Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: I'll remind the committee that we heard some testimony, remember whether it was earlier this week, but certainly last week on the wood products manufacturers report, we've heard from the and from the Forest Products Association, and then we heard from Forest Products and Recreation. And we've asked a couple other people who were part of the stakeholder group or part of the process anyway in getting this report put together. And Sam Lincoln has joined us today. He was, I think, right, Sam, one of those people. And then next week, we're gonna hear from resources or I'm sorry, from the Natural Resources Council. And with after at that point, I'm hoping that we can begin putting some language together for a committee bill. So, Sam, welcome back. I don't think we've seen you this calendar year anyway. So nice to see you again.

[Sam Lincoln]: Thank you. Likewise. I appreciate being invited into the committee to testify on this issue. For the record, my name is Sam Lincoln. I operate a master logger certified logging company in Randolph Center and been involved in the logging business since 1998. My family owns and manages fireman forest land in Orange County and operates related excavation and firewood businesses. I served as deputy commissioner of the Department of Forest Parks and Recreation during Governor Scott's first two terms, and I currently sit on the board of the professional logging contractors in the Northeast. I share that background because I've seen Vermont's land use and environmental permitting systems from both sides, inside government and a day to day on the ground with businesses that depend on them. The core issue that I want to highlight today is this, the unpredictability of Act two fifty permitting and permit conditions, not necessarily the environmental standards themselves, is a significant deterrent to investment in Vermont's wood products manufacturing sector. This isn't a new concern. Nearly a decade ago, the Scott administration interviewed wood products manufacturers, both those still operating and some that had shut down, to understand what was holding back expansion and modernization. The consistent message then and now is that the uncertain timelines, the unclear outcomes and overlapping reviews under Act two fifty discourage investment and make it difficult for Vermont businesses to compete regionally and globally. Forestry operations and wood products manufacturers are a sister industry to agriculture and Vermont's working lands economy. Tapping a tree, hauling the sap, and adding value to it in a sugar house in Vermont are Act two fifty are activities that are exempt from Act two fifty. Harvesting the very same tree and processing it into a forest product in a facility in Vermont can trigger Act two fifty permitting, which is a massive contrast to an exempted alternate use of the exact same resource. Given the loss of capacity to process forest products in Vermont, many landowners, loggers, and truckers rely at some level on out of state facilities to add value to a resource that's sustainably managed here in our state. What would Vermonters say if changes to a regulatory program would result in trucking sap clear to Maine, New York, or Quebec to have value added to it? It seems like a far fetched scheme, but that's an absolute reality for the forest economy, and businesses in Vermont. Vermonters grow great forest products and we consume forest products, but we don't do enough value adding of forest products here. You've heard a lot from various experts and participants, And so I'm going to jump right to some recommendations, in the report. And these are the most important for addressing the challenges. And to be clear, all the recommendations would be helpful, but my comments are focused on those that I believe would have the largest positive impact. First, updating Act two fifty rule 19, modernizing rule 19 to better align with the existing agency of natural resource permits would reduce duplicative review and improve predictability without compromising environmental protection, allowing greater flexibility in permit sequencing and clarifying when ANR permits can be dispositive would give wood products manufacturers more confidence to plan and invest. During stakeholder meetings, we heard compelling fact based input from engineers, permit consultants and ANR staff showing this can be done thoughtfully and responsibly. There are examples of firewood, wood chip, fuel, mulch producers and sawmills that took years to permit at a relatively small scale sized facility. And all those businesses dedicated time, business earnings, grant money and other resources as they struggled through this very time consuming process of obtaining the requisite permits for Act two fifty. There is an absolute opportunity for positive change here. Second, restoring clarity and exemptions for log and pulp concentration yards. These facilities are not speculative development. They are critical part of the logistics chain between forest and the mill. As the winters get warmer and daily trucking windows shrink because of thawing roads or wet roads and log yards, these yards have become even more important to businesses like mine, where we can have much faster truck turnaround to a yard one or two towns away versus a mill 100 or 150 miles away. Treating them like major development under Act two fifty misunderstands how the forest economy functions. Third, supporting proposed updates to rule 34 that allow administrative amendments for relatively minor project changes. Forest based businesses need to modernize. They need to upgrade stormwater systems, reduce environmental impacts, and invest in cleaner technology. Minor amendments like these should not trigger full permit amendments. The proposed rule 34 changes are a practical step that support environmental performance rather than discouraging it. In a related real world example is efforts to mitigate the impact of emerald ash borer. When I was deputy commissioner and emerald ash borer was discovered in Vermont, We had facilities that, you know, in order to, take a log or a piece of pulp or firewood that has been infested or potentially infested with emerald ash borer, the best methods to mitigate that infestation spreading are to debark, chip, burn the outer layer of that wood where the emerald ash borer larvae exist and feed. And we have facilities in Vermont that are restricted in the months of the year, the hours of the day, different things like that, that they can debark wood, that they can run kilns, that they can run chippers. And we helped one particular business try to expand their hours of operation, and it was just so difficult for them with noise and sound engineers and all kinds of expertise, and it was just too much to get through the process. It was expensive and they finally abandoned their permit, because these changes, this very technical part of Act two fifty, it was just too hard to get it done, too overwhelming. And there, forests become vulnerable because you have a really good facility that can't expand the amount of wood that they can process in this very helpful way to mitigate the impact of emerald ash borer. Fourth, extending Act two fifty exemptions for forestry, similar to those that exist for farming. Like agriculture, forestry has a successful existing regulatory program through Vermont's acceptable management practices to protect water quality on logging operations, otherwise known as the AMPs. Extending exemptions for forestry operations below 2,500 feet occurring on Act two fifty permitted parcels simply recognizes that objecting routine forest management to Act two fifty adds complexity, both for the landowner and state agencies without any clear or demonstrated environmental benefit. Act two fifty permit conditions have the potential to interfere with routine forestry practices, such as the installation of temporary skidder bridges and riparian areas on permitted parcels. These activities are already well regulated under the AMPs and well understood by the regulated community. Requiring permit amendments or prohibiting them outright or adding many conditions to them undermines sustainable forest management and creates confusion about what logging activities are truly exempt, to say nothing of the cost and administrative delays to a highly weather dependent operation. Logging needs to be a clearly exempted activity. These are under recommendation nine and item j in the report. I'd like to flag a broader concern looking ahead. While the report focuses on streamlining and clarification, other active land use policy changes, including expanded Tier three Act two fifty jurisdiction and the integration of more prominent conservation areas into regional and town plans make citing wood products manufacturing in rural Vermont more difficult in the future, not easier. Taken together, these trends risk moving us in the opposite direction of what this committee and many Vermonters are trying to achieve. I do not see anything but a more difficult regulatory climate coming at a time when we need relief. In closing, while Act two fifty has played an important role in protecting Vermont's natural character since 1970, it is important to recognize that generations of stewardship by forest owners and workers supported by a functioning forest economy have also kept our forest intact and productive. We care about forests and our work and our investments are a strong demonstration of that commitment. If Vermont is serious about revitalizing its forest economy and building a modern resilient wood product sector, administrative refinements alone will not be enough. We need predictable permitting and land use policies that recognize wood products manufacturers as partners in conservation, climate goals and rural vitality, not as traditional commercial development. Thank you for your time and consideration of my comments, and I appreciate the committee's work, and I'd be very happy to answer questions and discuss this, provide any further context.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: Great. Thank you very much, Sam. Immediate questions. Yeah. Go ahead,

