Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Rep. David Durfee — Chair]: Representative Barth is also joining us online. Greg, feel free to raise your hand or jump in if you have a question a comment. But why don't we turn it over to Jerry?

[Jared Carpenter — Lake Champlain Committee]: So good morning. My name is Jared Carpenter. I'm on the Lake Champlain Committee. Thank you for the time, mister chair. I do have a few slides to sort of give folks background on Act 67, which this committee worked on last year having to do with CAFO permitting. But we were just going to talk about, this is primarily to talk about the stakeholder group and an extension of that, as well as another request from the stakeholders about inspections. I'll turn it over to my compatriots. We were both members of the stakeholder committee, myself representing Lake Chittenden committee.

[Rep. Richard Nelson — Ranking Member (Derby)]: And I'm Richard Nelson, representative from Derby and also a member of the stakeholder group with the with the the farmer, specifically the dairy farmers of the group and how this is gonna, I don't wanna say, affect us, how how this is gonna set up rules going forward for the betterment of agriculture and the environment together. And, I wanna start off by prefacing that here we are sitting together. And it it at the start, there were pollers. And as we work through the process, we've come together and agree that working together, we can forge ahead and do great things for agriculture and for the environment. Absolutely. Yeah. So

[Jared Carpenter — Lake Champlain Committee]: Yeah. It was so Act 67 included language to create a stakeholder group, included farmers. It was a large farm, dairy and medium farms, as well as some technical service providers and a few other folks. And then folks from the environmental advocate community, and who was there was Lake Champlain Committee, Conservation Law Foundation, and Vermont Natural Resources Council. And we had some really great dialogues about how to move the process forward. That was obviously by design where the act sets up the structure, but the implementation is the next step. And this was a good opportunity. I think we didn't attend every meeting, but we attended probably half of them. I think there were a total of eight. Does that sound right? Sounds about right. The agency of natural resources and the agency of agriculture were both present, staff was both present, really more observing than participating, I think. But frankly, I think some of the best discussions that we had as the enviros and the farmers were when the two agencies were out of the room deliberately. So we could sort of get down to sort of brass tacks and talk about it. And one of the first things was, I can't remember who said it, but it was sort of a, why are we here question. I think it was meeting four. Meeting three or four was one of the first was the first one we attended. And a member from CLF, Scott, said, well, give sort of a ten minute overview of the petition and other stuff. And somebody went up and said, well, that would have been great to know at the first meeting. So I think it was that it was helpful to level set our conversation going forward and how implementation of this will work. I wouldn't wanna say to make people feel comfortable because there are still certainly concerns out there. But to have a dialogue on this, and one of the reasons that we're here is to talk about extending that stakeholder group beyond what that 67 requires. So that would allow us to keep meeting the stakeholders to keep meeting quarterly, which was the time period that we decided upon starting this fall. And then we could get together, talk about what's working, what's not working, do tweaks need to be made, do we need to come back into this room and talk about it? And as we move forward, I think it's important not to end that dialogue and to keep that dialogue moving forward as this process moves forward. Because it's gonna take a little time to implement the CAFO permitting and the general permits and the inspections and sort of stand everything up. And there's gonna be obviously opportunities for us to talk.

[Rep. Richard Nelson — Ranking Member (Derby)]: The state of New York has the same stakeholder group. And when they set up their rules and they continue to meet when they have new questions arise or something they haven't seen before, they they get together and they come to a solution together. Yep. And, you know, this in the state of New York, and we're trying to do the same thing here in Vermont, is we need to own it, and we need to drive the process forward.

[Jared Carpenter — Lake Champlain Committee]: Yeah. So we don't end up back here again. Absolutely. I mean, we have there are members of the stakeholder group that have been involved in conversations like this on and on for years and they've always sort of fallen apart for one reason or another. So we don't want this to fall apart. We want it to keep going and to keep working together on this and finding a long term solution.

[Rep. Richard Nelson — Ranking Member (Derby)]: And just to be fair, we don't agree on everything, but if we agree to have the conversation. Yep. And when someone says that's a hard no, either side, we say, okay, well, we can revisit that later. Let's look about how we're gonna get to it so it does work. Yep. And so there's been mutual respect both ways, and it and it has worked way better than I think we thought. And I don't know about you folks.

[Jared Carpenter — Lake Champlain Committee]: Absolutely. No. I think it's I think we had good results, good conversations, and a good platform to keep to keep this all going. And I think both sides have certainly, you know, want to see this dialogue continue as this process moves forward. So Representative Lipsky.

[Rep. Jed Lipsky — Committee Clerk]: Yeah. Thank you, Richard. Thank you, Jared. Could you tell us who were the stakeholders? You referred to the Berryman and the e e Eco's. What did you call and fire roads?

[Jared Carpenter — Lake Champlain Committee]: No. No. Well, yeah. Just the story of the environmental advocates. I don't like to say advocates because this building is full of advocates for various things. Wait. Sorry. There's for the environmental organizations. What organizations? And what So for the environmental organizations, was Lake Champlain Committee, which is my organization, Conservation Law Foundation, and Vermont Natural Resources Council or BNRC. And I know

[Mike O’Grady — Legislative Counsel]: And the

[Rep. Richard Nelson — Ranking Member (Derby)]: farmers, the stakeholders, the farmers group was members from Lake Champlain Farmer Coalition. Yeah. Addison Count County. Franklin County Farmers Coalition. Vermont Dairy Producers Association. We don't have any Connecticut River.

[Jared Carpenter — Lake Champlain Committee]: Yep.

[Rep. Richard Nelson — Ranking Member (Derby)]: People's Farmer Coalition. Four or five. We didn't have anyone from up in the Northeast Kingdom. We don't have a coalition up there, but I was part of this group representing that area of the state. And then we had a a few smaller farms that and there was some small farms in that as well. There was mediums and there were small, and and then you had the technical service providers, which would be like three or four. Yeah, there was

[Jared Carpenter — Lake Champlain Committee]: three of them. And someone from the conservation district.

[Rep. Richard Nelson — Ranking Member (Derby)]: And then there was, yeah, someone from the conservation.

[Rep. David Durfee — Chair]: Well, maybe you'll get to this, but did the enabling legislation last year specify who was gonna be part of the group?

[Jared Carpenter — Lake Champlain Committee]: Yes, I'm fairly certain of that. Okay.

[Mike O’Grady — Legislative Counsel]: Copy.

