 Good afternoon. Welcome to the Vermont Legislature's House Committee on Environment and Energy. This afternoon we are welcoming the Vermont Housing Conservation Coalition members. Welcome, Lauren. Thank you. Thanks for having us all here today. Good afternoon. We are excited to talk about the opportunity. We're excited for the opportunity to speak with you all about the importance of natural and working lands in Vermont and the critical role that BHCB's, BHCB, the Vermont Housing Conservation Board plays in funding this critical work. For the record, I am Lauren Oates, the Director of Government Relations and Policy with the Nature Conservancy, but I am here today as a co-chair of the Vermont Housing and Conservation Coalition. BHCB is a group of about 50 organizations in the state working in your communities and elsewhere throughout the state, the four corners, and we use BHCB funds to allocate each year to create housing and to conserve land with the goals of improving the lives of Vermonters and strengthening our communities and natural resources that support them. Protecting the permanent affordability of housing and land together is what makes BHCB unique. The Coalition is asking the General Assembly to support full statutory funding for BHCB, which is 27.8 million and FY24, not just to address today's urgent needs, but for the sustainability of this essential entity and its focus on permanent affordability. Today, I am joined by five other Vermonters who have been touched by the work of BHCB and have their own life experiences as farmers, as leaders, as members of their communities to share with you. With that, I'm going to go ahead and step aside and introduce the witnesses so they can tell you why they are here and what BHCB needs to know them. First up will be Pat Maynard with Hinesburg Town Forest. Then John Benhammer will join us from the Nature Conservancy, those with a little bit like Kaluzha, I'm going to be here with me. Linda Martin with the town of Wilkett, Kate Wenner at the Trust for Public Land, and then we'll wrap with Will Dwayne from the Department of Fish and Wildlife. Thank you. I'm going to run the Zoom so I'm going to pull your presentation up and you just let me know when to slide you. Okay, you can start the first slide anytime. Thank you for having me here. My name is Pat Maynard. I'm currently chair of the Hinesburg Town Forest Committee. I've been on the Town Forest Committee since Moses was a baby in the early 80s. I'm going to tell you how the Land Trust and the Vermont Housing and Conservation Board has enabled the town of Hinesburg to add 291 acres to our original town forest and conserve the whole 1100, 11,025 acres for perpetuity. That's what this came about and why it makes a difference to Hinesburg's population, the surrounding area, the state of Vermont, and the health of the planet. And thank you for giving me this opportunity. In 2010, the select board told the town forest committee to write a new management plan for our town forest. That was a two year process in our with lots of public input. In our final draft, one of the goals was to look into conserving the HTF. What we discovered when we looked into it was that there was no way on earth we could conserve the forest with our $1,500 a year budget. We kept that goal in the back of our minds. In the winter of 2018 we completed a forest management also known as logging project that enabled us to set aside $20,000 as the start of a fund to conserve the HTF. It was a nice start, but we couldn't even see the finish line. We were very uncertain whether we'd ever ever be able to conserve the town forest. Then a few years later, an opportunity came along, and a joining landowner was ready to sell. And some of the members of that family wanted their money sooner rather than later. Some members of the family were at least partly interested in conserving the land. Others so much. BLT did delicate negotiations with the family and ultimately in private. Now that was all behind the scenes and ultimately came up with a plan that would be able hopefully to allow Hinesburg to acquire the new land and conserve the whole thing. Next slide. I don't know what I don't know what you're looking at. This is our budget. What I want to point out to you is how important the Vermont Housing and Conservation Board money was to the project. BLT was able to come up with some money from their forest land fund to help us. We had our 20 grand and there's we go to the next slide. Thank you. And then finally, they were able to help us. Bob Heiser was an incredible help because he had the expertise that knew he knew what had to be done and how to do it, and very carefully guided us along the way with what we had to do. We never could have done it without him. I had no idea what a complicated and detailed process conservation is. I mean, BLT has literally walked every square foot of land. And Freeman of the Vermont Housing and Conservation Board brave black flies to come to a site visit on the land. She said the project was self-explanatory. And in June, the Vermont Housing and Conservation Board approved their contribution and soon after BLT did. We had our 20 grand that we had set aside long before. So we were able to fundraise. The site is really important to be partly because of its location. It's on the eastern edge of Hindsburg and south on the eastern edge and a little bit of Starksboro is the Fred Johnson wildlife management area. Then this project connects that and ultimately sleepy hollow ski and bike area north of us isn't conserved but is in fact a good area for wildlife and makes a wildlife corridor. It's an important connection in kind of the area between the Champlain Valley and the Green Mountains, the foothills of the Green Mountains, which made it kind of special. Everybody likes clean water. I guess this morning you spent some time listening to people talk about the lake of this project protects 3.5 miles of upland streams that ultimately flow into Lake Champlain slide. The project provides connected land just not for wildlife and water quality for also for recreation. There are about 15 miles of trails in the town forest right now, including