 as a hold-up, but you know how it works or how it works. Yeah, yeah, don't worry about it. That's the only answer. Well, thank you. Please, for the time. So I'm Eric Schmidt, Vice President of Asset Management at Housing Vermont. For those of you who don't know, Housing Vermont is a nonprofit developer of affordable rental housing. We've partnered with a lot of local nonprofits throughout the state. And in that partnership with the local nonprofits, we've developed 5,800 apartments, unless that's our inception in 1988. In that process, with the support and help of VHCB, we've been able to leverage and raise over $300 million in private equity through the affordable housing tax credit programs and federal IRS program. We've also raised over $400 million in private financing and public investment. And the Vermont Housing Conservation Board has been a very large part of that public investment. And I want to thank you all for your support of VHCB as well. My job as Vice President of Asset Management is to assure the long-term operational health of the portfolio. So we develop the affordable housing, but we also own it for a minimum of 15 years. So I'm always looking for ways to make sure that the property is run well and it looks good and it's financially sound. I'm looking at the long-term. I'm a little bit more of a long, take a look at the long-term outlook. And what can we do to keep control costs? So I'm just here, I want to describe some of the energy work that we've done to help control those costs, how we've been developing our properties. One of the most interesting, most innovative aspects of this that we've been working on is using technology and data to give us feedback on how we're doing and guiding our work. So first of all, within the portfolio, we've been investing in a lot of renewables. It's the renewables of reducing our reliance on fossil fuels, propane, fuel oil. Those have a lot of potential. But also, just trying to reduce our footprint as much as possible. And to date, we've installed 10 solar voltaic systems serving 622 apartments, 21 biomass, such as pellets and wood chips systems, serving over 686 apartments. 31 domestic hot water systems, serving 756 apartments. And we're starting to look at the new technology of the high-efficiency air-source heat pumps. And again, what's critical to that is we're installing the systems. We're not just installing them and saying, OK, the model worked and our costs are good. We're really acquiring data. These air-source heat pumps have built-in intelligence. And it feeds data out. And we take that data, we put it on a cloud server software that we've developed. And it drives visual dashboards that we look at that really tell us, is this system optimized? Is it working the way that it should? Another more recent example is energy conservation project we completed in Applegate Apartments in Bennington. The property consists of 104 apartments and 23 buildings. We converted all 23 boilers to one central wood chip heating plant. And the wood chip heating plant is in a separate building. And it distributes the heat throughout all the buildings on the site. How many boilers? 23 buildings? 23 boilers. There was 23 fuel oil boilers. Do we have a single boiler? Yes. That resulted in, there's a picture of it actually over here when I walked in, I saw it, that resulted in a reduction in energy costs or fuel costs from average of $165,000 a year to $50,000 a year. That's an incredible reduction. That was the work of your lobbyist to prepare us. Oh, really? That's kind of it. I'm sorry. I shouldn't have asked before. But OK, so this central heating biomass plant that you put in, were you able to get any help from, I guess, would be green mount power or whoever is your electric provider in downtown? I'm not entirely sure. I'm not on the development side. So the development side puts together all the financing sources. I'm after it's developed, and then I take care of it for the 15-year compliance period and make sure that all 150 separate affordable housing entities that own right now in operations, 4,000 units are running smoothly. You referred to the 15-year period a number of times. I'm not really clear. That's the financing period? One of our major sources of financing is the federal low-income housing tax credit. And that credit, there's a compliance period, which is a key component. We have to maintain compliance with IRS regulations for 15 years. And so we stay in the deal with our local partner for at least 15 years to see it through to make sure it's sustainable or stays in compliance with IRS. Excuse me. Do you typically sell right after the 15-year period is going to fulfill? It all depends. We typically, the local partner will steward the property beyond that period. So our local nonprofit will continue to remain before. Excuse me, sir. I've got Warren next in the room. So you were putting in units and using heat pumps, you said? So say, Vermont, December, any of January, still gets very cold. My understanding is that heat pumps cannot produce the heat then or not. So no, I think we are finding that our building envelopes that we're building are performing very well. Our shells are so good that the Mitsubishi's that we're putting in now, not just Mitsubishi's, Dayton's, or other air-sourced heat pumps, are performing. So is there any backup system or not? Or is there just one system? No, we do put in some form of backup right now. Again, until we gather more intelligence and understand how it's performing. Typically, what would that backup be then? Resistance electric. We're trying to figure out what's working better. So what sort of analysis, what percentage of the time do they need to use resistance heat? So you don't have the numbers yet? We have found that even in some buildings, the shell isn't that wet, performing that well that they are heat pumps. They're doing what they're supposed to do. That's what we're finding out right now. They're not as efficient. Their coefficients of performance is not as good. So they're working much harder than they should have to. But they are keeping up. So it's a matter of the efficiency that goes down as the temperature goes down. But they haven't had to cut over to the backup systems. Exactly. And then we're learning, so if that's the case, if their efficiency is going down, should we put in a control aspect that says, OK, switch over to the more efficient system, which is the electric resistance? I believe the electric resistance could be more efficient. We're still alive. Thank you. Interesting. Thanks. Mike? Yeah, back to that central heating biomass plant when it replaced 23 boilers. What was the fuel source for the 23 boilers? It was fuel oil. Fuel oil? Yes. And again, another ask. So what we've been doing is gathering data from our existing portfolio. And when we were in the design phase of this project, the original design of the pellet boiler was 3.2 million BTUs. We took information from our portfolio and shared with our design team. And we're able to get the design team to reduce the size of the boiler plant by 50% to 1.89 BTUs. That saved us $200,000 in capital costs. And also, by right sizing that boiler, the boilers didn't last longer. Because if you have an oversized boiler, you short cycle. You keep excessively cycling on your boilers. And that reduces your efficiency. And it causes your boilers to fail prematurely. Rhonda? I wanted to find out more about the solar rays that you're using. And I know you're not on the development side. But are those typically developed by private developers who utilize these tax credits and then bought, seeded? Do you know what's seeded? I'm not 100% sure, but I believe that we've partnered with some of these ventures. But we have also done one on our own, I believe. But we have been able to, I believe we've been able to syndicate the credit on our own. And these are group net leaders. Yeah, so we have three. Right now we have three large solar arrays, 1,500 kilowatt and 250 are close to it right now. And those we net meter back to partnerships that we call. So again, it's a way of controlling the cost with our partnerships. And out of the three, we're able to save 10% electrical bills in those partnerships, which is out of the three is like $25,000 a year. And are those solar panels roof mounted or ground mounted? Those are ground mounted, the three. The 10 that I saw, the 10 are roof mounted. OK, 10 are roof mounted. And then three are solar arrays in the field. And are they on your prop on, I should say, the property of the housing? Or are they lying into an array developed by somebody else someplace else? Right. So we have one that is in our housing. We have some excess land that we're able to