[Rep. John O'Brien]: Sam, are those recommendations Are they gonna be posted on

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: our website? If you haven't already, Sam, just submit your testimony and we'll

[Sam Lincoln]: Yes. I will submit actually an expanded version of my oral comments with some more detail and references to the report. And I also want to acknowledge that the comments that I was responsible for submitting to the wood products manufacturer report just due to work timing blow that I missed the deadline. My the PLC comments with me as a representative were not included in the report only due to I didn't get my homework done on time.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: It's understandable. And if you want to if they're different from what you've just shared with us, if you'd like to submit to us what you had intended to submit, feel free to do that.

[Sam Lincoln]: I will. Thank you.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: Happy to have that. It sounds like what you were just when you you were going through the your priorities that there wasn't anything above and beyond what the recommendations were coming out of the review board. Is that right?

[Sam Lincoln]: I that I would say, yes, that is correct. I think that there are essentially a reprioritized list compared to their if their list is prioritized, I'd say we have a reprioritized list and an expanded set of some of those recommendations, expanding further on them. In particular, as my first point noted, that I think that the permit consultants and engineers brought a lot of expertise in ways that I think many, whether it's the applicants or various advocates, don't understand the technicalities of this, they live that world of permitting and the regulatory sequencing every day. And there's a lot of opportunity just there. And I think bringing some of those people in and the agency office planning and policy at ANR, along with some of the stakeholders that were on the group, had some good ideas, they could expand on that in a in a very informed what I believe would be in a very informed and helpful way.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: You're suggesting that we might be beneficial to us, to our committee to hear from them?