[Jared Carpenter — Lake Champlain Committee]: Actually, it did not. But the version of the extension language that we have is much more specific. This just says shall include opportunities for the following stakeholders, it's agricultural community, including livestock, farmers, environmental community, including. So this is actually much more specific in who is included.

[Rep. Richard Nelson — Ranking Member (Derby)]: And and part of the reason for making this more specific is we had such a large group.

[Rep. David Durfee — Chair]: We want to pare it down with a representative from each group. Yeah. But pair it down so it's more focused. So before we let you two go on, does anybody have any questions about why we're here? So going back to this this was this group began meeting because we said that they needed to last year in this legislation, and there's a lot of background before that, which I think you're gonna go.

[Jared Carpenter — Lake Champlain Committee]: Yeah, I've got just a couple of slides. I'm not gonna go into a lot of because it's somewhat extensive, but John had a hand up. I'm sorry.

[Rep. John O’Brien — Member]: Yeah, just want mean, you'll probably get into this, but was it ultimately about dairy farmers under TMDL jurisdiction or is it more about water under the wraps and jurisdiction of which agency really is gonna go forward?

[Jared Carpenter — Lake Champlain Committee]: Parts of both. It doesn't have as much to do with the wraps, but the bill last year at 67 required at the direction of the EPA to set up a CAFO permitting program. And so specifically, some specific farms will qualify under certain circumstances to need a CAFO permit instead of a large farm operating permit or an MFO. And that needs to be run by the Agency of Natural Resources, where in the past, it's been sort of, if you recall this sort of through a memorandum of understanding, it's been sort of a tag team operation that has Well, let me start. I mean, started with So the three organizations that were involved filed what's called a petition for de delegation, essentially asking you know, who sentenced for the following reason. Petitioners request that EPA either order Vermont to take necessary corrective actions to cure the deficiencies described below or withdraw the program approval. The program approval being delegation of the Clean Water Act, and EPA would take over not only this, but everything that it's delegated. So obviously EPA didn't wanna do that. So we started working on what corrective actions are. And after this was filed in 2022, EPA spent two years looking into it. They did their own inspections. They did their own interviews and everything. And they came down with this response in 09/09/2024. Relevant A lot of us are under There are two parts that are relevant. You look at the fourth sentence and it says, you know, APA has closely observed this, but ANR has failed to do so. So they acknowledged the fact that ANR, you know, this wasn't all just on one agency or the other agency that both were falling down on it. But it says under number one, that ANR, the state agency with authority to administer the Clean Water Act program, must be responsible for the careful permitting, monitoring and enforcement. This includes making ANR responsible for conducting routine inspections, forcing nutrient management plans, administered discharge permits. And they acknowledge that a p AFM has a critical role in this, but it says that Vermont's extensive sub delegation of authority to AFM has undermined state's NIPTIS program and rendered it out of compliance with the Clean Water Act. So by implementing and enforcing and requiring careful permits run by ANR on EPA, this would fill the EPA's requirements under the Clean Water Act, sort of the short version. Now, you'll see once we get going in our conversations, was, there needs to be, and this is something that stakeholder group would keep talking about in subsequent years going forward, but there will be dual inspections with both agencies on the ground for a number of reasons. But that ANR has to have by statute and by EPA has to have the lead on this, but it's not gonna exclude AFM from the process. The technical expertise that ANR doesn't necessarily have. And there's also quite frankly, and representative Nelson can talk about this much better than I can. There isn't any trust between the farmers and the agency of natural resources. And the hope is that if you have sort of a dual process, at least for a couple of years, there will that trust will start to build. I can jump back off to you on that.

[Rep. Richard Nelson — Ranking Member (Derby)]: Yeah. It it that's he's exactly right. The agency of agriculture had been doing our inspections, and when they when they would see discharges, they handed them off to A and R. Perhaps we should have CAFOs already. And and, again, I I hesitate to call them CAFOs because the medium farm operation is a CAFO program. The LFO is a CAFO. So it's certified, you know, our our confined animal feed not

[Jared Carpenter — Lake Champlain Committee]: Well, it's more type than it is size. It's often considered as being by size when it's really not. It's sort of the configuration there are. I mean, Mike can get counselor O'Brien can get into the details certainly better than we can about when is a farm a cathode.

[Rep. Richard Nelson — Ranking Member (Derby)]: But so what we're talking about are NIPTIS permits or VIPTIS or you know, that's a national pollutant I had to write it down myself. National pollutant discharge elimination system. So such as our municipalities all have permits. So when they have something terrible happens, they're covered and and till they fix the problem. On the farm sides, we have a zero discharge program. And that's all well and good. It's a high standard and we have a very high standard in the state of Vermont compared to other states. With it, if you qualify, if you haven't, the way I like to explain it is we're gonna find some firms that are gonna need a NIPTIS permit. There's also gonna be some firms saying, I have an issue that I need help resolving and time and money to resolve it. And they will call up hopefully call up and say, I need a permit. Come help me. Yeah. And so and everybody through this, the the petitioners realize that it's time and money, and they wanna help us with time and money. Exactly. And that's because we have one common goal, and that's to take care of our resources. We depend on those resources just as much as the citizens of the state and the nation and the world. Yeah. So

