our charge and get this information before we go to the public because then we have more to share something with them and that would be good I'm also wondering about from a little advocate's community over there how a community would be very helpful they keep telling me that there's no last winter well you know there's no hurry but Joe do it we're here every day so is your time come yet time's come well we should hear from some witnesses to get in the details Michael will hear it all and he'll help us so there was a witness we had last year and resources on water quality work talking about wetlands was the nature of the service they should develop some tools for analyzing wetlands and water quality impacts so we must have you have a pretty full agenda there we also had a few things that we wanted to hear back from you I don't know if you need to still have like I was wondering how many other states have their definition of wetlands lined up with the federal definition oh he's going to get that I'm going to make sure it's honest to do lists so I've been identified the tensions and elaborate on them and then give you how other states how do you get those tensions I mean we're not the first states to deal with these kinds of things so if there are other states that have done this what was the last thing I didn't know much so we'll do if we're going to have this crew coming we've got to do the next one here and we could also advertise once we've got to pick some days now for meetings out so that but we should give folks a couple of weeks notice if we're going to ask them to come to testify so they can they're all busy with them so when could we that's going to put us pretty near the end of the month right 20 two weeks for the Monday is the 30th of September I have the 30th open the 27th is open even the September 25th is open but that is an outbreak I could do the 30th next week 30th works for me I'm on another committee we had six meetings all sort of figure out and we had a pattern for the first two weeks and just flowing kind of like Elkhart I don't know if that's the most offering that is a thought if this is today is the once second whatever it is September to just stick to a routine then everyone just knows I could stick to a routine but I prefer Monday when the days are great I didn't bring what day is two weeks from Wednesday two weeks more second second see I can't okay four nine ten that's Friday Friday's are better for me typically and me that whole week I had to be in school on that 30th or I'm not here in the 40th Michael could you get us your vacation schedule so that we put a fourth in the 8th both vacation day the 8th is out the 7th is out the 8th I can do but but it's the same thing as products work are better let's see another starting committee from nine single products plastics is on the E so the 9th can people do the 9th yes nine one twice nine the next ring is the nine the 9th in Montilier what time we're going to run a little different than today as far as I'm concerned that's starting work in the middle of the afternoon how are they can you be here can you have the floor can you be here can you be here can you be here can you be here can you be here ideally nine would be nine works nine's fine nine until you or nine until one that part we could put it at one and so we can plan our time but if we get done sooner we will thank you so next meeting October 9 nine until one generally you want someone from UDN to testify you would potentially want A&R's experts and other consultants to testify and if we can get advocacy and NRCS groups here and you would like that what about a developer developer would not kind of do you know any part of that I will yes we took a lab from a testimony from the development community so I'm thinking might have been the home builders I'll look we can get that to Michael okay do you want to try to schedule your next meeting back two weeks two weeks what's two weeks from we're getting high-frying can I like to participate in this when does the power community get to do it that's what we're trying to do we're going to do in the public home is that what you're going to add I'd like to I would like to do one up in Franklin County do one down in Addison that area one over on the eastern side of the state so and that would primarily be all those Orleans Franklin and Addison there in orange that has all the dairy farms make it sure we're going to have our chance definitely and then I would presume that every meeting we'd leave a bunch of time open for people that to show up that want to have something to say to so we can hear from them so we can send out a press release to find people time in the place and we will ask them if they want to testify to identify the contact chart me and myself to get on the agenda the demo will be open time now what about the third meeting or we got for less two weeks from October 23rd looks good for me and is that one we want to plan for offsite yeah we'll do that one in Franklin County okay should I try the high school then you've had meetings there before yeah yeah and the other just give us some ideas about where you want to meet you meant down the yeah that was kind of out of the way down there you don't want to do that one as you know is about a week late about a month late so Franklin County will be harvesting corn the 23rd of October they will if you went to one of the less intensively corn harvesting counties for that first outside meeting and they came back to Franklin County in November that would work much better for the farming community you'll have nobody there from the farming community the 23rd of October so we should do well Addison County is going to be in the same the same no so Orange County you want to put one over here why are you back you know everybody speak of corn doesn't matter field is the best for Orange County I don't represent and you do I don't think it makes any difference you want to do the 23rd over in safe bearly or something like that is that agreeable sure and barely the 23rd so you've met over there before at the right are you thinking you have the same time of the day do you folks you want to move it up 7 o'clock 7 o'clock no I'm just curious like people work other than cutting corn I don't want to try to reach by going out maybe maybe 10 o'clock I don't mind I just was asking 10 o'clock is fine with me that's okay so it would be the 23rd barely 10 o'clock we'll schedule it 10 o'clock I was just going to ask do you want to start with me that would be nice over there 10 o'clock and then one to three then you'll try for the language we will contact them with new guarantees we've done it there before what about do you want to set the dates now so we won't get plugged up 6 would be two weeks later remember 6 6 and 20 keeps us out of Thanksgiving and we'll remember 6 is that when we should do it with Franklin yep so that would give you plenty of notice to get same time frame or do you want a different time frame with Franklin well that that's a 3 hour drive so we'll start at 8 I'll be there I'll be there every word I say you up the night before I'll stay we can start 10 10 10 that's why you gotta hit that I'll start early okay so Franklin some place in Seattle is probably yeah yeah the library I think the library is some yeah we did a meeting there once on water quality yeah that's okay so fair facts remember 20 yeah remember 20 yeah yeah yeah any preference for please yeah in Addison in Addison Barbie what the where was that place we met once we over in Addison San Diego was that reported for anyone or something well done Tom I mean in Middlebury we have a VFW and an American Legion down in Bridgeport where they have the community sign of the Grange Hall they have their town meeting at it a little court for people out by our north to Saddam we can also use our new town buses that's a little closer I don't know how they come up yeah we get a good turnout people from around we can use our town hall I mean you can't guarantee it but that's a place that's available so a couple of options is the Bridgeport Grange well the Grange has a parking problem right on point away and limited parking okay what's the other one that you said the community hall is kind of in the center top of the Middlebury town and the VFW the VFW there's three options we've done it at the Bridgeport Community Hall before and at the VFW before so so being Middlebury we can get the space to we'll look at Bridgeport Community Hall and Middlebury Hall or the VFW and then should we do the last one on December 4th here we're just doing one here no then we'll do three here okay so you'll get worried out we will work on that would you check with the Jackie like Farm Bureau they have county meetings in the fall and maybe we could have them as a couple make this a notice of the health rules of the farmers at their county meetings at the end of this week we also know about the fall of the meetings listed right now we're at the only two we're looking at actual Washington county meetings at the end of this week but is it any evening so I hope we can do a follow up on the check those were the only few days the farmers the farmers alliance screwed screwed it it gets out ahead of time so they mark these dates down and show up we'll get an absolute very good appreciate it anything anything else if you just invited me so we have different things when I set it up I invited you off I don't need to go in front of you okay I mean if you just carry it let's go there Jackie see the only other thing I might suggest is we've got October going here to Fairleigh Lake Morien that is foliage still so you might want to come up with another location because they might well they still have bosses that come I'm just saying right we're well thank you all thank you