a vast trail. And those those trails connect to at least miles of trails in the area. The project provides land for productive and sustainable forest management, providing forest products are town hall name hall floor came from our town forest. And the ability to improve the resiliency of the forest with good forest management. So that's important. And has been a location for numerous collaborations with local schools and colleges so it's an important educational place and our county forest or Ethan pepper regularly conducts educational blocks there. There are rental pools on the property and some patches of dry oak forest, which is uncommon in Vermont. Next slide. The forest stores carbon and certainly contributes to the physical and mental health of all who use it, and quite a few people use it fundraising was a lot of work and went well. People were really generous in giving because the project match their goals for the forest all it provides and what they want for the future. In February 22, all the documents were signed and the community celebrated. Next slide. So urbanization and sub urbanization, roaring along in chipman county generations will now have the opportunity to enjoy and benefit from undeveloped land and its resources. This would not have happened. I'm sure it wouldn't have happened without the HCB and BLT working together, providing leadership and funding. Please support both these organizations so they can continue their important work. Please fully fund the HCB at its full statue. I'm like Heather now. The statutory share of roughly 27.8 million fiscal year 24 current and future generations. Thank you as I do today. What questions do you have. Do members have questions. Just a quick one. How long did this process take from the concept of delivery. I could check with Bob I would say about two years. You know, originally I heard rumors that this family was interested in selling, and then I heard well BLT is talking to them. Well maybe it won't fly. So, you know, I don't know exactly when it started, but probably sometime in 2020 that fair to say Bob. Representative Tory. Thank you very much for sharing your story. It's inspirational. I was wondering about the family with the contiguous landowner. You mentioned that some of the family members had a need for access to the value was how did how did that need getting met. Okay, I'm not privy to all the details of the negotiations but ultimately, one family member bought out the other family and conserved part of what you bought. Yeah, because it seems like. Yeah, I know it was tricky. I was windows could be. Yeah, right. Yeah. And I wasn't privy to the delicate negotiations but it happened. And everybody was happy. Yeah, representative seven. Thanks, Senator. Not a question just a thank you. It takes a lot of time to volunteer and make a difference and I appreciate you doing that for Heinsberg. Well, we were so lucky to have BLT and the HCP on our side. We're so lucky to have we have to tap our both are very different. Thank you so much for sharing that and yeah, for your work is it is inspirational. So thank you. I do have handouts I think you all received it electronically but anybody is more comfortable with paper handouts. Thank you. Thank you very much for listening and for your work. Good afternoon. My name is John Ben Howard. I'm the protection director of the nature conservancy. And I'm pleased to be here with you today sharing this really. Jewel in the crown project that I've been so proud to be a part of with nature conservancy. I'm a constituent of representative said quotes. And I have been with the nature conservancy for quite a long time and I've done quite a bit of work with the HCP and so I wanted to bring this to you today. The Albert Dunes State Park was established in 1996 by the nature conservancy and the state of Vermont. We had the fortune of being able to have an addition to stay park. In the last couple of years. Next slide. So, the work we're calling the addition Albert Bluffs, and it's almost a mile of frontage on Lake Champlain, with half wetland and half upland. And this map on the right here shows you where the property lies in relation to Albert Dunes State Park. And a lot of people don't even know that they're dunes in Vermont, but there are dunes on Lake Champlain. It's one of our little claims to fame up there and in Grand Isle County. And it's just a spectacular state park that is used by residents of that area and all over the state. It's the largest sand beach in the state. And this, this partial parcel of this addition adds to the splendor of the place, as you can, as you can see with some of the photos I'm going to show you. Next slide please. So, so this is a picture of the wetlands. Some of the wetlands on the property, some of them are swamps, some of them are marshes. We, we got funding from the waterfowl stamp committee as part of this project. Next slide please. This is what would have happened to the property had we not stepped in so this was the subdivision plan that was filed, but quite a long time ago, spaghetti lots, 16 lots that we eventually purchased purchased all 16 of those spaghetti lots. And the cost was $1.1 million, which actually, you know, we've acquired the property just a couple of years ago. And I'm imagining that would have at least been half again as expensive now as it was then. So, hoping it's each of those spaghetti lots about their each 10 acres. Yeah. So that was, that was done a while ago. That was done a while ago by the, by the landowner. And, and it was in an estate for 20 years. And finally, the probate judge said, I'm tired of this being in the estate. You have a new state administrator, and you have six months to sell the property so we scrambled to get an appraisal to do all of our due diligence to be able to, to make this deal work more like elbow macaroni. Next slide please. Oh yeah, just for the committee, just this was the classic spaghetti lot. This is this relates to the 10 acre loophole and that used to was finally closed but also the font the font and watch within five years within five miles of 10 acres and more so all the lots were 10.1 acres in order to get around