[Jared Carpenter — Lake Champlain Committee]: in response, EPA put another letter out in 2025 in response to, the corrective action plan proposed by ANR and, you know, was very specific that ANR is the only state entity authorized to administer the NIPTIS program, and as such is the only entity authorized to determine for Clean Water Act purposes whether a discharge to a surface water hazard is occurring, whether a discharge has been fully remedied. In other words, this is not within the purview of AAFM and acknowledges that, you know, that the divide, the last sentence between ANR and AFM has led to confusion and regulatory inaction. So EPA is very specific that there wasn't really one party at fault here, but there was the confusion and the way it was set up was not working, but under the Clean Water Act, ANR needs to be has the is the delegated authority. It needs to take the lead role in figuring that out. And that's not to sign AFM by any means. It's just there are certain categorical roles, in some areas, it's less of a partnership than it was under the MOU. And so that led to the passage of Act 67 to sort of qualify this and the formation of the stakeholder group. There's been a lot of conversation about this report that the stakeholder group is gonna put out and is very specific in Act 67 of what it is to be. It's not gonna detail all the permit requirements under the CAFO program. It's not gonna specifically specify what is a discharge and what's not a discharge. That's something that's gonna have to be, that's gonna be worked out over a period of time, but I don't have to read them out, but it's rather specific about, you know, its process and public input, access to the regulatory structure in the state, and any recommended changes from the group related to the implementation of CAFO program. So all very high level. But what we did, the the the farmers and the and the environmental advocates, is we came up with a timeline over the course of five years on how to implement the program. My understanding is that the EPA is okay with sort of as long as there's a process, as long as there's forward motion, as long as ANR is in the lead where the ANR needs to be in the lead, they're okay with this being an implementation process. But there be needs progress on all these permitting fronts starting immediately. And this does this, but I can't read my entire screen there, but the stakeholder group requested the joint inspections, at least initially, in a few years, we'll keep discussing on how that will work out. So it will be A and R, will be AFM, AFM more in a technical role, and ANR making some of those decisions, as I mentioned before. Permitting will be phased in, including individual CAFO permits starting this summer. And then the CAFO general permits, meeting the CAFO general permit was actually 07/01/2026, according to statute. We've agreed to push that back to 2028, because we think that'll give time, also the input from the agency natural resources, them time to implement the permitting program for individual, and then redo the permitting program. In They our needs to set inspection schedules. Both agencies have been asked to, in their budget requests every year, to try to come up with some chunk of money. We don't specify how much, but we understand that this is going to cost money to implement. So we've asked the agencies, the stakeholder group has for them to make budget requests specifically having to do with this implementation process. We haven't asked for anything further than that, but that's sort of the acknowledgement that this is gonna cost money. Last one is the request for the extension of the stakeholder group, as we've been talking about. The second to last one is the other request from stakeholders, which was for a third party consultant to be hired by ANR since ANR starting the program to conduct trainings for both ANR and AFM staff. There was conversations that well, for us it was learning about it, but the farmer participants had told us that not only between ANR and AFM, but also within ANR and within AFM, the inspections are inconsistent with what people are looking for. And that the training program is often sort of a hand down within the organization, the inspectors training the new people and going on. So there was a request for a third party consultant to be hired, to look into the program and to conduct training programs, the same training program for both ANR and AFM staff. So everybody's looking for the same thing. And also in the conversation that the farmers could participate at no cost. And the TSPs. And the TSPs and actually the conservation districts would like to be included. So they all know what to look for as well on the farm. So there's no surprises that, you know, someone on their own farm walk around and go, that's gonna become a problem. I'm gonna have to deal with that. That everybody knows what they're looking for, and hopefully that prevents some violations, some of the other side process, if everybody knows what everybody's looking for. It might be a little pie in the sky, but that was one of the requests of the stakeholders to try to level set the inspection process.

[Rep. David Durfee — Chair]: Maybe Richard, you can give us an example of I'm gonna stop sharing. Actually leave that up for a second because I had a question about this slide too, Jared. What would be something that a farmer might, once you had this training, look at it and be like, oh, that's gonna become a problem. Recognize that. I want to be proactive about it.

[Rep. Richard Nelson — Ranking Member (Derby)]: Well, anytime you have a discharge leaving a property, Technically, a discharge is not a discharge until it reaches waters of the state of Vermont. Now we codified that last year. It's not waters of The United States. We codified it into waters of the state of Vermont. And the reason we did that was waters of the state of Vermont are more consistent. Waters of The United States change with just about every administration. So we we codified that, and I believe I'm correct, to waters of the state of Vermont because they're consistent. As farmers, we've been working with the waters of the state of Vermont now for ten, fifteen years, whatever whatever it's been. So it's not a dish shatter till it reaches waters of the state, but as you walk around your property and something has changed, you put in a road that wasn't a road before and you have a culvert and all of a sudden a discharge is reaching a culvert and now has a more of a conveyance to the waters of the state and you say, I need to fix that. And and a lot of times these are small fixes, but some of them can be broad and expensive, like you you need a new barnyard to handle your cattle and keep your where you're confining your cattle. You need a barnyard to contain the waste, and you can handle the waste and and get it to a safe storage facility. And it could be as simple as you're not paying attention to monitoring the level in your manure pit. And, you know, that's that's all things that we need to pay attention to. And in this, yeah, one of the changes is we've got to record more record keeping Mhmm. On the farmer's part. A and R will take the lead on point source, which is the production areas, the actual capo area itself where the facilities are located. For now, AAFM will have the non point source out in the fields, the buffers out in the fields, and, you know, on how we conduct candle in our nutrients once they leave the storage facilities.

[Rep. David Durfee — Chair]: The slide that preceded this one had the statutory language saying that the report was due February 15. That was a little bit ambitious. That was yes.

[Jared Carpenter — Lake Champlain Committee]: That was a little bit ambitious.

[Rep. David Durfee — Chair]: Yep. Is But I think there is gonna be a report. Correct. No, so now back to the next slide. Yeah, just the language says instead of the report. There is

[Jared Carpenter — Lake Champlain Committee]: your report. That's a bit of a misnomer on my part, because I think there's an expectation that the report is gonna answer a lot of the questions in terms of implementation where I really think the timeline is gonna do that. Mean, the report is just what it is. It's the report back of these factors, assessing structure. It's really actually, we're not, well, comments on the draft were due last, when a week ago today. Last Wednesday, but I to to the mediator. And he that they are working on the final copy. We're not entirely sure when we're gonna see a final draft or we're anticipating soon. We might see that this before we leave. Hopefully. It's gonna be A lot of it is gonna be the input of what the stakeholders had in terms of, there was a process in there of all of that. So, but I think there have been some that have been putting too much stock in what the report to is

[Rep. Richard Nelson — Ranking Member (Derby)]: have, where

[Jared Carpenter — Lake Champlain Committee]: really in my mind, it's the implementation timeline that is the important part going forward, because that's gonna be sort of the milestones of what we'd like to, where we'd like to reach going forward. And then of course, the continuation of the conversation. Then the

[Rep. David Durfee — Chair]: language that you're gonna share with us shortly, is that likely to be different from the language that the report recommends?

[Jared Carpenter — Lake Champlain Committee]: Oh, yes, no, it has no recommendations. Has, if I'm remembering correctly, it's sort of an informal report. Like, again, even as none of us are gonna sit down and write another report for the legislature. It's gonna be more of

[Rep. Richard Nelson — Ranking Member (Derby)]: a we're we're gonna come

[Jared Carpenter — Lake Champlain Committee]: and sit down and offer testimony and say, here's how it's going, here's been those problems. This is going great. It's not going fabulous. Okay.

[Rep. Richard Nelson — Ranking Member (Derby)]: Did we put that in the language that we'd report back to legislature to let them know? So

[Rep. David Durfee — Chair]: yeah. Good. Okay. Thank you. Representative Lipsky.