do it. And then the other one is on the other hand, out of the housing. Share another example, a very innovative example. We just finished a project down in Brattleboro, Red Clover Commons, 55 units of elderly housing, 79,000 square foot building. We did a geothermal system. It's our first geothermal system, which takes advantage of the ground heat. And again, we had our data acquisition system in there and found that at the onset, the system was not working as it was intended. We took actions to smooth out the operations. For me, just I can't drive home enough. We've been pushing energy efficiency. Let's get this stuff into our buildings. But if we don't know and we don't monitor, we can't just set it and forget it. We've got to monitor on a basis otherwise. We're not realizing. Robert. I don't know if you can divide this off the top of your head. Obviously, you're working to make your units efficient, healthy, affordable. Do you have any information on turnover rate of residents of tenants in your housing units as opposed to? It varies from year to year. It varies from year to year. A typical turnover rate is around 20%, 15% to 20%. And we just looked at our entire portfolio for emissions, which was very interesting. We had out of 38 other departments that I collected information on. We had only 81 evictions, a 2.2% eviction rate. So I think our folks are doing a really good job to try and make our residents, allow our residents to succeed and do everything we can. Driving down energy cost is keeping, that's our main goal, is to maintain affordability for the residents. I assume that the dashboard is the dashboard on the internet, not using your access to anything by internet? Yeah, so we're in the process of finalizing this platform. We've got our hardware is solid that's going into the sites. Our data that's on the cloud, the software we developed for that, is solid. Now we're integrating online web access to the dashboards. This is just intellectually, the interest in it, but when you get that up and going, if it can be shown on just a computer screen, we'd love to have you back. And I'd like to see the- I can provide you with examples of how we've saved a lot. We've learned a lot. We're talking to other national housing groups about the benefit of this. It's so surprising when you plug this into a building how most of the stuff that we've plugged into, we've found ways that, first of all, the equipment's not talking to each other the way it should. It's not working the way it should. So having this data is really making sure that we're maximizing or optimizing our systems. It's great we're investing in energy, but this is like a really key component to making sure that it's serving us well. So, I'm a bit curious how granular is this information? And is there privacy issues of how much electricity? Maybe I'm not home. Yeah, no, we're not going into unit by unit information. This is building aggregate data. And that's the beauty of it as well, is we can get aggregate total electrical usage on our buildings without imposing anything on it. Say, McKnight Lane, there's what, two units to a building, though? That's rather granular or something? Yeah, right. So this platform would really be more suitable for a building that is at least 12 units, 10,000 square foot building and larger. We probably would do one-offs to try and understand how those smaller vermods are working at McKnight Lane and other properties that are smaller just to see how they're working, but we wouldn't put it into every one of them. So this is feeding back to a central database on what basis hourly? We get minute-by-minute data on every data point that we're gathering, yeah, 65 million data points in there at any given time. So it has to be some sort of internet-connected facility? Yes, yeah, and that's another thing. We're trying to get Wi-Fi into all of our buildings, so we really think there's a huge benefit to giving access to Wi-Fi for our residents so that they can access educational needs, services. So we're taking advantage of all that. Yeah, I was gonna ask a question along the same lines. So from on housing is actually doing the monitoring, not the individual buildings? Correct. Building managers or whatever. Right, and we have the in-house analysts that look at this. Right, okay. And the individual buildings, so individual projects, the housing projects, those are independent of housing, Vermont, right? We co-own those. You co-own them. Oh, okay, all right. For the 15-year, minimum 15 years and one year. Okay, yes. So it's cool, yeah. We thank you very much. We appreciate it. Thank you. We'll call up sometime. Yeah, absolutely. Nick? Yeah, hi. How are you? Well, good morning still. So I'll just, I'll say my name for the record. This is Nick Richardson. I'm the president of the Vermont Land Trust. Just recently assumed that role. It's really good to be with you today. So, you have Gus's job? No, Gus runs the Vermont Housing Conservation Board and he's still doing that. I took over from Gil Livingston, who is our former president, yeah. So it's great to be... The Land Trust. The Land Trust, yeah. Sorry. Never mind. Thank you for your stay for the stickers. I see that you're wearing one and you're a representative of that. I'm taking this out of the group. Great, Robin. So, and I'll just say, you know, it's great to be here and nothing, if nothing else, right? We're very excited to be here on the Vermont Housing Conservation Coalition Day. It's a wonderful day for us at the Land Trust, but really for our whole community. I'm excited to hear Eric's presentation around what's happening at Energy. We do work closely together. We have shared values and shared goals about what we're trying to do for this state and how we want to take it forward. That's both professional and personal. My wife, Smith, that actually works in housing for a lot. I just started with her a couple of years ago on the development side. So we really appreciate that work. I also know that we're behind schedule and reference editor, Yantashna, was showing us the board and all the work that you all have to do. So I'm, I have 15 minutes. I'm happy to just talk for a few about some of the work that we're doing and then answer any questions that you have. I would probably interrupt as you go. Good, great, great. So I did, and there is a presentation which I think could just be available to you as a follow-up. It's a useful kind of reference piece. I came in last year and spoke with this committee largely about the renewable energy work that we're doing, how the Vermont Land Trust was helping the facility smart and well-spilled renewable energy development on farms and forests and parcels across Vermont. I also mentioned at that point that we were developing and we were in the very early stages of the developing a project to look at the potential for forest carbon offsets in Vermont. Forest carbon offsets are using the growth of wood in Vermont that sequesters carbon as a way to generate revenue by essentially selling that sequestered carbon into markets of different kinds. And it's an industry and an area that's really taken off in the last 10 or 15 years. First with the establishment of the California compliance market, which happened about 10 years ago. But there's also another set of voluntary markets that are in play. So it's a really interesting opportunity, a way to compensate landowners for allowing a portion of their woods or managing in such a way that their woods continue to store carbon even while they're managing fruit timber and other things. And that could generate revenue that could help to support forest landowners to maintain their lands as really effective and healthy working forests. So it's something we're really excited about. We've done an analysis project over the last year working with some pretty sophisticated modeling firms that are based out of California and do some work in that California compliance market. We've also been really grateful to have the support of Professor Bill Keaton who is at UVM and is an internationally regarded forestry consultant and ecologist. And we've looked at this together. Bill is on our board at the Vermont Land Trust. We spent this year in partnership really looking at what would this look like to try and do forest carbon in Vermont. And one of the challenges that we find, which is a challenge we often have here in Vermont, is that we're small. And what I mean by that in the forest sense is that our forest parcels tend to be small. The average forest parcel ownership in Vermont is about 150 acres. And typically a commercially viable forest carbon project takes place on a parcel that's 3,000 acres or larger. So that's a really big difference. We