that requirement. So this is the classic spaghetti lot that we used to get from the old people. They were all over the place. I was going to ask him. It relates to that section and statue. There was a way to get around. Thank you. Important to remember. Yes. Next slide please. So these are just pretty some pretty pictures of the place. And I encourage you to go up there next slide please. A little bit of beach on this property as well. Next slide please. In a delay. Yeah, there's there's the beach, a little piece of beach. There's a number of different rare plants here we'll get to that in a minute. Quite a bit of French, as I said on like, next slide please. And so what what really amazed us when when we did an ecological inventory of the property we found 16 natural communities and all these rare species. We had no idea that there was that kind of diversity on the project. Next slide please. So here was a very rough budget for your. It was much longer, much longer budget but but this was this shows what VHCB investment did for this property. I mean this is really a jewel in the crown for the state of Vermont. And will be a spectacular resource for the state of Vermont forever and VHCB investment just under half a million dollars leveraged this very large grant from the Land and Water Conservation Fund, which is a federal fund. And we were able to make this deal happen with with those monies and then also we did quite a bit of fundraising, as well. With that, if anyone has questions, they have to answer them. I don't know if you know this but the Land and Water Conservation Fund. Are we fully accessing our share of that. And do you do it mostly through VHCB matches or. Yeah, so I don't have a full understanding of LWCF but LWCF stateside is there's a fund for state plan projects. They have to be matched at 50%. Vice with state funds. And so that's what makes it really critical to have VHCB funding, because if you can't come up with that match either through fundraising or through, you know, some other source. It's very difficult to get these projects to work. And that funds national parks and, you know, those kinds of acquisitions as well and those are at a different, those are at 90% or 100%. Yeah, I'll just add that Congress just fully funded LWCF like the year or two ago. Yeah, correct. Great. Well, thanks for sharing that project. Now we're all going to have to go visit and absolutely. Very cool. Thank you. Representative Morris. Just to clarify here LWCF. Is that a federal program? Yes, yes, it's Land and Water Conservation Fund. It's funded by offshore oil lease revenues. And, yeah, so, and those are continuing revenues over and on. My people are fine. It's revenues from those leases. So the companies pay into a fund, the lease fund, and those lease go toward this Land and Water Conservation Fund. And it was a way to kind of make make it palatable to have offshore leases and have the money going towards something that's permanent conservation. Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you. Good afternoon. Good afternoon. My name is Linda Martin. I'm a former state representative for 12 years and I've also served in Wulcott Town government for 37 years as town for treasure and now I am chair of the Wulcott Select Board. And thank you for allowing me to this opportunity to speak about what a profound opportunity having our own town forest will be for our community. The idea for why I wanted to serve on the slight board was to bring a sense of community to our town that was lacking. And the idea of having a community forest has achieved that in so many ways. I come here today to bring the human side to what state funding to the Vermont Housing Conservation Board does for people of Vermont. And I want to thank all of you for your time and calls for the creation of a town forest because our planners have seen how important a town force has been to quality in life in Vermont and across the state. During COVID the Wulcott Elementary School started holding outdoor classrooms. They reached out to the select board to see if we would support obtaining land near the school for town forest. And they're outdoor education program and use the forest as an outdoor classroom year round. Where kids could develop an interest in science and math through nature and also set up a pattern for an active and healthy lifestyle. Research has shown that school performance increases when children learn outdoors. And that increases students' physical, mental and social health and supports emotional behavior and intellectual development. For over a year and a half we have been working with the trust for public land to purchase two properties totaling 735 acres in the center of our community adjacent to elementary school and the Memorial Valley Railroad. When we held our town vote to purchase the land, more people came out in support of the idea than we see at town meeting. A recent grant from Borek is helping to create a professionally built network within the future community forest creating an exciting recreational asset that will be complementing the Memorial Valley Rail Trail and propose Velmont Trail. The grant will establish a new five mile multi-use trail network providing multi-generational accessible outdoor opportunities for all ages and abilities while protecting the natural resources found on the property. It will also be used to create a trail from the school providing safe passage between the Wulcott recreation field and the rail trail. This will allow a safe passage for students to reach after school, sports events, the library or rail trail and removing the need to travel by car. As I mentioned this land is close to the center of our community. It is our hope that it will be a boom to the quality of life in Wulcott and help attract new citizens and businesses. It will also contribute to the health of our citizens by providing close to home destination outdoor recreation. Having protected areas within walking or biking distance reduces car travel, air pollution, greenhouse gas emissions and accidents that are a byproduct of driving. The project protects 29 acres of significant wetlands, 4.7 miles of headwater streams and