[Sam Lincoln]: Yes. Absolutely.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: All right.

[Rep. John O'Brien]: I just had one more.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: Sam,

[Rep. John O'Brien]: could you go a bit more into rule 19? I'm sure you know more about it than we do, Esme.

[Sam Lincoln]: Well, I think that that is the just to my previous point, I think that the there's a Herbie mulch is out on Route 2, just out East of St. Johnsbury. And it took them three years to get through Act two fifty permitting. And lots of times you hear that Act two fifty permitting happens in thirty or forty five days or whatever the timeframe is, but someone may have worked for years in the background, which they, in these cases, do, getting their wetlands, their floodplain, their historic preservation, all those different types of activities that are in the requisite down in all the criteria of Act two fifty. And I think if and again, think there's experts that can that work and live in this world that can talk about it. But if there's a way to make it so that you can get your you've met a certain standard, you can get your permit and your permit applications are underway with the agency and with executive branch, that your project can move forward. The time spent on that is not going to hold up your project for years. Sawmill two miles from me took three years to get a relatively small permit, relatively small facility. And, storm water back and forth designs took a very long time and they had a working lands, quarter million dollar working lands grant that purchased all the equipment, was all sitting there for years in their yard waiting for the back and forth. And and there's lots of room for improvement, but, on all sides, but if we could make these permits eligible to move faster in a more more streamlined way. I think that would be really helpful.

[Rep. John O'Brien]: Thank you.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: Sam, maybe you can just give us your understanding of what the process would look like for updating any of the rules. So it looks like you mentioned rule I'm not sure if you mentioned all three rules, but rule 19, rule 34, and 16 were all recommendations in the coming out of the report. Would it be fair to say that since the Land Use Review Board has made this recommendation that they're likely to move forward And in fact that they would be the ones updating the rule?

[Sam Lincoln]: I believe that the land use review board is as I reviewed my notes because it was last summer when we did this, read through the report again. I believe the Land Use Review Board is tasked or indicated in the report that they would be drafting rules, but I don't speak for them and I don't want to speculate too far on that. But it is my understanding that they want to take this up and make some of these changes.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: We recognize that they're not necessarily preoccupied, but they've got a lot that they're trying to do in a compressed timeframe with other things that they're working on. I just want to, for the committee's sake, have reasonable expectations of what we might do as opposed to what somebody else, whether it's the land review board or somebody else. But I think in this case, feels like this would be something that they could do, Although statutorily, I guess in theory, we could write legislation that says this rule will be updated this way. Not sure that

[Rep. Jed Lipsky (Clerk)]: we want to do that, but that's a possibility, I think, in theory. Go ahead, Lipsky. First of all, I wanna apologize to my committee and our witness, who's a colleague outside of this committee, from me being laid. I was testifying in house environment on active management at 10:25. So but with that said, Sam, do you know what the difference roles that's a LERB or versus LCAR, which is part of the rule making within the legislature or other rulemaking committees within the legislature whose responsibility where that responsibility lies.

[Sam Lincoln]: In terms of the wood product manufacturers recommendations, it representative Lipsky? Okay. So

[Rep. Jed Lipsky (Clerk)]: Yes. Or other under that umbrella, other recommendations.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: Well, I think

[Rep. Jed Lipsky (Clerk)]: that to that.

[Sam Lincoln]: I could be corrected on this because there are other experts in the room, but I I I think there's two ways these rules can move forward as the the Land Use Review Board can generate them under Act 180 one's authority, if I'm correct. And they would be developed through the traditional rulemaking process and then submitted to LCAR and ICAR. And I believe the the the general assembly can also direct rulemaking through legislation as well. So, to to chairman Durfee's point that the the body could infer, in fact, direct specific rules to be addressed. Is that is that does anybody disagree with that?

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: I don't see anybody clamoring to disagree. Think you captured it. All right. But thank you for stating it so clearly. It's a question that we've been trying to wrap our heads around in another context as well. But I think we're coming to understand how that might work. And representative Nelson. Thank thank you.