have a landscape that is 80% forested, largely privately owned, largely in small parcels. So a lot of the potential benefit and opportunity around carbon isn't accessible to the people who own this land and manage it on behalf of all of us. That's the sort of challenge that we face. So we were looking very closely at that. And I think we're excited as the results of this analysis are such that we feel like we can come up with a program that will allow us to aggregate small landowners in Vermont into forest carbon offset projects. And we believe in that strongly enough we're actually going ahead with a demonstration project this year. I cannot identify yet the place that it's happening. Not that we haven't identified it, we have, but we're still doing the work to get it set up. But we will be moving ahead. Our partnership, which involves some key staff of the Vermont Housing Conservation Board. They've been incredible partners, funders, and supporters along this project. Bill Keaton, myself, other folks at the Land Trust, the Nature Conservancy. So we have this really broad-based partnership that's coming together to try to crack this problem for Vermont. So that we can have what other states in our area have. These products are happening in New York. They're happening in New Hampshire. They're happening in Maine. Very few of them are happening now in Vermont, so we want to make this opportunity available to folks. That's the high level. There's a lot of detail below that that I'm going to another time. But I just want to stand in there. So I'd love to talk to you about that. Last session I introduced a sponsor to Bill on forest and urban sequestration and our efforts toward state land trying to reach that large parcel size. Sure, sure. And so I know some of the complexities, but I'd be happy to just follow up with you on the private side. Great. Yeah. And that is really where we're focused as private landowners at this point. Yeah, so I'm also interested in how that works. And you said you have a presentation that's available. Yeah, I brought it today. It's just like me. And it could just be made on the website. OK, so that was fun. Yeah, and I'm happy to answer it. If you want to take a look at the contact with us, you can definitely follow up. There's a larger report that's actually going to be published and released in the next couple of weeks that will make sure it's available to you all. You too. Yeah, so? Yes, I guess I have the same question, but I wonder if maybe in just a few sentences, you can tell us what is a project other than leaving the trees in the forest to keep the carbon in the tree? Yeah, so when I say project, it's really a way of describing how you would set up a forest to be managed with carbon being one of the things that you're managing for over the long term. And then the project component is that you then make a binding commitment to manage in that way and that there's money that changes hands. You're paid for the value of those credits by somebody else. And so the project piece is really about aligning the management practices of that parcel going forward such that you're sequestering carbon in it over the long term. And then you're compensated for the carbon that you're sequestering. It doesn't mean to not manage it. I think this is one of the things that people, this is one of the sort of fallacies that's out there and the assumptions there that's wrong about forest carbon. Having a forest carbon project doesn't mean that you don't cut the trees. It means that you've managed in such a way that you're growing the carbon in your woods over time. So it does actually go along very well with management. And what we've seen is that it actually matches very well with the management practices that a lot of people have in Vermont, because very few of us are cutting to the fully allowable cut in our forests. So it's a, anyway, I answer your question and went off, but I think that's a really important point. And if people in the room take away nothing else, when you're doing forest carbon, you can also be managing for timber. And that's the scenario that we envision in Vermont's forest. So there are some things you would do that have to do with the carbon that you might not necessarily be doing otherwise sustainable forest. I think that's right. You could have potentially sustainable forest management practices without a forest carbon project, but there are certain ways that you would manage around forest carbon. Different things. It's slightly different, but in my view, I think the nice thing about carbon is that it's actually a nice proxy for sustainable management. When you manage for carbon, you typically are managing for species biodiversity, you're managing for water resilience, you're managing for climate change. So it has a lot of values beyond the carbon itself. So how much more carbon sequestration would you get from a managed forest than just allowing everything to grow? It's hard to answer that question because it depends a lot on what your management practices would be. I think that the key around carbon is that you're committing to those practices for a long period of time, right? So in the voluntary market, it's 40 years. In the compliance market, it's 100 years. So one thing that we find compelling about this, and a lot of landowners actually that we've been talking about finding compelling about it, is that it's a way that in addition to, perhaps, the conservation usement or just to their own values around how they manage their forest, it's a way to ensure that those values continue for a period of time into the future. And the honest answer to your question, Mike, is I'm not sure that we're gonna radically change the amount of carbon that's being sequestered in our woods by having more people manage for carbon, but we will be able to release revenue for those folks. They're gonna help them to do that, help to support those kinds of management practices that helping promote what we want it to be. So for me, it's less about changing the overall approach and sequestering more carbon. It's more about finding a way to recognize and continue to provide revenue that's gonna support that kind of management into the future in a time when the timber industry is facing a lot of difficulty and we're seeing people challenged to manage the forest in the way that I'd like to because of what's happening in the wood markets right now. And who would pay for the credits? I mean, who would pay for this? There are a wide variety of buyers. So if it's a compliance market, you're paying into the California system, which is essentially energy companies in California that are required by credits, or there are corporate clients that are interested in buying credits. It's a very strong market. So we're not concerned on the market side. We'd love to see Vermont companies do more buying of carbon credits. That's been something that's very challenging to kind of fit in. In fact, other folks have failed in the past because they focused on developing carbon projects and also trying to attract a Vermont buyer at the same time. We hope that will come. Ward, a quick question about the managed forest. It seems to me that if you're managing it and harvesting the biomass, you have the advantage of producing heat that otherwise if you just let it sit there, it's just gonna be composed and turn the carbon anyway, but you're gonna be able to utilize the energy and offset some other fuel. Is that part of the equation on this? It can be. I'd say that for my interest, we're very supportive of biomass. We work very closely with the Northern Forest Center and other organizations. They're trying to promote the use of sustainable biomass, biomass that's harvested locally. It doesn't travel great distances before it's burned and that that's also done. That biomass comes off with forest or it's managed in such a way that you're really doing it in a, maybe not that zero, but you're doing it in a way that is really sustainable over the long term. I think the challenges around biomass are more about making the market happen. Make sure that there are enough people who are interested in buying it that it becomes cost effective to get it out of the woods at scale. And again, I think forest, carbon, and biomass can fit together on the same parcel. This is the thing that we've learned through this analysis. You don't have to trade them off. You can manage for carbon across your woods and also pull a lot of wood out that can be used for biomass or other applications. Thank you. Thank you very much. It's great to be here with you today. I should try to get back here. Is there a shelter in here? I hope it represents wood. You are the next colleague I'm going to