direct frontage on the Elmore Branch and the LaMoyle River. Providing long-term protection to the river corridor and encouraging the reestablishment of flood plain vegetation will help prevent future infrastructure damage and allow the river to flood and move as it was designated to design to do. Excuse me this will increase flood resiliency in the village provide important aquatic habitat and support water quality in the LaMoyle River. The property also contains a portion of a groundwater source protection area near the elementary school and nearly 11 acres of the 100 year flood plain associated with the Elmore Branch and LaMoyle River. The Wulcott Community Forest Project will also limit future forest fragmentation, which is an extreme stressor in the LaMoyle River watershed given the high development pressure. The property provides a rich and diverse habitat for a multitude of species and the proposed project will benefit many of the state wildlife action plans, wide ranging and forest dwelling species of greatest conservation need such as moose, otter and bobcat. The property acts as a stepping stone for wildlife between the core forest of Elmore State Park, CC Putnam State Forest and the East Hill Wildlife Management Area. The primary threats to the viability of these species are habitat losses through fragmentation, degradation and conversion. With elevations ranging from 670 feet along the LaMoyle River to 1225 feet the property allows species to move up the elevational gradient as the climate changes. In a state with a significant amount of our protected land at high elevations conservation of these lower elevation forests are a priority. The Wulcott is also in the middle of trying to create a community wastewater system, which in the past has limited growth in our village center. After analysis of a suitable area was determined that some of the school property would be the best place for a wastewater dispersal field, but would require a force main through the adjoining property. The adjoining property is part of what will become the community forest. So the forest can also help make possible new wastewater capability capacity, which will spur needed economic development and additional housing in our village center. We're also thrilled that this project is what DHCB considers a dual goal project. Not only will it conserve more than 700 acres of important forest land, but trust for public land is also working with the LaMoyle County Habitat for humanity to create affordable housing less than a quarter of a mile from the elementary school in the center of town. Not only will this provide two families with an affordable place to live near a school and adjacent to a community forest and all its amenities, but also give high school services at Green Mountain Technology and Career Center real work skills and hands on experience in house construction, setting them up for a good paying job that is in high demand. Funds from DHCB are an essential part of the other state and private funds raised for this project totaling over $1.6 million. DHCB's investment of $563,000 leveraged three to one by other funding will result in new recreation opportunities, improved community health and enrich the quality of life in our community. So today I'm asking to please fund DHCB at its full statutory share of $2.8 million so other communities have the opportunity to improve their quality of life too. Thank you. Thank you. Great story. So many aspects of it that are coming to play. Any questions for Linda representative Sebelia. Just clarification. I'm not sure that I've heard the number correct. I heard. Hello, Linda. I heard you just talk about the full statutory amount being 2.8. And I thought I had heard that I had heard a much larger number. You heard what I thought I had heard. Yeah. 27. Yeah. It's 27. Yeah. Okay. I say wrong. That's all right. I just wanted to make sure that we know the amount. So, okay. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. I'm Kate Wanner, senior project manager with the trust for public lands working with communities like we'll get to create the town forest. That you just heard about and as well working with the state that you'll hear about in a second. I've been working in the last 18 years with trust public land to help conserve forests all around Vermont. You may have heard of some of our work. Jim Jeffords State Forest in Rutland County, North Branch Park right here in my pillar catamount community forest in Williston, but you may not be aware of trust public lands work on a national level around conservation economics. As we discussed the value of full VHB funding, as well as you bring each one to six forward. I thought it would be helpful for you to hear a little about some research we did a few years ago with the Vermont forest partnership on return on investment of VHB funding. So the trust public lands conservation economics team helps the public government agencies and elected officials understand the measurable economic impact of conservation. Over the past 15 years, we have helped 16 different states look at the return on investment of their direct state dollars that was invested in conservation. Across those 16 states we have found that each dollar of state investment in land conservation has returned between four to $11 in natural goods and services. So in order to calculate the return on states investments in land conservation we first had to define what we meant by state investment and then identify where those investments were made. For the purposes of this study, we looked at VHB funding, the river corridor easement program, the duck stamp fund, long trails fund. The vast majority of that was VHB funding. So we did this study in 2018 so we looked at the data from 1988 when VHB started through 2016. And during that time, 315,000 acres were permanently conserved using $95.4 million of state funds. So this was leveraged significantly by other federal private and other state funds. But it was an average cost of $303 per acre of VHB or duck stamp or long trail funds. So that was that was the investment. And then to get at the return. Oh, do you have the charts. Yeah, okay. To get