[Rep. Richard Nelson (Ranking Member)]: Sam, the rule caucus has proposed legislation to postpone act one eighty one by a year or so. How did how did your group support support this? Are you opposed to it or, you know, to give more time for thoughtful rule making?

[Sam Lincoln]: I we would be supportive of that. I I think there's a number of concerns. The the the first one is that the public engagement process is well, I have attendance in public meetings. I've been there when there are only five people in attendance and maybe more on Zoom. But this is a very significant impact on rural land or tens of thousands of rural landowners. So I think anything that can be done to increase the public's engagement and understanding and input of what's going to happen with Act 181, Tier three is a well planned, well thought out delay. I think to get into what I've seen so far with Tier three and directly related to the forced economy. There is again a march toward protecting more of rural Vermont's ecosystem and keeping land intact, I agree with that. I think that's a good thing. The concern that I have is that it doesn't account for the human use of the land, and particularly the forest economy, that we have businesses and buildings and shops and firewood yards and log yards and, sawmills and mulch yards, constructed in rural areas. And there's no carve out for them. There is no, recognition of the value they bring. Again, when I was in the administration, I was aware of a firewood producer in Southern Vermont who was denied, a local zoning permit to process firewood in a forest conservation zone in his town. And to me, that was, an incredible contradiction in what happened. If we're going to conserve forests, that means as a resource being used and harvested and cultivated, and it has to have value added to it. If firewood processing and a conservation zone isn't allowed under the previous regulatory scheme, and there's no recognition of the value of that in the upcoming regulatory scheme, I would say that rural Vermonters rightfully should have a delay and more of a seat at the table in that. And the road rule and where that's going to be applicable, there's a tremendous amount of uncertainty there from what I've seen in the map so far. The forest economy needs, and we've added the PLC and our rep Dana, as you've heard from the representative on the tier three stakeholder committee, we've asked for a carve out that rural logging maintenance shops and businesses like ours deserves special treatment the same way that agricultural facilities are treated in act two fifty.

[Rep. Richard Nelson (Ranking Member)]: Yeah. Thank you. You you answered one of my questions on the road rules. My my, my perhaps perhaps my last question is, so you don't think that a chip in a site for chip in or log firewood process has advantages being in an industrial zone in the middle of a village or city center with the added truck traffic and whatnot? You think they're better off out close to the lands where these things occur?

[Sam Lincoln]: Well, there's there's two two sides to that, and one of them is that quite often, you know, an industrial park has industrially priced land, and these businesses don't have the profit margins to purchase a large tract of land that it takes to pile raw materials and trucks turn around and things like that. I know that's where society does want industrial activity, but it is very costly and the margins aren't there. I use example of Randolph where I live in 1992, there was a proposed biomass plant to be built here and the traffic was going to go through the downtown. It was going to be sited just at the edge of town. The local community opposed it and it was denied here and it was built in Reigate, Vermont, which is now Reigate Power Station. Flash forward thirty five years and Reigate Power Station is under tremendous pressure to be using waste heat in a way to increase their efficiency. There's no they were relegated out to this rural place where no one cared about the truck traffic or a limited concern of that. And now society has realized, geez, there's a lot of energy in that plant that could be used for something. And if it was only a quarter mile from the hospital and all the injection molding plants in the downtown where it was originally proposed to be built, that would have been a really, really great location for that. And so if we push these types of facilities, there's consequences to pushing away, there's benefits to having them somewhere. But I know that I can afford rural land, not downtown industrial park land. I'll give another example. We're trying to build a we would like to build a maintenance shop and move our firewood operation off the farm, get onto a state road where there's pavement, year round access. It's really critical for our business. There are between the local zoning and others, there are very few places left in Randolph that we can actually do this where there's land for sale. And just recently, five mile stretch of the second branch of the White River was 2,000 feet wide for five miles, was marked as rare threatened endangered species habitat, encompassing my entire farm, some land that I own on the farm I grew up on and half of a parcel of land we were looking at, making an offer on to build a shop. So the uncertainty of that and permitting, we don't know where to turn. I don't want to build something in the wrong place, but while all these things are happening without carve outs for our types of rural businesses, it is getting tougher and tougher and tougher just to get a permit to do these things. Where are we going to do it?

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: Did that designation come from? What authority?

[Sam Lincoln]: I believe the Department of Fish and Wildlife, it would either be them or DEC, I don't know. Actually just recently sent a request in to start learning about where it came from, how it became to be, and why weren't again, my entire farm where I live is designated as rare threatened endangered species habitat now.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: State authority though, it sounds like you think?