be. Good morning. Thank you, Representative Theresa Wood for the record. I am here to give you a very brief two sentence overview of H-429. And then I brought with me Renee Pellerin who would like to say a few words about the importance of this bill. So essentially this bill does two things. It creates a communication facilitator program and I'm going to let Renee speak a little bit about that and the impact about that for people who are deafblind. And the other thing that it does is in relationship to the Department of Public Service there is a telecommunications relay advisory council. And that council is currently chaired by somebody designated by the Commissioner of Public Service and, oh no, excuse me, by the Commissioner of Public Service. And so this proposal is to have the council elect chair from its non-state representative. So the non-state government people who are appointed to the council and then to have the council elect that chair and the representative from the Department of Public Service serving as the vice chair. And this is then primarily to represent the impact of the services on individuals who need this type of assistance in order to communicate with other individuals in the importance of having consumer representation on this board or consumer leadership on this board. And from what I understand from Renee that there has been not necessarily what we would call regularly scheduled meetings of this council and I feel that's very important. So with regard to the communication facilitator program that's the section F on page five of the bill. And as I said, let Renee talk a little bit about that but it's a way for individuals who are deafblind to be able to use the system more effectively. There are not a huge number of people in this situation but having one person who's not able to communicate with another individual that they need to communicate with is important. So with that I'm going to turn it over to Renee if that's okay with you. Please do. Thanks for your support. Excuse me, sorry, you're good. I'm Renee Pellerin and I'm a deafblind individual who is using an interpreter and also my support person here. I'm actually going to use some low technology today and provide you with a hard copy of my testimony. So I would like to first of all I have representative Wood for sponsoring this bill for me because just to let you know I've been involved with the telephone communication telecommunication service since it's founded. It's in section many years ago. And basically the bill is talking, we're talking about two sections within the bill. One talks about deafblind individuals and their access to telecommunication services. The technology has been incredible in terms of the recent developments. And sadly deafblind individuals cannot access that technology as other deaf people. Deaf and hard of hearing folks can use the technology quite easily but it's very frustrating for a person who is deaf and also blind. So the bill is asking to establish a program of communication facilitators to allow deafblind individuals to access the visual part of this program. There's certainly programs in other states now and these positions in terms of a person providing that facilitation when a deafblind person is using a video phone have been established in those states. So and certainly might be have heard of communication facilitators for individuals who have autism. And so this is a similar kind of assistance for people who are deafblind providing access to a deafblind person who cannot see the screen and see the person signing on the screen. So this would be an amendment to the current VTRS, the Vermont Telecommunications Relate Services Bill, law, and this would specifically serve deafblind individuals and their access. The way communication facilitators could be supported would be through the surcharge on our telephone bills which is already established. And this would also providing this communication facilitation program would reduce the isolation of deafblind people who are quite isolated and live scattered throughout the state of Vermont. The communication facilitator would actually go to the deafblind person's house and would have been booked for an hour or a couple of hours so that the deafblind person could transact their phone calls through a video phone and that communication facilitator would sign to the deafblind person what the person on the screen is signing so that they and that that would happen tactically so that people would have equal access to the telecommunication communication. And it would add an element to deafblind people's lives in terms of being able to connect with people out there which they can't do through the telephone anymore, through video phones anymore because they cannot see. And so this would help reduce the extreme isolation of people living here in Vermont. I can give you a little more detail in terms of what this looks like in terms of a setup. So I have a video phone at home on a computer screen with a webcam and I can make a call to somebody else, a deaf person or call a relay service with an interpreter who then connects my phone call to whoever I'm trying to call. And then so that person appears on the screen and my communication facilitator would sign to me tactically what the person is saying on the screen. I can then respond, signing myself to the person on the screen. Now the size of the deafblind population here in Vermont is very, very small. And as I said before, they live all around the state in very isolated areas. So that would be the communication facilitator part of this bill. And Representative Wood mentioned the BTRS advisory council. I have been one of its founding members. I was in the first group of people who were serving on that advisory council. And I served by term. I stepped down. And then I became legally blind over the years. So I approached the Department of Public Service and asked for an amendment around communication access with deafblind folks. We talked about that. I talked about that with the Department of Public Service and realized they hadn't had a meeting of the advisory council for three years, the Vermont Telecommunications Advisory Council, which is in violation of the law. They are supposed to meet quarterly four times a year. And I didn't get a clear answer as to why the council had not the meeting. So I took it upon myself to say I would be happy to rejoin the council to help get it up and running again. And as I've been going through this process, I realized there's a real leadership problem and an organizational problem. It hasn't been the organizational part of this. I've not learned from this. Great. So I given it some thought and I contacted the head of the department and didn't get a clear answer. And at that point, I decided to see if we could change the structure of the council through the law. And instead of having the Department of Public Service be the chairperson for the council, that person could be elected from the non-governmental members, such as a deafblind, a deaf person, or a hearing person, a speech impaired person, that could be elected as the chairperson. So that is the second amendment that we're asking for in this bill. And that would then also empower the consumers to be running this advisory council. And I think it would be very beneficial. So I thank you for your attention. If you have any questions, please feel free. I've got Laura first and then Robin and then Mike. So Laura, I'm Laura at Cibilia. So my question is, I see the testimony and that this is a limited number of deafblind. Do we have an idea of how many Vermonters are deafblind? As I said, yes. It is a very small number, probably 25 or less. And out of that 25, probably 15 would have received the most benefit from using a communication accelerator. OK, that's very helpful. Thank you. Robin, first of all, thank you for being here. My question is, do you have an idea of how many facilitators would be needed since the individuals live all over or widely scattered? Honestly, I don't know yet how many communications facilitators would need. My suggestion would be look for individuals who are very skilled in specific areas around the state so that we would save money on travel and really get people who are local to the deafblind person in that area. I would say perhaps 10 total, something like that. Mike. Yeah, my questions have been asked by Laura and Robin. OK. What? So can your facilitator be characterized? Can a video see what you're doing and translate that into speech and speech to something that you can get in braille and hold on and be able to know what I'm saying? Not that I don't enjoy having her here, but it's maybe easier if we have a computer system rather