[Rep. Jed Lipsky — Committee Clerk]: And, Jerry, do you use an acronym about five minutes ago if they had a t in it? We said that I'm lying. I t well I'm not

[Jared Carpenter — Lake Champlain Committee]: sure what I used. I must have just sort of reflected and used it. I apologize.

[Rep. Jed Lipsky — Committee Clerk]: You is there a name for this? What's The Implementation?

[Jared Carpenter — Lake Champlain Committee]: No. I don't think we had early named it. It's I

[Rep. Jed Lipsky — Committee Clerk]: should have interrupted. James.

[Jared Carpenter — Lake Champlain Committee]: My apologies. If I if I think of it, if you think of it, please please let me know because it's not it's not jumping into my brain right right at the moment of what I said. But now I'm wondering what I said.

[Rep. Richard Nelson — Ranking Member (Derby)]: You were going full speed lawyer speed. Yeah. Sorry. About that.

[Rep. David Durfee — Chair]: Yeah. It's

[Jared Carpenter — Lake Champlain Committee]: Maybe it's a TMDL. No.

[Rep. Jed Lipsky — Committee Clerk]: I've got I've got imprinted in my branch. Yeah. So PMI. Thank you for corroborating it.

[Unidentified Committee Member (referred to as “Representative Reagan”)]: I heard that too, and I'm, like, going

[Rep. John O’Brien — Member]: over Okay.

[Jared Carpenter — Lake Champlain Committee]: No. I apologize if I think if

[Rep. Jed Lipsky — Committee Clerk]: I think No. I was stumblittle.

[Jared Carpenter — Lake Champlain Committee]: Thank you, chair. I

[Rep. Richard Nelson — Ranking Member (Derby)]: will wanna add that. And and this is not to pick on anybody that's part of this process, but stakeholders work better together than the agencies. I'll I'll I'll just I wanna put that out there. We matter of fact, we we work a lot better.

[Jared Carpenter — Lake Champlain Committee]: Yeah. No. We had great conversations,

[Rep. Richard Nelson — Ranking Member (Derby)]: and I'm I'm I'm glad we had the opportunity. Frank and and honest and open. And and, you know, the farmers may have heard some things they didn't like. The stakeholders may have heard some things they didn't like, but then we came together to solve us to find a solution to move

[Jared Carpenter — Lake Champlain Committee]: it forward. Think so. And I think that's why it's so important to keep to keep it going. Ultimately, we're asking the committee to include that language into, and the third party inspector language into, into, three twenty three.

[Rep. David Durfee — Chair]: Should we

[Rep. Jed Lipsky — Committee Clerk]: have a That would be

[Jared Carpenter — Lake Champlain Committee]: a third party, a TPI. I don't know if I did.

[Rep. David Durfee — Chair]: Maybe that was a third party.

[Jared Carpenter — Lake Champlain Committee]: A third party inspector.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: In my opinion. Third party instructor.

[Jared Carpenter — Lake Champlain Committee]: We ready to have church discussions? Sit them up.

[Rep. Jed Lipsky — Committee Clerk]: You

[Rep. David Durfee — Chair]: can stay with us.

[Jared Carpenter — Lake Champlain Committee]: I'm gonna get park on side and yes, obviously, Mr. Chair, any questions during?

[Mike O’Grady — Legislative Counsel]: Good morning. This is Mike O'Grady with Ledge Council. I'm gonna walk you through the draft language that's being proposed for addition to three twenty three as the stakeholder group. Oh, sorry. Just trying to move the bubble.

[Rep. John O’Brien — Member]: I know who this might be

[Rep. Richard Nelson — Ranking Member (Derby)]: for, but, Mike, for Mhmm.

[Rep. John O’Brien — Member]: Permitting in with dairy farms in, say, New York and Pennsylvania, are we moving towards something very similar to what those states have?

[Mike O’Grady — Legislative Counsel]: Yes. So let's just talk about why Vermont is where it is. So in 2003, 2004, EPA, in response to advocates, establish a program to require concentrated animal feeding operations to get a permit if there was an actual discharge from the CAFO. In the preamble to that rule, there was a narrative summary or narrative directions to states on what they could do in order to set up a CAFO program. And one of the things that it said, it was like only one or two sentences. It said, States are encouraged to establish state based programs that prevent farms from having discharge and therefore prevent farms from having to get a federal CAEP vote permit. At the time, the general counsel of the agency of Ag was Mike Duane and the person who is now Laura, Phil Benedict, kind of the Jedi Knight of agricultural water quality. They looked at that language and they said, We're gonna start our own state based program that will prohibit discharges from farms, and therefore we won't trigger the federal jurisdiction. We won't need to get federal permits. We won't have EPA oversight or jurisdiction over us. And that was a favorite EPA? Well, literally came from EPA's preamble to their rule. And that's what you did. That's what you set up that program. Now you had to also set up a program where if there was an actual discharge, that ANR would issue that federal permit. And you did that. So you did have the two tier, two pronged system. It was managed almost exclusively out of the Agency of Agriculture. And that's where the RAPs evolved into what they are with the prohibition on discharge. And much of what came from the MOU between the two agencies about what would happen if there was an actual discharge and what ANR had to do to enforce and what the agency of AG had to do to report. But there were actual discharges, and they weren't being permitted. And in the advocate's opinion, they weren't being enforced appropriately. And that's what led to the to the petition letter to EPA to de delegate the state from NFTY's permitting. But you can't just de delegate one part of NFTY's permitting. If you de delegate the state, you take away everything. And that's wastewater, storm water, construction, industrial, municipal, storm shelter. So instead of doing that, EPA said, Hey, here's this corrective action that the state needs to do in order to come into compliance with NIPTY's requirements. And that's what led to the act last year, Act 67. Largely just emphasizing that ANR DEC is the primary permitting entity for actual discharges requiring ANR to do actual inspections of farms to determine if there are actual discharges and to permit those where there are actual discharges. Now, once you get a permit for a CAFO permit, you technically are allowed to have a discharge, but only if it's due to one of the significant flood events, 100 flood event, etcetera. Otherwise, you have to not have a discharge to, you can't have a discharge from your production area. That is considered a direct discharge. If you're out in your field and your land applying nutrients according to site specific conditions, which has been interpreted to me NRCS five ninety nutrient management plan, then that qualifies for what's called the stormwater exception to a discharge. Because you're doing what you're supposed to do for the appropriate application and uptake of that waste for purposes of agriculture and fertilizer.