[Sam Lincoln]: Yes, most definitely. Or I believe so. It's on this agency of natural resources, Natural Resources Atlas. It's a pretty significant area, 1,700 acres.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: While we still have you and I don't know how much time you've got, Tim, but I'm gonna turn back to the couple of the recommendations that you've supported. We have talked about, we've heard other testimony about these log log and pulp concentration yards that were, I think safe to say inadvertently categorized as good products manufacturing back several years ago when there was a change made to accomplish something else in the statute. Can you just help us understand what those look like when we're driving around the state? We might encounter them, how big they are, what's happened, what exactly happens there?

[Sam Lincoln]: So log concentration yards and pulp concentration yards are typically somebody who's already has a forest based business or rural entrepreneur that will become essentially a satellite yard for, a mill, whether it's a mill in Vermont, in another state, in Quebec, they become a local yard that serves several benefits. They are, a place where we can truck the wood out of the woods to those yards, in a much shorter turnaround time for the trucks. They might go 10 miles instead of a 100 or a 150 miles. They aggregate, they might have, pardon me, the opportunity to, we might not have full truckloads of certain species that we're harvesting and grades of logs and they aggregate from multiple producers and develop full loads of logs that will be shipped to specialty mills. So that brings more opportunity for value, to us in the rural areas. They are typically graveled. I don't very often see them paved, but they are just large graveled areas where trucks will come in and offload logs and pulpwood, and it will be stacked up and concentrated. And very often the wood is concentrated there during prime harvesting seasons, you'll see them swell right up with huge piles. And then during mud season, trucks are then dispatched to draw down those piles and refill the mills in the mud season and over the summer. And there's not typically a lot of infrastructure. Sometimes you'll see portable job trailers there for an office. Sometimes they might have platform scales that can weigh in and weigh out trucks. There might be a little office building. There could be other accessory things there, but that's that's generally how they are. There are, three within five miles of me where I sit today, and they are a window to the broader, even the global economy for me to be able to market wood off local forest land. They're a conduit for that.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: Presumably, the yards that are in existence today, operating today, date back a few years before this change was made, otherwise or else they've had to get a permit in order to to operate. And I just They

[Sam Lincoln]: they do date back a long time, and I'm aware of some that are exempt that have been deemed exempt and some, and I think some that have, they may have more accessory activities that are permitted. So again, there's some inconsistency there, but I don't want to speculate too much further without sort of having some case study information. Okay,

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: thanks. Representative O'Brien?

[Rep. John O'Brien]: Oh, I was just going to say, Sam, our chair's heading home tonight, south on 89. You can get off at Exit 3 right, and he if goes right, he'll see Sassimo 1.

[Sam Lincoln]: If he goes left, he'll see Allard's. If he goes right, he'll see Sir Sassimo, and Allard's is now on the left behind a Michellis quick stop. And then by the pizza place on Route 14 is now another mill from Northern Maine that's accumulating spruce logs there. There's a lot of output of our region's loggers and truckers piled up there in these good weather conditions.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: I will be turning right, I know that yard.

[Rep. John O'Brien]: What mill is that for Maine?

[Sam Lincoln]: Well, it's the Timber Resource Group and they, have a number of mills that they they're they're the purchasing wing of, several mills in Maine, the Stratton lumber, and I can't remember, it may, it may cross, I believe they cross the border. They have mills in Quebec and Maine and quite, and to Chair Durfee's question, so oftentimes too, with those softwood mills, the spruce and fir hemlock mills, yards, there are times when those trucks will, from the mills in Maine or Quebec or Northern New Hampshire will drive to the population centers and deliver lumber to your your building supply stores. And then they come back through on the back haul in the afternoon, they will stop in at these log yards and pick up logs, and and deliver them back to the mill at night. And so when you're on the interstates and you're seeing those, they don't look like a traditional log truck. They're a flatbed trailer. Those are hauling lumber south in the morning and logs north in the evening.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: Representative Lipsky. Yeah.