than having people going around the state because their computer systems don't do that. They do a lot lately right here, don't they? She's trying to translate you what she's saying. The computers aren't smart enough yet to help me. There's not technology that we're doing. However, there are folks out there who are trying to create some software. So that software will allow me to sign and be to a camera. It would be a videoed, and then one could receive a printed text copy of what I've said. And that would not work for everyone. But the software actually isn't ready yet. It's in development. It's in a beta stage development. And I've seen one of those. I've seen the beta version, and it's expensive. I don't think it's really effective yet, and I would have a concern around individuals who are not skilled in English. There are folks for whom English is their second language, deafblind folks for whom English is their second language, SLA is their first language, American Sign Language. And so that program wouldn't necessarily benefit them because they would be having to deal with their second language in terms of English if something were printed in English text. Oh, my. Yeah. Are there printers that print and braille? Are you talking about the software I was just speaking about, or just in general? Well, in general, I'm just wondering if printers are available right now that print and braille. From spoken language or signed language or what the? From text on a screen. So yes, text on a screen could be converted to braille. There's quite a bit of technology out there. For a blind person who uses braille and certainly access text that can be converted from text on a screen to braille, I am not a braille user. At the moment, I use ZoomText, which is a software program that enlarges text to a large font. So braille, there is no technology yet either that from braille converting it to a signed version is not ready yet. OK, thank you. Anyone else? Thank you very much for your testimony. I'm sorry, Rob. My question would be, this service is just not available through the telecommunications relay service, or they're just not acting on it. Here in Vermont, there is not a service communication facilitator service through the relay service at the moment, not here in Vermont. I might add, if the advisory council had met in the last three years, they might have recommended something like this to the department that the department maybe could have investigated. However, that hasn't happened. If I could, one last comment, if I could make a suggestion for recommendation to the Vermont Telecommunications Relay Service, if it's passed, I think that the head of the Department of Public Service has not been clear, has not made a clear response. Really, nothing has happened in the last several years around the relay service from the Department of Public Service. We thank you very much for your testimony. We appreciate it. We'll follow up with a message. Thank you, Steve. OK, thank you very much, everyone. Thank you. And I appreciate you having me here to dance and take part. Thank you. You're welcome. Thank you. Let's just open the door. And we probably appreciate some appreciation. So there's a shelving. Hold on. Yeah. Hi. Thank you very much for your view. Oh, my gosh. That was powerful. I appreciate it. I appreciate it. Thank you so much. I appreciate it. I saw that. We're going to 726 this year. 426, we're very good. 726. 726, you're right. Thank you for having me in to introduce H726. It's a bill that creates a voluntary standard for pollinator-friendly solar installations. It is a bill that's actually been, it's a three-page bill, but it's been in the making for a couple of years with a group of interested, a diverse group of interested environmental organizations, including Gunn Institute, Audubon, Energy Action Network, UBM, Fresh Energy, BHB, REV, and Vermont DEC. They've all collaborated to create this standard to essentially, the goal of it is to address, we all pretty much know by now that pollinators are in decline. One of the biggest reasons for that decline is loss of habitat. So this is a bill to create, like I said, a voluntary certification that would be administered by the University of Vermont Extension to allow for, I mean, it does two things. One, I guess it creates the standard. And so when you can then make a claim that you're a pollinator-friendly solar installation, it actually has a legitimate standard that is evaluated by other benefits. And pollinators also is good for game birds and birds when you create this habitat. The idea is that you plant native perennial vegetation that's beneficial to those species, and you can claim pollinator-friendly only if you, the owner, follows the guideline set forth in this assessment one. I have copies for you all if you're interested in it. It is, like I said, a form that was two years in the making. I think it's important to realize when you're talking about planting and maintaining native perennial vegetation around solar installations, there's also other benefits that kind of crew in terms of increasing carbon sequestration in the soil. So it's kind of a win-win-win. You've got a solar installation, and then you have increased habitat, and then you also have improved soil health and carbon sequestration in that soil. So it's, like I said, it's a short fell. It has some definitions to help set the frame for who is eligible, and then it sets guidelines for how you can make the claim that you are a pollinator-friendly solar installation. And you do that by developing a site plan and the site plan then is submitted to the University of Vermont extension. It's also made available to the public so that they can see, you know, the legitimacy of your claim. And I think there's a typo on page three of the bill, because I think it repeats the same thing twice, but I worked with Audubon in Vermont as the lead person communicating with me on developing the bill, and that's Jim Schallow. He's in the nosebleed section. Welcome to the week we live in. I know that he and other partners who have helped develop this would love to come and testify if you should take it up, and I also have kind of a constituent. A man who lives in Waybridge has a program called Be the Change, and he would also very much like to come and testify. His name is Mike Kearnan. Is there anything keeping someone from filling out this form now and saying, score and say they got a pollinator friendly site right now? Well, I think that there's nothing keeping anyone from doing that, but by having a clearinghouse to keep it, I don't know, on the straight and narrow and the certification sort of the double check makes it more legit. Yeah, UVM would hold that. So they could change this. They came up with this. They can change it. It's not subject to any rulemaking as whatever UVM comes up with. Right. Well, and this team developed it. Okay, thanks. Kurt. What about me? You don't have to hit me. Okay. Oh, okay. Raise your hand. I can show you. Okay. I sometimes get skipped. No, you don't. I had just a little bit of, you are in front of the house, and when I first heard about this a few years, I let the colleague over. They make like a milk in this. Milkweed. Milkweed. I let them grow. They've kind of taken over and I actually have bees on them. So my question is, and I didn't do anything other than stop cutting them. Right. Let them go and they have to take it over. Do you have to do anything or if you just let a field go? Well, that's a good question. It's also a segue. You remind me that two other states are already doing this, Minnesota and Maryland. Minnesota is the most far along in their program and in 2016 they had 2,330 acres planted. And I've had a similar experience to you, whereas I'm, well, it's maybe not as wild as yours, but like the pollinators that are in my garden just by planting a few particular things around are almost overwhelming. But the interesting thing about the statistic from Minnesota is these 2,300 acres represent if you had a small patch in front of more of a suburban house than I'm imagining, that you have 1.4 million 6x12 gardens. So whereas we've done a good job educating residential landowners on becoming pollinator friendly, the goals of this program would be to kind of exponentially expand on the amount of habitat we're able to create. So your question, I mean, these are often solar fields. I'm going to take a guess at this, but there'll be other experts that you can bring in to address it who've developed these standards. But in Vermont, if you have a solar field that's in a fallow hayfield, you're going to have all kinds of species in there. And the goal for this is to really get back to non-invasive native