at the return we needed to understand the land cover types of each acre that that funding conserved so various land cover types is just forest wetlands or pasture provide different values of natural goods and services. So once we understood exactly which acres have been protected by those state dollars and what type of land cover that were conserved we then turn to the scientific literature and academics to understand the natural goods that these lands provide and what their value was. So we were trying to look at the annual value of each acre of forest land pasture land wetland etc. So as an example for deciduous forest, the natural goods and services that we included were air pollution removal, carbon sequestration, carbon storage and erosion control or water quality. And this is for an average, and this is in 2018 dollars. So it would be much higher now. So, in an acre of deciduous forest, those natural goods and services provide $180 every year per acre. And then give the chart with the other one. So the different types of land cover so wetlands would provide a very different like flood resiliency and that actually ended up being like $540 per acre wetlands. So the state has also provided other natural goods and services such as wildlife habitat related benefits, but the per acre value of this benefit has not yet been measured in the literature and thus we were unable to include in the analysis. So that's an example of how this return on investment is very conservative. We invested 95.4 million in land conservation. After ingesting for inflation over that time that means the state invested about 227 million in 2018 dollars. We know that this investment protected 350,000 acres. And by looking at the value of the ecological services that each of those acres provided. We found that that was providing $2.23 billion in economic value in the forms of natural goods and services. So that ended up being on a ratio of nine to one so for every dollar that the should be spent. You got $9 of ecological services in return over time. So I'm going to just interrupt you for a second for finding myself a little distracted looking for this table under your name do we have this one Lauren, or did you look somewhere else for it. There's a category says tables. I know it's the last one in the tables. Yeah, thank you. This table in on our page, but I think I represent Stevens just found it for me and the full the full report should be in there too, which is going to draw the attention members attention to that. You've brought us a lot of great information. And, and, you know, we have not updated it to 2023, but the, the general gist of it is still very relevant for all the past the should be investments that have been in the past and that the ecological services that they are still providing, and will provide much forever for them honors. So this is looks at the different types of land cover type and how many dollars per acre of ecological services they are providing to all of us. So the nine to one ratio is for ecological services only. So as you all know, in addition to providing natural business services land conservation also supports several important economic sectors in Vermont and jobs across the state, such as our working landscape tourism and outdoor recreation industries which is more than $1.5 billion annually. Additionally, the information necessary to isolate the direct contribution of conservation land to forestry ag and outdoor rec was not available across Vermont so we couldn't incorporate into ROI. There are some isolated studies so for example, you know the benefits the Kingdom trails bring to East Burke. And they did an analysis here where I live in Warren of the blueberry lake trails at $1.5 million to the valley from the folks that come to the blueberry lake trails but we weren't able to kind of extrapolate that across every type of conservation so we weren't able to include that. So as Linda mentioned, as you know, access to conserve land and parks and trails can also help a community meet health goals and reduce medical costs, increased access to outdoor spaces encourages people to exercise more and reduces healthcare costs, related to the and associated chronic diseases such as diabetes, increased exposure to the outdoors can also lead to long term mental health improvements and new research is finding that conservation that can decrease risk of tick board illnesses such as disease. So again I want to emphasize that all of those health benefits are not included in this ROI so the ROI of nine to one is just very glad to serve and it would be much, much more if we were able to calculate all these additional benefits. All to say I hope you support full statutory funding for each be at 27.8 million, which based on our analysis will return over time $250 million of services. That's another number that we might just have you say one more time slow. So I hope you support full statutory funding of $27.8 million, which at a minimum turn $250 million of ecosystem services for the conservation lands purchased with those things. Thank you very much. And I'm happy to also answer any questions about we'll get or about other people that will. Great. And I just also want to draw members attention. Kate mentioned this at the beginning that, you know, this is related to our conversations we've been having on each 126 and we talked about having her in on that, giving us all of that background information now. And I'm going to put you on the spot a little bit of questions related to that is a great chance to ask them. You've got lots to read over the weekend. It's all here now. Thank you for your testimony. Okay, representative Morris. Thank you, thank you. What my question is, is the land and we're seeing several different properties today are regions that recovered. Are that is that considered permanently conserved. One's in our study. Yes, these are all permanent conservation through either easements or direct fee like land acquisition that use state funds. So development is not possible. Right. Representative Smith and Tori shoreline. If it's preserved or voters allowed to pull their boats and picnic there and do things like