[Rep. Jed Lipsky (Clerk)]: Sam, I think you've done a great job at explaining how the sort of I'll call them commercial log and and pulp yards operate and exist. But I also think this is important for actual private loggers who, because of ground conditions, weather, and markets often would short haul either forward or with a a wheel or straight job, move logs where a land a winter landing might be a mile or so off of a accessible road. They may move them closer. The lot of job may be on adjacent property or the landowner's property. So when the markets open up, particularly for pulpwood, which are vulnerable, and that did that could not be challenged as as an option even if it's not a commercial log or pulp yard. In my case, I often shuttle loads to my farm. Sometimes I wait six months before I can get trip tickets for whole Chicago, Ticonderoga, or Finch Time, and formally ship ship for the main. So I think for this most loggers are small independent operators, and they need the option to you're gonna fit back to your farm in Randolph. And if you had to, you could keep that wood there without being threatened by a an ordinance violation, that sort of thing. So it it it's a broad slightly broader umbrella that this captures Yeah. Within the industry.

[Sam Lincoln]: Short term storage is critical and I look back at the 2022 into '23, and when it was so wet, I mean, I think we had three days below zero that entire winter, we dealt with wet conditions and getting trucks, it would normally be a home run places out across hay fields in a frozen winter like this one to get trucks. And we only had a certain number of hours a day we could truck wood out. If we didn't have those yards close to us, we would have I don't really know what we would have done, how we would have managed something, but it was a huge advantage to us to have these yards so close where the trucks could just make very quick round trips, to them. So they serve a really big role logistically for us.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: Anybody have any other questions about this kind of operation? I don't think we haven't really talked about it too much yet. It showed up as a recommendation. It seems like low hanging fruit and something that we can easily- It's

[Rep. Jed Lipsky (Clerk)]: important to low hanging fruit. Sorry? It's important to low hanging

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: Yes, yeah. Then Sam, I also wanted to just ask you a little bit more about, it's recommendation nine. We have talked about this. We've heard from other testimony that other folks are recommending or encouraging us to move ahead with that recommendation as well. I wonder if you can just talk about that a little bit more and maybe give an example. Correct me then if I'm wrong, maybe this is the way to start. If you have a parcel where there's forest management happening, somebody comes in and asks for there's no need to to set up a wood products manufacturing operation and needs a permit to do that. The concern is that the entire parcel then becomes subject to review.

[Sam Lincoln]: Well, I would I can give you a real world example of this. I in my town, there's a larger landowner that had forest land and also had multiple gravel pits. And they had, I believe it was, I'm going to speak in sort of generalities because it's been many years since I read this, information, but they had a, 150 acre tract roughly, five to 10 acre gravel pit, and the entire parcel became subject to Act two fifty. Their activities, with maple production, maple, sugaring operation and forest management. There were condition, permit conditions drafted that would change the regulation of the sugaring and the logging. That, certain activities would be prohibited, certain activities would require clearance from the Department of Fish and Wildlife before they could proceed, conditions that are either never or infrequently ever seen in any other type of sugaring or logging operation. So the exemption, having the treating forest management activities and subsequently logging, the same as agriculture, the exempt activity that's already regulated by AMPs and current use value appraisal management plans, It's redundant, I think they're it's it just it looks to add bureaucracy without any demonstrated, greater environmental protection. Just more paperwork, more time, more delays, more state staff time focusing on something that somebody has already put a bunch of oversight into. So that's how I see that. It's not necessarily a wood product manufacturing business cited on a parcel, but any permitted activity where that has a parcel that has management opportunity for management of forest land outside of it.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: So in in that example, the the f two fifty trigger was the gravel pit, not not not anything to do with wood products manufacturing, but it could have been. It wood products manufacturing would also cause that same trigger.

[Sam Lincoln]: Yes. This to some extent, the Stony Brook designation or however that is acknowledged in the process, that to some extent would limit it. But again, I think what we want to see is a clear distinction that forest management, timber harvesting, are exempt. That these activities are already regulated. They're already done under, the AMPs and that they would not be subject to further review.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: Representative Nelson.

[Rep. Richard Nelson (Ranking Member)]: Yes. Sam, do I, did I also hear and understand that if a farm many farms have woodlots, attached to the farm. Matter of fact, that's how they survive low price low low milk price year. If they wanted to put in a small sawmill or any sawmill on their farm, they have to get act two fifty approval now. They can't do that under their, you know, added value of forestry markets?