species that meet this particular standard for being absolutely pollinator friendly. So you think you do have to do some planting? I think so, yes, to convert it back. I mean, you probably had some milk weeds and you let them go. Right, and I probably used to cut along with the grass. So my house is actually urban, not suburb. The difference is important. But when I was getting your two locales switched to my head, sorry, you're sitting close to each other. I know, I would look alike. I had the courage to call Robin now, but Mike? Kind of more here. I was picturing a field in Charlotte when you were talking. Mike is your turn. Okay, so what's the benefit of somebody who does get certified other than just branding rights? I think that's the big benefit and to build momentum around creating this really much needed habitat. I think it's finding that link many customers who care about solar also are going to care about habitat. And it's also taking a fallow, often a fallow agricultural field and making it even more beneficial. Does this certification and registry exist already or would it be created? That's a great question. Does this exist already? Can I pass the torch to someone who might have the answer? Is that all right? We'll identify themselves. Hi, this is Jim Shallow. Managing director at Audubon. Yes, they're not necessarily the registry. We do have the site up and running with extension. We have several producers who have taken the pledge to follow these practices and brought through the scorecard process. What we're really aiming here to do is create sort of that stamp of approval so that when the consumer and others hear about this, they know that it's legit. So that's what we're aiming for here. Are pollinators active in the light? Some of them aren't. Moths, do you think, you know, when you flip that light on in your back porch and get those moths on, many plants are, you know, they have adapted to be pollinated by moths? I'm just curious. I was going through the draft that may reference the bats. Yes. It got me thinking, the failing population of bats, has that been positive for pollinators? Because is that a... I thought you'd have to... I'm going to decline Dan. That's fine if you want. It's how quickly I can go into the weeds. I don't have flowers on them, or I'll just look at them. My next question was whether there was any discussion of fencing in large mesh? Yes. There has been discussion of fencing. Is that a shut up? No. No, no. We just discussed it a little bit. You could have temporary fencing in terms of trying to get your plantings going. That's kind of where we were just discussing it. And then I also did have... Did someone else want to... Jim, do you want to talk about fencing? Other fencing around the whole... Many are fenced. Areas require fencing? Yes. So much of this is site-specific. As part of the reason we have this scorecard because we recognize that there are different conditions that we need to be met under permits or whatever. So, that vegetarian management plan, we look at that, and that's one of the reasons one might look on Minnesota and some of the other states that have done this. We've been trying to be intentional about thinking about the buffering and some of the arrays so that they are planted in a way that's beneficial for the palm-eaters. They have birds because many times they will just scream out with cedars. And, you know, the cedars have some benefit, but it's pretty limited. So, in areas in the state where we have fairly rare birds that are using this short habitat, we have a great opportunity to use some of those buffers as a way of making sense. So, incorporating that into fencing is something we want to be able to do but as far as metal fencing, there's no discussion or requirement or preference. We actually don't into that. Bob? Is there anything that restricts this now? No, there isn't. I mean, that's what we were talking about, but this provides a standard that then can be used. You get credit for... Correct. You can tell people that you've done something legit. You have solar and you have pollinators. Just on your own claiming it. A third party basically verifies that, yes, indeed, this is pollinator friendly. Thank you. This is going to be intriguing. Great. Thank you. That's in the beat. There you go. This is H-476. Is that even possible? Well, 746. I mean, 746. Can I say 100? Hi, I'm Representative Mary Sullivan. I'm the lead sponsor of this piece of legislation. And it's a short, straightforward bill. I won't call it a simple bill, but I think all of us... I mean, I think it's important to accept that the fossil fuel age is coming to an end. And I think it's incumbent upon us as legislators to help guide this so it doesn't really destroy our economy and that we don't leave people in the future with costs that we've spent today that stretch out for 30 years. And so this would ban the building of fossil fuel infrastructure and when I worked at Burlington Electric Department before I came back here, it seemed like one day I had never heard of heat pumps of... and then I never stopped hearing about them. The people are really buying them, using them. The technology is really coming forward and really moving strong. And people seem to have a commitment of trying to move away from fossil fuel. So this would prevent the building of fossil fuel infrastructure in the state for all the ones that we have control over. Obviously FERC preempts us in certain areas and that's government, so we kind of control of that. I really hope you'll look at this bill seriously. I think it's important for us to kind of guide our economy in the future as we move forward and during this time of transition and this time of change. I haven't had a chance to adjust what I described. So I understand the pipeline part of it. In Rutland there's a process that's registered in Natural Gas Island where there's supply of trucks. But then there's infrastructure developed within a certain area of the commercial area. Would that be covered? I think it would be wise to ask the legislative council that question about it completely. So how would we get around some of these mortgage programs? For instance in St. Albans in a neighborhood that has natural gas that runs through it. When I was going to one of my first-time homebuyer loans I had hooked up to natural gas. It was a requirement of the loan. So building a pipeline even though it was 20 feet from next to the road to my house is building fossil fuel infrastructure. How we thought about what the consequence would be because a lot of these mortgage programs are federal mortgage programs and we'd be potentially making home ownership unobtainable for younger vermoners or... I think we run them looking back we have to think of how we build out into the future. I think people at this point are thinking of removing what is in the ground and that pipe is in the ground but expanding it at this time I just don't think... So expanding the pipe from the road to my house 20 feet so you wouldn't consider that to grow? Expanding it from to another town. Another question? That was quick. Look at what I've got. Thanks very much. Well, I'm still reading the bill so I'm not sure what questions I have at this time. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. My own committee. At least part of it still. Good morning. My name is Patrick Sutton. I'm here this morning on behalf of 350 Vermont which is an organization that through grassroots strives to combat climate change. Can I ask the committee first how much time are you playing for here? Minus. We're coming close to this point. I thought we were going to do... I can be very brief I think. I want to keep you from lunch. I think we can go through your testimony first and we'll worry about lunch second. If you can keep the content but make it brief, that would be okay too. I'm sorry I don't have electronic testimony for you this morning. I've been out of the building too much I guess. But there is type testimony over there. I want to thank Representative Sullivan and the co-sponsors for putting this important bill before you. I was going to say more flowery and eloquent things this morning that I will skip in the interest of time. But the reality is you all know as well as we do that. Climate change is not just coming. Climate change is here. We see it at the national level in Vermont. Americans are dying in mudslides. When did we ever expect to see this kind of thing happen? The cost for the natural disasters in the last year I've read recently was $300 billion in this country alone. Where is that money coming from in the future? And the problem is we are only at the beginning of this as you all know. A trouble with irregular weather