that. Yeah, I think it all depends on the different regulations through DC I know that there's different rules for different size lakes and different shorelines so I'm not an expert and I'm afraid I don't know how much you know about shorelines. Sorry, that's okay. Representative Tori. I was just wondering about the. How does that amount compare to the other funding for VHC. So the amount that has been proposed for housing. Well, we're asking for the full statutory share of for VHB and not kind of the extra bonus funding for housing. I think it's a million is both housing and housing information. Yes, yes. Okay, as the normal statutory funding that is tied to the transfer tax and one point I want to make about the transfer tax is that I mean I think it was beautifully designed to fund the should be this way because in the years, such as we've had the last year where you have increased housing costs increase demand for land. A lot of people moving here a lot of people buying both houses and land, the costs for us to conserve the land and the costs for the folks to build housing has gone up significantly. So when you have more transfer tax coming in because of the churn and the demand, then we also need that raise in funding around conservation and housing to be able to compete with the rise in demand. Thank you very testimony to her. I'll have some. Oh, perfect. Here we are. Good afternoon, Madam chair committee members for the record my name is will Dwayne I'm the land acquisition coordinator at the Department of Fish and Wildlife. Just work up the hill at our national life office. I'm here today to highlight the impact that DHCB funding has on my department's ability to conserve and protect land. I've been hearing a lot from my colleagues lately about the conservation work we do at Fish and Wildlife and an R but I often find that a lot of Vermonters are not as familiar with the Department of Fish and Wildlife public land holdings as they are with say the state parks or the state parks of course so here in Vermont the Department of Fish and Wildlife owns a tremendous amount of public land we have over 100 unique wildlife management areas and reptilian stream bank parcels across the state are our last check on the acreage was just over 135,000 acres. We're also the largest single owner of wetlands in the state of Vermont. The Department of Fish and Wildlife has several funding streams that we use to acquire property. We have state funding we have federal funding and currently we have access to a tremendous amount of federal funding. In order for us to draw that money down as you folks probably know we non federal dollars to leverage it and bring it into our coffers for projects. DHCB is critical to that work. We have monies available from the US Fish and Wildlife Service through the Pitt and Robertson Act. In order to bring those monies to us to put on the ground we have to provide a cashier ratio it's it's one to three so the classic 25% 75% federal combination. And without having a separate unique dedicated state funding source to draw those monies down it can be complicated to put funding packages together to act on that US Fish and Wildlife Service. We have our duck stamp fund we have our habitat stamp fund and we have a little bit of clean water fund money for for state dollars but DHCB plays a huge role in bringing us state money to draw down this federal one. And that's why we're here today to ask that we please fund DHCB to their full statutory authority. The project I'd like to focus on today is all about biodiversity and connectivity. I also think it shows a great example of not just the habitat connectivity but the connection between all the partner organizations that have come together on this acquisition this conservation project. And that's pretty typical on this project we've got the Department of Fish and Wildlife, we've got the trust for public land, we've got DHCB, the Vermont Rivers Conservancy is going to co hold an easement with DHCB. We've got funding from the US Fish and Wildlife Service, and you've also brought in our sister department of Forest Parks and Rec to add this to their forest legacy program so we're, we're bringing all the cooks into the kitchen and we're really maxing out the benefits on this project, but it takes time, it takes money to get these done. So what we're looking at right now is a planned expansion of our Otter Creek Wildlife Management Area, this is in the town of Wallingford. Our existing footprint for Otter Creek WMA is just to the south it's about seven miles here down to the border of Mount Tabor and Danby. So what you see in orange is a new addition to the WMA and it's a large tract of land and sometimes you'll see this it's the same unit, but they're not necessarily a butting. Can you tell us what that means to be the same unit then. Yeah, it will be managed by the same staff and it will be covered by the same long range management plan. So far apart that we feel that these so unique that they need different names, different staff and different management plans are all along the Otter Creek, as the name suggests. So we're about three miles upstream from Wallingford Village. If you go to the next slide. Thanks. We're just, it's all maps we're just getting closer and closer. As many folks know from Hurricane Irene Wallingford was in the same boat they experienced pretty devastating flooding and erosion. And a prolonged recovery effort that took years. The Wallingford Village Historic District is in the Otter Creek corridor and they currently have about 176 buildings on the National Register of Historic Places so conserving this floodplain and these wetlands are pretty critical, not just for habitat and biodiversity but the impact and the co benefits that come with it. So, the property is 344 acres it's got about 100 acres of floodplain 107 acres of wetland. It's got almost well actually more than a mile of frontage on Otter Creek itself. It's mostly forested. There is some ag land there that it's not quite fallow but it's not super productive ag land it's right in the floodplain and it floods annually. And there is just a ton of biodiversity packed into this parcel. If you go to the next slide, please. On these 344 acres, there are state historic or state significant natural communities. 