[Unidentified Committee Member (referred to as “Representative Reagan”)]: So you just said that you're allowed some discharge. So is that, like, the municipalities, like, St. Holland City has a discharge permit?

[Mike O’Grady — Legislative Counsel]: You will you will have a permit. Discharge certain amount. It's not like that. It's like

[Unidentified Committee Member (referred to as “Representative Reagan”)]: But why wouldn't it

[Rep. Richard Nelson — Ranking Member (Derby)]: be like that?

[Mike O’Grady — Legislative Counsel]: That's be because how how that rule is written. The federal CAFO rule says the farm shall not, the CAFO shall not have a discharge from its production area unless it's due to one of these rain events, a one hundred year flood. Now, the wastewater treatment plant in St. Albans, if they don't discharge, it literally explodes. Right? Right,

[Unidentified Committee Member (referred to as “Representative Reagan”)]: I see

[Jared Carpenter — Lake Champlain Committee]: a lot.

[Mike O’Grady — Legislative Counsel]: And so, but the farm has the ability to take the waste that would be considered a discharge and then land apply it or manage it otherwise, maybe in a digester, and therefore not have to have a discharge.

[Unidentified Committee Member (referred to as “Representative Reagan”)]: So like you say in big rain events when their plants overflow. So that's allowed because otherwise it'd run down the streets or whatever, I don't know.

[Mike O’Grady — Legislative Counsel]: So those are combined sewer overflows, and those are the product the design of wastewater treatment plants from fifty, sixty years ago. Not quite literally, the Romans invented combined sewer overflows because they were the ones that designed the aqueducts and the piping, etcetera. But if you put too much flow into any engineered system, it's gonna break. So you need to design something that will alleviate that pressure, and that's what the combined sewer overflows do. And for a long time, they were just permanent. They were just part of the city's permit there. You were allowed to do that during a rainfall event. About ten years ago, the EPA basically said, Hey, states all around the country, you need to start controlling your combined sewer overflows. Problem with that is it's really, really expensive to to undo a combined sewer overflow and to to create a system that controls the wastewater or separates the wastewater from your precipitation flow. What Vermont did with EPA's approval is set up a schedule for all those wastewater treatment plants that have CSOs. They now have a mandate to fix their CSOs, separate them, and they have a schedule to do that. And they're doing it. And they're doing it in a way that they can manage the expense over, I think it's over ten years. So it's not unduly burdensome for them. So that's, it's different. It definitely is. The permitting standard for the CAFO is different from the permitting standard from the wastewater treatment.

[Unidentified Committee Member (referred to as “Representative Reagan”)]: So I think that's, you know, earlier talking about mistrust of farmers and agencies is because, you know, like in Saint Albans Bay, every time it rains, there's a shot of sewage going in there. When the water quality's off, it's the farmers that are taking

[Jared Carpenter — Lake Champlain Committee]: it. Right.

[Mike O’Grady — Legislative Counsel]: I mean, the optics of any CSO is it's awful. But hopefully, with with time and with some money, they'll be gone. I mean, I know some of the towns are really, it's a priority for, Rutland has really been pushing hard to get rid of theirs because for them, it's an optics They had quite a few, and every time it rained, they would take a hit in the media. So they're trying to get rid of that.

[Rep. David Durfee — Chair]: Update their facility. Mhmm. Doctor. Nelson? Yeah. So

[Rep. Richard Nelson — Ranking Member (Derby)]: our Jack, that's why we have this requirement of foot of freeboard in our. So when you have the big precipitation event, we can contain our waste. And this is part of this that came out of the stakeholder group is keeping track, you know, getting a visual on your mirror pit, how much freeboard do you have, how much freeboard do you have. The one thing we don't enjoy in Vermont that they do in New York is Vermont has zero land application from December 15 to April 1. New York, they can spread year round on-site specific areas in the wintertime. There are people in the stakeholder group that would like to see that lifted. I live in the Northeast Kingdom, usually from December 15, April 1. Although this year in March, we did have times of no snow on the fields that we could have gone, and a lot of places in the state could have gone. I think these will be discussions going later, but because of that rule, our buffer areas are narrower than they are under true CAFO. True CAFO is a 100 feet to water with zero spread and in Vermont we're 25 feet.

[Rep. David Durfee — Chair]: So

[Mike O’Grady — Legislative Counsel]: The CAFO the the federal CAFO buffer can can modify, can change depending on certain conditions. Yeah,

[Rep. David Durfee — Chair]: practices. Let's take one more question and then we should probably skip into the language.

[Rep. John O’Brien — Member]: Yeah, just let me, Mike. Historically, I just wondered how old are CAFOs and CAFO permitting at the EPA? I mean, was this in the nineties or even

[Mike O’Grady — Legislative Counsel]: So before 2004, they were called confined animal feeding operations. And they had been regulated, I believe, like, mid nineties or early nineties was really kind of when that regulation started. But I can check on that. But the people didn't like the word confined because not all livestock operations there's a lot of livestock in one area. It's not necessarily that they're confined.

[Rep. John O’Brien — Member]: But they started in response to what, like the hog farms in Carolina? Well,