[Sam Lincoln]: If they were sawing lumber on the parcel where the trees were harvested, is, I believe, that is exempt from municipal regulation, but I don't, I'm not entirely sure if that is exempt from Act two fifty. But there are various pieces of value adding of forest products. If I had a, let's say I had a firewood processor, that if I just set up on a lot in town, a commercial lot in town, and built a building and all that, that would be subject to land use regulation, whether it's local zoning or Act two fifty. If I do that, move that firewood processor out to the site of the harvest, that is, exempt from municipal regulation. But I'm forestry in itself, logging and forestry purposes are exempt. So I would say that if the operator of that sawmill was using the timber they harvested on their own land, that that would be an exempt activity. I will say that I'm not legal expert. I'm not a district coordinator for Act two fifty. So there may be other things that I'm not considering. This is not an official opinion, but I believe that that our pro processing your own timber is an exempt activity.

[Rep. Richard Nelson (Ranking Member)]: So they put it in an outbuilding out behind the barn. Yeah. When they're would they brought the trees down off the hill or what have you? You we need

[Rep. Jed Lipsky (Clerk)]: to find out if that's exempt or if that all of

[Rep. Richard Nelson (Ranking Member)]: a sudden broke into act two fifty.

[Sam Lincoln]: Yeah. I I don't I don't think there's any change. I urge you to get clarification, get some appropriate, accurate clarification from the regulator.

[Rep. John O'Brien]: Representative O'Brien. Sam, have you ever heard of one of these sort of sawmills on a, say, dairy farm being considered an accessory on farm business? It seems like if the angels had a farm and then they had a sawmill on it, if there'd be some way to exempt them there.

[Sam Lincoln]: I like the thinking, and that is a great example of it as a farm that owned a piece of land that came with a sawmill, then it became a permitted use of the land. Became an Act two fifty jurisdictional activity. I think it would be helpful. I think it would be helpful. It is not going to necessarily address the scale at which I think we need better guidelines and better opportunities for the forest economy at scale. I think we have to do things at a much larger scale than that though. But I don't disagree with the thinking at all.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: Thank you. Representative Burtt.

[Rep. Gregory "Greg" Burtt]: I just was looking at statute on Act two fifty and undeveloped as proposed, this is 6,001 E on a parcel of tract of land that is devoted to farming activities defined in Subdivision 22 section. Only those portions of the parcel or the tract that support the development shall be subject to regulation under this chapter. It's in a few more details. You are a farm and then you have development, which would in this case might include a wood manufacturer, products manufacturer, even ordinaries that you know, that area, it doesn't make everything come under active faith, just the part that's a big development. And

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: I think that's part of it.

[Rep. Gregory "Greg" Burtt]: You don't have a farm, you have a trap, chunk of woods that would involve. And

[Rep. John O'Brien]: is that the Stony has always existed sort of in ag world, but not in It's

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: always existed in ag and yeah, you mentioned Stony Brook, think, Sam, and that's come up every time we've had this conversation. And I'm a little bit fuzzy still on whether we're talking about the same thing.

[Sam Lincoln]: So I wonder I if think you have to ask for the Stony Brook designation, though I'm not entirely sure about that, which I don't understand why it's not automatically applied unless some other thing kicks it out of that.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: Yeah, and it seems like clarifying that was discussed in the conversations, but didn't make it in as one of the recommendations explicitly.

[Rep. Jed Lipsky (Clerk)]: Chair Gerfee? Okay. I just, I like the committee to recognize Graham Satcow, who is a lawyer. Maybe she could shed a little light on the story.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: Would you like it?

[Savannah (Vermont Forest Products Association representative)]: I can do it really briefly, but Thank you.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: Sure. Savannah.

[Savannah (Vermont Forest Products Association representative)]: Windham, the Vermont Forest Products Association. So in order for an applicant to know I think the Stony Brook process, you have to ask for it essentially. And that's part of the problem is that applicants don't necessarily know that they should be like asking for it. The recommendation, the reports that that they should give the process to give them notice that it's an option. But what we've seen, and I think there was an example given by FPR about a mill that had farming on it as well. They knew to ask for the farming part of it, but they didn't because the farming was automatic, but the woodlot wasn't. On. Be asked to get the Stony Brook process to be just automatically part of the process is again creating that that parity and that equalization between how a farm and ag land and farm and forestry operations and forest management is sort of treated the same. But I think, and going to the treating the same aspect of treating forestry operations below 2,500 feet the same way as ag and farming, you kind of have to have both. So I think the reason that both of those were included in the report is because the lurb didn't feel comfortable having the Stony Brook process being mandatory. I can't tell you why exactly there was such a resistance to that. That might be something you want to dig a little bit into. But we never really got clear clarification on that. But if you don't have that, you need to have the parity between the two in the recommendation number nine. So if you get, I think you need both of them just to cover all of your bases, but there might be some way to thread the needle to get one to cover all. But I'd rather the lurb come in to discuss those two. But I think the reason there's two of them in the report again, it's because Stony Brook having it not be automatic is why you need that extra protection to have it be statutorily mandated that it's treated the same.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: There may be some redundancy.