16 rare plant species and we have an instance of verified occurrence of the globally vulnerable wood turtle, which folks don't see too often here in Vermont so we're very excited about this project. And so we brought all the partners together on this and again the connectivity and the biodiversity is within the project itself. The first map we're basically making a whole connection out of the iconic mountains onto the Otter Creek floodplain the Vermont Valley floor and then all the way up to basically the Appalachian trail and the Green Mountain National Forest. And what you've seen to the east here what's in red on this map is another project that Kate and the folks that trust for public land are working on to make an addition to the Green Mountain National Forest this is the White Rocks gateway edition, which will be able to share infrastructure like parking lots for these two projects which you can get in the weeds and spend a lot of time thinking about those parking lots on these small projects. So, and just typically what we do this will be managed as a wildlife management area so it's going to be managed for basically one a wildlife habitat and one be public access we open these lands up for hunting trapping angling dispersed non motorized non mechanized wildlife based recreation can be just wanting to go out and see some animals you can go out for birding these properties are open for snowshoeing and cross country skiing. So this is just one example of the work we do I'd say this is a prime example of about a dozen projects we try and get through a year as Miss Washburn said when she was in last week or a small dedicated team where we're relentless and we're nimble. We go after every every lead we get. So, again, just wanted to say that the funding that VHCB makes available. And we apply just like any other applicant for their grants makes it possible for us to do these works so that you please fund VHCB to the full statutory level of 27.8 million. Can you tell us how this property came to your attention and. Yeah, I've I've been in my role, coming up almost on two years and right when I got started Kate was right there with the kernel actually much more than the kernel of this project and TPL kind of took the lead on it but that's an example of how things come to us we get private individuals out to us landowners, partner organizations who are either going to work with us or say this isn't a great fit for us where you guys think so we get information on new projects and a ton of different ones. So just to expand on that we had been working in Walliford on the addition to three minus forest, and a neighbor said, well I'm interested in adding my land national force to, but I'm on the other side of hearts for a road and that was actually outside the green acquisition boundary. So you can move that boundary with an act of Congress, but this was easier, particularly with all of the wetlands and on a creek front inch we immediately connected with the fish wildlife and they said yes we want this and so put the deal together and working with them. And originally it was just about 200 acres and we connected with a joining landowner who had more front inch on the other creek, and they said yes. Also, and they connected with another landowner to the north to get more wetlands and more outer creek front inch but that one that landowner wasn't quite ready yet. So anytime kind of we see an opportunity to make an acquisition bigger through joining landowners try to make that happen, particularly because if you're spending a lot of time, you know, adding on to core forest. It's great to kind of continue to have that landscape connectivity and wildlife connectivity. Great. Thanks representative Smith. Thank you. The previous chart you had up there you go back to that back one to the larger tell me yeah the left hand corner. There are two close tight yellow property lines. There are two parcels there. This is a railroad and the trans owned corridor right here so one property owner owns about to here and this is a balance of his property that will be acquiring his kind of barn here and carved out a little. So balls or is there's a railroad track. Yeah, root seven the railroad the creek. Okay, thank you. Good question. How will the public access this property on Hartzboro Road, where the two properties are kind of kitty corner, caddy corner to one another will have a parking lot which likely be on the white rocks portion. There are a few pull offs on Hartzboro Road as well. And then as part of our interim management plan but more likely in the long range management plan. We've identified a few parts where parking lots might be good. We'll make a curb cut and go through the whole V trans process. Representative seven six your hand up. It did. I'll pass representative civilian. I actually have a question related to the statutory amount, which I'm hearing and the actually the previous testimony to 27.8 is 28.7 Okay, and nine times return and conservation. Here's my question. 27.8 for VHC be 100% of that goes towards conservation. I believe that's housing and conservation. It depends on the return on house so be less so be less on conservation. What is the genome with the breakdown is, is there a breakdown or is it 60 to conservation housing housing. Okay. Yes, I apologize. No matter. That's okay. Thank you. All right. But one point to make so that was, you know, over the last 25 years to come, you know, private and other federal match funding and really huge amount of federal funding that is available to the next five years because of the investment reduction act or the inflation reduction act. So the next couple of years is going to be much higher of what we're bringing in terms of federal funds and even private funds. So, I think that, you know, if we were to look at the return investment 10 years from now, it could be quite higher than 90 what because we're bringing a lot more leverage. So we touched on this. Is there is can one of you is able to see is maybe what's coming through the infrastructure or the inflation