[Mike O’Grady — Legislative Counsel]: there were situations in other states where there were significant discharges from certain facilities in Virginia, Iowa. And there was an identified need to person control. There was a case out of Virginia folks, Smithfield, and that was really significant. And that was mid nineties. Okay. So what does this language do? As as Jared and Rep Nelson noted, Act 67 last year had a kind of informal or less formal working group than what is being proposed here. What is being proposed is a statutory group. It's like many other groups, that are created by statute. The Technical Advisory Committee for Wastewater, the Petroleum Cleanup Fund Committee for the Petroleum Cleanup Fund, the Endangered Species Committee for Endangered Species. So it's effectively an advisory committee for the agency as they are, implementing and adopting requirements for a CAFO program for farms. And, it directs ANR in coordination with the Agency of Ag to convene the working group to provide advice and recommendations on implementation of and transition to the CAFO permit required under thirteen fifty three of this title. And that was the permit you actually created in 2004, but which you clarified the requirements for last year. So the group is composed of five livestock farmers from the different regions. The Speaker of the House is going to appoint these five, farmers. Then there's three ag technical service providers, your custom applicators. It might be the people that are completing your nutrient management plan. It might be somebody like Heather Darby because she's a custom harvester. And so people of that kind. And those are gonna be appointed by the governor, and then three representatives from the environmental advocate community, and they'll be appointed by the committee on committees. And then the executive director, Desceme, of the conservation Districts. The districts are very involved in water quality, very involved with helping farmers implement what is necessary to comply with regulatory requirements, having someone there to kind of provide maybe, like a day to day boots on the ground as as as opposed to, like, the the boots on the ground for inspection. Thank you. It'll be, I think, helpful to that advisory group. ANR and the Agency of Ag participate in the group in an advisory and administrative capacity, but shall not have appointed members on the group and shall not be required to submit re reports. The working group shall have administrative, technical, and legal assistance from ANR. The secretary of ANR calls the first meeting to occur on or before 11/01/2026. They meet orderly. They're they're going to choose co chairs, one from the livestock farming community, one from the environmental advocate community. They their meeting shall be open to the public, but and this is an additional exception to the open meeting provision specific to this group. They may go into executive session in order to discuss a circumstance or an event regarding a specific form or regarding a possible capo perma violation by a specific farm. So this will allow more open communication, discussion about specific violations on farms without the fear that, they those discussions will become, open to the media or open to people adverse to the farm. The working group annually reports to you, the legislature. The report may take the form of testimony. And then in order to be a livestock farmer on the committee, they need to be in good standing. That means they can't have an active enforcement violation that's reached a final order with ANR or the agency of AG. And they have to be in compliance with any current grant agreement with ANR or the agency of AG. And then there's the second section. On or before 12/01/2026, ANR contracts with the third party consultant to assist the secretary in development of the standards we used by ANR and the agency of ag when inspecting CAFOs to provide training to ANR and the agency of ag on implementation of inspection. Farmers that qualify for a came up CAFO permit, they may voluntarily attend training. And when the secretary of ANR and secretary of ag commence inspections, the third party consultant shall accompany them on 10 inspections to ensure compliance with the inspection standards developed under subdivision one. Now here's the cook. It this is a third party contractor requires appropriations. The appropriations bill's already been passed out of your body, passed out of Senate Appropriations Committee last fri no, actually, yesterday. And you're gonna have to find that money because it's probably gonna cost a couple $100,000 to get a consultant that's gonna do the development of those standards and then do training and 10 inspection visits. So I don't know where that's gonna come from. There is money in the Clean Water Fund. There is a little bit of reserve there. Maybe make the argument that an additional 300,000 be appropriated for that. I do wanna talk about inspection and what inspection will do and how this advisory board will kinda interface with inspection. The agency of that used to take me out on inspections, which was a lot of fun. And they showed me things I never thought I would ever see, like the insides of a full digester, which I can still recount. But one of the things that they show is a bunk system that had leakage that was reaching a water of the state or a conveyance that was leading to a water of the state. And apparently, it's not an uncommon issue. And what do you do in that situation? Is there a way to move the bunk so that there's no longer that leachate into the conveyance? Or because of site constraints, is that the only place where the bunk can go? And therefore, do you need a constructed system to manage that so that the leachate doesn't reach? I can envision in these inspections ANR, the agency of the vaccine kind of common issues where, hey, if we develop an engineered solution for that, then there won't be a discharge and there won't need to be potentially a discharge permit. And I think the advisory board, the five farmers, the Enviros that will be looking at that type of, will that be satisfactory? I think that is where you're gonna get a true benefit from this group. Like how do we do this so that there isn't a discharge, it's not overly onerous, and there isn't an environmental impact? And I think having the conversation with those people that have those vested interests, other than the regulator, it may be helpful in finding those types of

[Unidentified Committee Member]: solution. Representative Lipsky.

[Rep. Jed Lipsky — Committee Clerk]: When you talk about a construct, something like a storm water retention pond down slope of these

[Mike O’Grady — Legislative Counsel]: It could. The one that I saw was literally like a they called it a high flow, low flow cistern system. Like, basically, you build, like, retention tanks that will retain the leachate and then manage it in a way so that it either evaporates or can be managed away from the discharge point. And I've seen others where it's kind of like the leachate is directed into like a field where it then kinda, it was like a ripple, you know, it rippled down. So it wasn't quite like a retention pond, but there was opportunity over the course of that field for the leachate to, you know, its flow to be effectively slowed and then evaporated before hitting the- But these are big capital coal. Right. And there's still the Agency of Agricultural program. They're still doing the the program that NRCS cost shares through the capital fund to do engineered capital systems on farms.

[Rep. Richard Nelson — Ranking Member (Derby)]: Represent us. So that was part of our discussion with the stakeholder group for these capital costs. And over in the state of New York, the way they run their CAFO program now, and our DEC does the program. Agriculture sits around the corner with a 10 wheeler loaded money. And if there's an issue, DEC base maybe paraphrasing this too much, but basically calls up agriculture and say, we have a farmer here that needs some help, and they come in to help. And, you know, and we've talked about different ways that we could do some kind of a funding mechanism through our some of our already existing programs, also made them aware of how the farm bill works and the money is available from the federal government. But, you know, the farm bill is supposed to be passed every five years, and this past time, they went in. And, you know, there was a long time with no new funding. And the the system you're talking about, Mike, with a high flow, low flow, and the discharge, and that's into a VTA, vegetative treatment area where the the water goes and hits a hits a a berm, a dike, and you know then goes into the next section and you grow forage on it and you're hard to solve that forage so you're recapturing that nutrients that are going into the plants you know and then you put it back in your bucket essentially. Great systems haven't been used as much as they could here in Vermont and it's these are some of the things we want to have in the working group is that have BC and I explore these new treatment areas that we can use to contain this stuff. It's no secret in 2023 with that extraordinary rain event, and it was bad enough cracking, collecting the rain where water ran through the production areas. But then to get all the rain that came out the bunker silo areas, our silo in Ardsburg is four acres. You know, and an acre inch is a 100,000 gallons a brand. Now if you get a downpour, you've got a product coming out of there at high flow that is well, you know, the solution to pollution is dilution. Forgive me. I'm not It's So if we can direct that into a vegetative treatment area Mhmm. It's fine. It's the low flow, that concentrated low flow, you know, you don't you don't want that going into a vegetative treatment area because it's going to create a brown spot. So that's where that needs to be collected and then put into the or what have your bill applied at a controlled rate.

[Rep. John O’Brien — Member]: Representative O'Brien? Mike, do we know across all agencies fall through this, what sort of monies, state monies we spend every year

[Rep. Jed Lipsky — Committee Clerk]: on On water quality? I

[Mike O’Grady — Legislative Counsel]: don't I I used to know that number, but I don't When we were doing the TMDL for Lake Champlain, EPA was kind of like, how much are you spending? I can't recall, but I can get you that. I just wondered if

[Rep. John O’Brien — Member]: there's real money being spent there, if it's more of a shift of those budgeted dollars between agencies. That's When do we need 300,000 more?