irregular snowfall, irregular weather for farming and believe it or not we are still paying for a tropical storm Irene. I was the commissioner of mental health the year after that storm and we thought we had come up with a system that would replace the old one and what we didn't appreciate it turns out is just how much of a shock to our mental health system that flood was. And so here we are six years later and the governor is talking about building more mental health. The point is obvious that the price we are going to pay for climate change is enormous and it's happening now. It is only going to get worse. So we believe this bill makes a very important statement. It basically puts a stake in the ground and says we are not going back we are only going forward that we need to move faster than ever towards 100% renewables. And you know it was very interesting to hear testimony earlier in the day from the folks from the House of Conservation Board did the housing people talk about what everything they are doing for getting heat pumps into their buildings and thermal energy and all that. That's great. That's what we should be doing. That's what we should be investing in. That's the economic development that this state should be focused on not more fossil fuels. I have to say that this is a change that we can make that makes again a very strong statement and it doesn't involve raising anybody's taxes. It's you know there's a lot of other issues that we are going to have to pay for this one doesn't. And I would also argue that this bill is not unlike the bill that the legislature passed some years ago I think five or six years ago to Ban Frackings in Vermont. It's the same idea. We know it's harmful we know there's no good side to it for us why don't we just stop why don't we say no and continue to do the more positive work on renewables. Obviously the focus in the bill when you get to read it and study it a little bit the focus in the bill is large infrastructure projects to representative Karen this question I actually think the bill exempts what you were talking about if the pipeline is there and you're building a house an extension to your house is permitted. I think we're trying to recognize that we don't need to disrupt our current systems and our current structure that much but we just need to do a stop expanding what we need to make that decision and go forward otherwise. But I think you know the point is as representative Sullivan said this is a short bill it's not a simple bill. There are some complications as you start to think about how would this actually work what is your real definition of infrastructure and we think that's a great opportunity for this committee to talk those things through and make the decision that's best for the monitors. So we very much would like the committee to take additional testimony there's tremendous interest in this bill in the state one thing 350 Vermont has done is started a town meeting day resolution campaign along the same lines basically making the same point we have 38 times where this question is going to be either on the ballot or on the warning. I think that and that was with only a few months worth of work so I think there's tremendous interest out there the fact that you have so many people in the room today tells you that there's strong interest and frankly if we wanted to there would have been 50 people in the room which I don't think makes any sense right now but some of you may have we can only get to mid 30s some of you may have heard from your constituents already about this bill I predict you that you're going to hear more there is broad based widespread support for this bill and just making the statement that we're not going back we're going forward and the time has come. Warren. So we have a bill presentation on Burlington electric and district heat and I believe a large percentage of that would come from that full gas and I don't know if that might require a bigger pipe to go to Burlington Electric if it needs a bigger pipe to get there would that be increasing the infrastructure The best thing I can give you right now is that that's what we need to flush out in the legislative process you know you probably get 5 or 6 different answers in this room if we asked everybody what the rate of course would be but it's really of course it's always up to you to decide what the definition is and what the provisions would be and so you know from my perspective I would probably say no but to the degree that it's really just taking advantage of existing infrastructure then why not and so I'm not prepared to answer your question but you can tell it this time I mean the argument could be made since just about all of Burlington is natural gas the fact that they're switching over to this co-generation biomass they would be overall reducing the amount of natural gas because they're going to get a lot of heat from bio but it may require additional infrastructure if they need to fire up another boiler for it so I I think it's a great question and we can look into some more of the bill talks about repair and maintenance of existing systems being permitted so the question is where does that fall in the debate but thank you great question thanks to you so you know the final points that I would just like to make is that the time really has come you know I had the good fortune yesterday to go across country skiing it was a beautiful day I'm sure you were all here working very hard without skiing beautiful winter day in Vermont blue sky sunny six inches of new snow I can't and I had a great time but I can't every time I go out to my door and do that I can't help but think my kids are not going to see as many of these days and my grandchildren the day may come when they're not going to see any of those days that's what's happening with climate change that's the human impact part of it never mind the huge cost that we're facing which is coming at us like a freight train and we are not ready for it Vermont has done great things but we have not even kept up with our own goals in reducing carbon in this state no matter what we've done we have to do more I think this sends an incredibly strong message to everybody who's involved that we're committed and we're not going back thank you very much if you have the time I'd like to ask Rachel Smoker to come up and just start for a couple of minutes about the current dangers and the current problems with our current system I've got a question for you this is more of a comment I guess and one of the economic benefits I actually see from this is the fact that any build out beyond what is currently been approved has the potential of stranding costs which are subsidized by repairs and because the infrastructure is advertised over many many years decades and if the demand for the fossil fuels decreases as a result of renewable energy and energy transformation then those costs can't be recovered in the future so it's an excellent point you know once we build the pipeline it's there for 30 years and it will get used and people will use it because of the investment so I think your point is well taken would it be alright to ask do you have any other questions here first yes please do Rachel I'm feeling some combination of low blood sugar and low oxygen in the room here it's okay high temperatures wouldn't help yet again not to but I'm Rachel Smoker I'm co-director of an organization called Biofuel Watch that works on land climate issues mostly at the international level and in the state of Vermont most of the work that I've been doing recently has been focused on the pipeline the gas pipeline that Vermont gas is building through the state that I know you're all well aware of and obviously this bill would among other things put the kibosh on further expansion of that pipeline and we know that ultimately that was meant to go down to Rutland we picked up across the lake to the IP paper plant and also we know that in the industry bigger vision this was ultimately aiming towards export markets and that's where the natural gas industry is looking and Vermont is really viewed as being something of an energy corridor for getting gas and energy through to places like New York City and so on and beyond and also linking into some of the other big infrastructure that's already in place in the New Orleans states and one of the things you know I think we've already heard a lot about the concerns about fossil fuel infrastructure build out in terms of climate and what it means for our children what it means for our grandchildren but there are also some very much more immediate dangers and risks to fossil fuel infrastructure we can look at what happened in San Bruno some years ago when the P, I