reduction act. So what are the opportunities that the need for state match now, is there, do you have numbers on that. So one example is the federal force legacy program, which has a one time chunk of $700 million that has been available for. Usually, there's $100 million that is distributed across the country, based on competitive applications that and Vermont has done very well we've gotten a greater share than a lot of other states. And then a lot of other states in federal force like which we started by our dear Senator Leahy. So that 700 million needs a 25% state or local match. So in order to even be able to apply for that extra funding, you know, we need to find private or state match. And those can be used for both large forest land easements with these men help by the state or town forest or state additions state fee positions. So that is one big chunk. There is a lot more available also in regional conservation partnership 1.5 billion available there. So that one again, what is that one regional conservation partnership program. And we're actually working on a current conservation easement up in victory that uses the regional conservation partnership program through the health forest reserve program which will conserve about 600 acres so those are easements held by our CS. And that's, yeah, a brand new 1.5 billion dollars in that in the IRA for that. There's a lot more in my corporate forest, I don't know members outside. Oh yeah right. Also add that my department's annual federal funding stream also has these available more than typical. We get a lot more money from the US Fish and Wildlife Service we sometimes refer to as PR money, Pittman Robertson Act funds those are the come to us basically on an excise tax on hunting, angling, trapping equipment out to our equipment and get the first to the several states from West Fish and Wildlife. We typically get about $150,000 of that each year for land acquisition. So those monies and the amounts have changed quite a bit during the pandemic just based on human behavior and the purchases that people made, and there is a lot of federal money for us to draw down I think somewhere around two and a half 3 million. So is one of you tracking or code one of you track and share with us the opportunities and then what we would need and match to. Yeah. So the work that Trey Martin at VHCB kicked off last year one of the first things we started working on and Kate and I are in a subgroup for this along with Lauren is to track these federal things. What's it going to take to leverage it where the different corners we can work and because of the VHCB in our effort we have that close to ready to share. Great. Looking forward to having that share and make sure we have the information we need so that we can help with our part to make the match happen. So further questions for any of our guests. Yes, just a comment. If anybody ever up for a good hike I recommend White Rocks. Yeah, never been there before it's pretty impressive. One thing about, so the White Rocks clips are kind of currently protected by green minus right here. And the ice bed trails is absolutely gorgeous and then that place and show right here but this property that we're adding is full of growth and luck and. That's the site that we need to go to the old growth. Beautiful. And yeah, the current owners, you know they haven't managed it over the last 120 years and they were so thrilled to be able to permanently project it so that so that is using and water conservation fund dollars, which was mentioned earlier today so the land water conservation fund has, you know, both states side which comes to the state to be able to use for state acquisitions like john's project, but also can be set 100% for national forest conditions. And that number, because of Great America Outdoors Act, two years ago, three years ago, provided 900 million which is their full statutory funding and that's going to stay now at the full 900 million and we hope you should be content to I do too. So that's interesting. Green Mountain National Forest my understanding is would not have an easement on a property, but the landowners have been assured the trees will not be cut for. No. This is in a management unit called Green Mountain escarpment. The main goals in the current green mash forest forest plan from 2006 is that those goals are for biodiversity and recreation. So the likelihood of it being timbered is very low but it is not guaranteed. Okay, thank you. Right, further questions. Not seeing any thank you all for your great work and for coming in today to share it with us. Thank you. Okay members. That is the end of our schedule. Today. We're back together as a committee on say at one. Okay, so I think we're going to start using our 15 minutes. In particular on the days where Tuesday when we have so much time in the morning so the reset your clock to coming into committee at one o'clock. And that's next week. And then the following week the floor times are going to be bumped up to one o'clock so we're going to go from three o'clock four o'clock or one o'clock floor times but that's next week. I think we stick with the schedule we're on and but but for this committee starting at one. And we'll get into the budget next week a little bit. Keep working on 126 and which is 30 by 30 bill and also the bottle though. Any final questions before we wrap for the weekend. Yes, I'm going to be in Columbus but I'm going to try to be on zone when we talk about the bottle bill because I'd like to be involved today. Okay, great. I know my vote won't count but if you can put it out an extra beyond five more days after next week I'd like to be able to participate in a vote. Okay. If possible it's not I understand. Yeah, and you're an hour difference in time. You'll figure that out. Okay. Thank you. I, I know that the rules committee was planning to meet again to consider whether or not remote participation for votes was going to be possible. Have you heard any more information on this from leadership recently. I have not as far as I know it has not changed. Okay, no. All right, with that, we will adjourn for the weekend. Thank you all for your work this week.