[Mike O’Grady — Legislative Counsel]: I mean, that might be a more appropriate question for the commissioner, because the permit, the actual permit is, well, it's past due, right? Or it's about to be past due. And there was a bill, a miscellaneous environmental subjects bill, that would have extended the permit deadline. But that bill just got caught up in a wash of many things, and it's not going forward. So I assume that agency is not gonna meet the permit deadline and may need to push it out. And I don't know how that affects the interplay between the two agency programs going forward, like what funding is going to to which agency over the next year while they try to implement a per a permit program?

[Rep. David Durfee — Chair]: It's a general permit that

[Mike O’Grady — Legislative Counsel]: we have. Yeah. And and then there's supposed to be an individual one as well. It's, like a year later.

[Rep. David Durfee — Chair]: And it sounds like they're gonna be switching and do an individual permit first. Is that what I saw in I head up, Jared?

[Jared Carpenter — Lake Champlain Committee]: Yeah, Jared Karp from Lake Street. The application and I think 07/01/2026 is when the sort of the target date for the individual permit and the application in the timeline, it's the general permit, the medium, medium KFO general permit that's being pushed out to 2028. And there's also another deadline in there for the individual KFO to be of a rolling process to folks to defy and to be permitted and qualified for that. The

[Rep. David Durfee — Chair]: language here seems like it's doing two things, setting up the stakeholder group, or it's extending the stakeholder group, formalizing that, and then appropriating some funding so that you can hire a contractor to help bring some expertise to the inspection process. But there's nothing else that needs to be done in statute to account for the fact that the permit isn't going to be ready on July 1. Don't know whether that was a requirement or a recommendation.

[Rep. Richard Nelson — Ranking Member (Derby)]: We haven't

[Jared Carpenter — Lake Champlain Committee]: the environment, don't know if two agencies have been discussing this, but we haven't discussed it with them or with ourselves. The language in the miscellaneous DBC bill was for the median permit was pushing it back for the general permit, but believe it pushing it back in year 2027.

[Mike O’Grady — Legislative Counsel]: It was '28.

[Jared Carpenter — Lake Champlain Committee]: And then this pushes it to '28, but maybe you're right. Those states had or proposed to be pushed back. I guess we haven't talked about it. I think it's sort of a, well there's all sorts of dates now, not just with this program but with others. Theoretically I suppose we could include them both in here, but I probably wanna say let's get the program underway and then maybe next year we can revisit solid dates or

[Rep. David Durfee — Chair]: something like that. We can talk about that after.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: Thank you, representative. Can go

[Jared Carpenter — Lake Champlain Committee]: in first, and then we can put stuff in the kitchen. Actually, I

[Unidentified Committee Member]: have several questions. You drafted this, but who directed what's in it?

[Rep. David Durfee — Chair]: Mike, I have a question for you, I think.

[Mike O’Grady — Legislative Counsel]: I'm sorry. I didn't do.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: You drafted this, but who directed what it says

[Jared Carpenter — Lake Champlain Committee]: by country?

[Mike O’Grady — Legislative Counsel]: Representative Nelson. That's true.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: And there's talk about funds appropriated for contracting with a consultant. What about is there any payment for the group members?

[Mike O’Grady — Legislative Counsel]: I was told not to include that.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: They're they're not unpaid.

[Rep. Richard Nelson — Ranking Member (Derby)]: I think if you dug into what went on with the eight meetings, I think you'd find there probably not a lot of money traded hands. The farmers aren't doing this for their retirement benefits. They're doing it because it's what needs to be done, and and, and that's how we kinda kind of all said. Don't that's the least of our worries. And this language, you know, the stakeholders all work together on it. And and it Jared drafted up a lot of it. Mike, counsel O'Grady drafted up. We shared it. Got everyone's.

[Rep. David Durfee — Chair]: And I was aware that's happening.

[Rep. Richard Nelson — Ranking Member (Derby)]: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Was sharing that with you. I was

[Unidentified Committee Member]: wondering if people are gonna be happy about giving much of time without any type of even travel or I mean it's pretty nuts for meeting virtually because it's pretty far for some of these people

[Rep. David Durfee — Chair]: to travel. Have your meetings been in person?

[Jared Carpenter — Lake Champlain Committee]: They've been mostly in person. Had started listening to this. We would probably I'm a big fan of in person meetings, but in terms of practicality, there would probably be some version of hybrid or maybe even all Zoom.

[Rep. Richard Nelson — Ranking Member (Derby)]: Yeah. We we had a we had a real effective Zoom meeting towards the end of all this. And, you know Most of

[Jared Carpenter — Lake Champlain Committee]: these meetings were twenty, twenty five people plus more in the room and then maybe a handful, three, four, five via Zoom. Yeah. Each meeting. I mean, for pretty end of that is really north of the farmers who

[Unidentified Committee Member]: are taking themselves away from their jobs and this is part of my job.

[Jared Carpenter — Lake Champlain Committee]: So just

[Unidentified Committee Member]: a question over there, are people wanting to do that? I was also wondering, governor signs agricultural technical service providers. If I were governor, I wouldn't really know who would be qualified. Does that need to be defined, or is it defined, or is it obvious everywhere but me?

[Rep. Richard Nelson — Ranking Member (Derby)]: In our world, in our world, it's real obvious, and you know, we, you know, we'd come up with

[Rep. David Durfee — Chair]: a list. And the agency would advise? Yeah. The agency would advise. The the agency of Ag and Yeah. Yeah.

[Rep. Richard Nelson — Ranking Member (Derby)]: Yeah. And and and like the Enviros, maybe ANR would help come up with a list, but I think they're pretty well. Got it mapped out the way it's gonna be anyway.

[Jared Carpenter — Lake Champlain Committee]: Ours about I think ours are committee committee of committees. Correct? Yes. Yep. Oh, yeah. So we would just give a short list of three people to the process.

[Rep. Richard Nelson — Ranking Member (Derby)]: You know, such as the speaker does us know. Right.

[Jared Carpenter — Lake Champlain Committee]: One, I'm assuming that would come through AFL.