[Savannah (Vermont Forest Products Association representative)]: I think there is overlap there, but I'd probably ask the lurb to speak why there's such a resistancy to making an automatic process, because we, the VFPA, and I know FPR during the process of submitting comments, we both mentioned in our comments that we think that it should be automatic. Even after the comment period, they still stuck to their guns and said, no, we don't want it to be automatic. We just wanted to have them know that it's there. So there's something there that we're not really clear about why there's a resistance. So you might on that. Okay.

[Rep. John O'Brien]: Yeah, I'm just confused. Is it automatic with

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: farming?

[Savannah (Vermont Forest Products Association representative)]: It's written into, it's basically what you had read into the record. It's already written into title 10 under the act two fifty that they essentially get a stone. It's not called Stony Brook obviously, but it's put into statute now where if you're a farmer ag activity, you automatically have a review where it's only the developed part and it won't include any of the farming part of your parcel.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: Yeah, so the underlying request is?

[Savannah (Vermont Forest Products Association representative)]: Podifying that.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: Podifying it one way or the other, or maybe both ways. Before you leave, would anybody have any other questions? Thank you very much. Thank you. All right, and Sam, before we let you go then, anything, any final thoughts or anybody have anything else they want to ask Sam? Okay. It looks like we're good with questions. Thank you. You have anything you wanted to close out with.

[Sam Lincoln]: No, I just want to thank you for the opportunity and for your focus on this. And I'd be very glad to contribute however we can in the PLC. We'd like to be very interested in engaging as this moves on.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: Okay, thanks for joining

[Sam Lincoln]: us. Thank you.

[Rep. Jed Lipsky (Clerk)]: Thank you, Sam. Before

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: we shift gears over to another topic. Anybody have any questions or thoughts on this? Think, yeah.

[Rep. Gregory "Greg" Burtt]: I'm always in favor of trying to make the statute better. We see problems potentially in the making might happen to make it clear the intent of the legislature on what we want to see happen. It's a case of, I know right when that firewood and all yard is in Kirby. Actually, had a guy who worked for me, a young guy that was dating the guy's daughter and I started working for him, and that's just a three year process. It's in the middle of the field. Not near the village. Yeah, yeah, or the edge of a field, on Route 2. That seems real straightforward to me. Can't imagine trying to build a two to three year project to put in a small concrete pad for this equipment. From my perspective, that should not, we need to find a way to make that better.

[Rep. Jed Lipsky (Clerk)]: Yeah, and go ahead. Just briefly, I would like to deeper dive into that quote Stony Brook process and advocate because I feel strongly for the force issue or or products sector that would be very important to get clarification.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: Some clarity there. Okay, yeah, I think there may be folks in the room who can help us and maybe Legis Council too, maybe it's the board. Let's see, think it should be board.

[Rep. Gregory "Greg" Burtt]: Along those lines, I'm wondering if we are thinking about putting something in a committee bill around this, that is on the radar. And then, I don't know, what's, know, is it putting in a short form. Basically wondering what kind of work the best process is to go about that in a timely manner, if it's means a short form bill being submitted by one of us or.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: Yeah, we don't need to do that. I think we're all, I mean, it's probably more straightforward if we just do a committee bill and we have the authority to do that, up the crossover date, which is after a week after town meeting. So I feel like maybe a little more testimony on this issue could be helpful. We do have more testimony scheduled next week, as I mentioned. So perhaps we wait until we've heard that. It's Tuesday or Wednesday. In the meantime, we can be thinking about and certainly can have conversations outside the committee room just to educate ourselves individually on that, the nuance here between Stony Brook and just verifying in statute. And I have to say, I wonder the same thing that was wondered earlier. Why is there hesitancy to be explicit and say, make it clear to everybody? Seems like it's hiding something that doesn't But there may be more to it that I don't understand. Do we for Do we stretch? Okay. Pause, go offline. We'll come back in five minutes.