believe it was in a pipeline exploded 38 homes were destroyed and 8 people were killed we can look at what happened in Southern California this past summer where a pipeline well actually was leaking and contaminating communities all around here in Vermont we're actually facing the same thing we have dug into the construction of this Addison natural gas pipeline in great detail with multiple public records requests and intervening before the public utilities commission on several different fronts and what we have learned is that the construction of this pipeline has been reckless just to put it mildly I'm not going to go into all the details of everything we've found because everything is still in process but looking at the records from that we do have we know that Vermont Gas has gone before the public utilities commission recently and said oops we didn't bury the pipeline deep enough in a swamp in New Haven now the only reason they went and admitted to the shallow burial in that location we believe is because Lawrence Shelton who is sitting here took some photos of the pipeline sitting just a few inches below the surface knowing that under the Velco wires which introduces a corrosion risk the pipeline was supposed to be buried four foot deep we delivered that to PIMSA to the federal authorities along with a whole list of concerns that we had about the lack of comprehensive written specifications for the contractors to follow about issues with not having proper qualified workers on site and a whole list of other things that we delivered to PIMSA and PIMSA came to the state and responded to our concerns and opened an investigation and just very recently they reported back to the state on what they had found from their investigation Vermont got zero out of four points in their review of compliance and following through on regulatory actions for the oversight of construction of this pipeline in our state could you tell us what PIMSA is oh sorry pipeline hazardous material safety administration so that's the federal pipeline regulatory and oversight body now PIMSA says how long would you question Mike? that was my question among other things we have we've intervened in this case on the shallow burial we have brought to the attention of the public utilities commission that the depth of burial issue is very closely tied to the issue of whether there were proper supports put under the pipeline as required by the specifications both the federal specifications and the state certificate of public good the state required much higher standards than the federal standards the certificate of public good was meant to enhance the federal standards are considered minimum the absolute bare minimum you must abide by and the state of Vermont required something much more stringent than that that certificate of public good has been not honored as it should have been let's just say so we have brought into the whole equation the issue of lack of padding and support under the pipeline that in certain locations they forgot to put the padding in in this swamp they couldn't really it was too mucky and oozy but padding and support and under the pipeline the pipeline there are very specific specifications how that's supposed to be done sand around the pipeline it has to be compacted you can imagine you're putting a pipeline in the trench and there's what's under the pipeline there's what's up around the sides of the pipeline and there's what's over the pipeline and we know that those were not followed we know that they essentially changed the specifications in 2016 construction had been going on for quite a while already some inspector said hey you're not supposed to put the pipeline directly on the bottom of the trench and they were responded saying oh yeah we can do that that's part of what we're allowed to do and you know actually you're not allowed to do that what does that tell us that prior to the time that that inspector stepped up to the ball they had been laying it on the bottom of the trench without this adds considerably to the corrosion risks for the pipeline and ultimately the major source of problems with pipelines exploding and leaking comes from risks of corrosion which can be introduced from various different things so who does the inspections it depends what you're inspecting so there are inspections that the contractor is responsible they hire an inspection company to come in and do inspections the Department of Public Service does some inspections and so on so there's a lot of complexity to that I can't just give you so in the areas where it wasn't very deep enough what has the Public Utilities Commission come back with the Public Utilities Commission thank you for asking that has come back opening an investigation an independent investigation into the depth of burial in that swamp which we are a very good reason to think it's not the only place that there's problems but also under streams because in the initial certificate of public good you know these there are many many different testimonies and pieces to how that whole process Act 248 process went through but among them was that under streams with fluvial erosion hazard they would go using horizontal drilling under certain numbers of streams in open trench crossings they would go under the bottom of the stream bed at 7 foot depth below the bottom of the stream bed and this is to protect against erosion from flooding but as time went on fewer and fewer streams were qualified for this 7 foot of burial and in the end we are seeing that in some of the open trench crossings they achieved 5 foot of cover and they are saying we only had to do 3 because that was the PIMS federal minimum requirement so there's a lot more complexity to that than I'm conveying very quickly but again the erosion if I can be punny of the initial intent and of how streams were going to be crossed and it was it was and so that has a result that's part of this independent survey that the PUC has asked for is under stream beds as well as in this small area and one have they projected that that will be completed that inspection it is out a request for bidding or contract whatever the term is and I believe that that period just closed which means they maybe have already contracted it but my guess is that they are waiting for the weather to be more amenable for that to happen and we are trying now to push this case further open so there's the issues of shallow depth in this one area maybe it's other areas maybe it's streams also how about the issue of padding and support under and around and what kind of what places we know for example they told us that they installed canusas leaves which are a cover that you use to repair coating damage over the welds and they had problems with those and they had 260 that they dug out and 66 that were already buried and are still remaining there we know that anyway there's a lot of different issues they had lack of records about what coatings have been used on the pipe in certain areas and that again is it's buried you know this in the ground and now it's a matter of going back and it's unfortunate that this is happening at this late stage but you know the thing about this is that this pipeline is passing through people's yards and it's passing through our communities it's passing through the public park in heinsberg it's passing through areas and in towns where it's close to schools it's passing through my friend Jane who's here with us today through her yard just a couple hundred feet in what is defined as the incineration zone and people are faced with eminent domain have these pipelines come through their property and I'll bet you that 99.9% of them have not a clue about the ways in which the construction of this pipeline did not comply was not done properly and this is sitting now in their back yards and they don't know it they don't even know what's happening maybe it's it's a little better that they don't so they don't you know lie awake at night but this is another additional part of the build out of fossil fuel infrastructure that is very real for people who live close to it and we have one more question do you happen to have the number of the investigation or of the yes I can get it or we can find it really quickly it's 173550 I think I have it on my computer I'll get it I'll get it I need a question Mr. Bailey thank you very much you for talking quickly and Patrick for giving up on his time thank you very much thank you all for coming thank you all for coming I just want to make a comment for the record that the pipeline does pass through the properties of some of my constituents in Heinsberg I know they are concerned about the potential of liability okay thank you what do you think of it