[Mike O’Grady — Legislative Counsel]: That's effectively how almost every appointment works. The governor's staff consult with the experts in the field, whether or not it's the commissioner or whether or not it's the agency of ag or some of the business associations. And they they come up with the people who are willing and able to do it.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: Is the language clear enough of who would be qualified to be a technical service provider?

[Mike O’Grady — Legislative Counsel]: I think it is.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: I wouldn't know. And I guess my main concern I see with this is I'm wondering about the balance because there's only three representatives from the environmental advocate community. This group could easily achieve a quorum with none of them there. Theoretically, I mean what is it eight versus three?

[Jared Carpenter — Lake Champlain Committee]: Yeah well it was you know we weren't really thinking about you know quorums and that sort of thing and the reasons for three from the environmental climate communities there's been three organizations that

[Unidentified Committee Member]: have been involved all the way through

[Unidentified Committee Member]: I suppose I could start throwing in other organizations but

[Jared Carpenter — Lake Champlain Committee]: I feel comfortable with that. It wasn't the point of like for example, point of having co chairs was that we would have to be in agreement to meet and

[Mike O’Grady — Legislative Counsel]: we have to be in

[Jared Carpenter — Lake Champlain Committee]: agreement on the agenda, we have to be in agreement going forward rather than like one group being a chair and being able to set the agenda at the expense of the other group. Maybe we're being a little optimistic, little Pollyannaish thinking that everything will sort of go forward and in cooperation and immunity. But that was the goal rather than being outvoted. And I'm not sure what would have a vote on and be outvoted on. Nothing's coming to nothing's coming to mind at the moment.

[Rep. Richard Nelson — Ranking Member (Derby)]: We really, through the whole process, haven't really helped folks. We we had discussion, and we come to an agreement. And then everyone nods their head and said, okay. We can go ahead with that. That that could change. But again, the the the joint chairs was so that, you know, someone from each side would help decide when we're having the meetings, the agendas, and how we're gonna go forward, you know, and, you know, the the three advocates are all lawyers. You know? So, yeah, we we got them outnumbered and but, you know, they are the wordsmiths and and, you know, but we have faith. We're doing this to show good faith that we all wanna work together to achieve the goals that need to be achieved. Yeah.

[Rep. David Durfee — Chair]: Representative Reagan, then I think I think we should probably take a break. I'll see if there's any other questions about the language before we do that. But go ahead, representative Reagan.

[Unidentified Committee Member (referred to as “Representative Reagan”)]: Where So it says, you're gonna do third party consultant to do 10 inspections a year Mhmm. In a year of of different operations?

[Mike O’Grady — Legislative Counsel]: That was my understanding. Maybe that could be clarified to do 10 inspections on on 10 different farms to ensure compliance. So so there's gonna be a team of people that go from the different agencies to the farm to inspect it. Is that So one of the things that EPA said is that A and R has to be the lead in any inspection. But from my understanding, the agency of AG will be accompanying ANR on on those initial inspections. So with the consultant A and R and the agency of Ag, they're they're effectively will be a team.

[Unidentified Committee Member (referred to as “Representative Reagan”)]: And they're all supposed to be quite cross training so they know what they're looking at and talking.

[Mike O’Grady — Legislative Counsel]: Well, I think that's one of the purposes of hiring the consultant to come up with the kind of a uniform inspection standard so that they all know it.

[Jared Carpenter — Lake Champlain Committee]: It's not a convention that there'll be 10 a year. I think there'll be 10 just to sort of make sure that everybody's on the same page. So and then A and R and A and F and will go forward and then stakeholder group to keep discussing. I mean, at some point does it make sense to keep having dual inspections because when I talk to appropriators, they say, well, you're gonna have two statute, two of the exact same programs with the two agencies as a redundant cost. And that's something that's gonna have to be discussed going forward. But I think for, so everybody's on the same page, everybody's inspecting the same thing and for a comfort level for the regulated community, the farmers that was gonna do inspections at least in the first, at least initially.

[Rep. David Durfee — Chair]: This is part of the transition.

[Rep. Richard Nelson — Ranking Member (Derby)]: Correct. And when you see the final report, it lists the stuff all out. Lists out how many inspections the the consultant will be a part of the auditor, consultant, whatever you want to term it. And it also talks about the roles of of it, DC and a and and AFM at these inspections. And that's all. That's not in this language that's coming out of the report from the from the So Yeah. So that was just a good start. It's a good 10 This keeps the process going. And yet this this this third party consultant auditor is is the start of it. Also in the language from the facilitator, you're gonna see ongoing training for the instruments. They do it over, you know, they have training. And, and, you know, so that they're, they're learning new techniques, you know, for mitigation or, you know, or what are people seeing. The reason we want this training is that I decided I wanted a ham and cheese sandwich on ciabatta breads with mayo, and I called up Jed to give him my order, and then Jed couldn't do it. So he called you up, then you called the council up, and then someone called up Jared, and then it got to John. And then John brought me up a a Reuben on pumpernickel with mayonnaise, you know. So we want this training to be a little more formal so they're all going together. And that's just about how we described it at Yeah. And and And it was from the farmers that the stakeholders heard how these inspections sometimes went, and they weren't consistent. But

[Unidentified Committee Member (referred to as “Representative Reagan”)]: so after these initial 10 and when they with the consultant and everybody's trained, then they're gonna no more consultant. There's gonna be a team that goes and does it.

[Jared Carpenter — Lake Champlain Committee]: Correct. Yeah. I don't think it could be an ongoing expense to have rebar instrument sections. But it was getting everybody on the same page, just training them

[Rep. Richard Nelson — Ranking Member (Derby)]: for them. We haven't gotten

[Jared Carpenter — Lake Champlain Committee]: to the discussion point of whether there should be every five, you know, five years out, should there be a brush up course or something? We hadn't thought that.

[Unidentified Committee Member (referred to as “Representative Reagan”)]: The actual inspection is every CAFO every year, is that how it gonna work? Two weeks of term.

[Jared Carpenter — Lake Champlain Committee]: Two weeks of term. In current statute, it's large every year, medium every three, small every seven.

[Rep. David Durfee — Chair]: Yeah. Okay.

[Rep. Richard Nelson — Ranking Member (Derby)]: And in New York, it's every frame, every three. It so these are these are things that we can discuss.

[Jared Carpenter — Lake Champlain Committee]: There have been yeah. There have been arguments we made that, like, March will be every three, so it gives the inspectors more time to inspect the small ones that might be discharging rather than just every seven.

[Mike O’Grady — Legislative Counsel]: What needs to be considered is staffing. And you're going to have to have, and I don't know how many people the Commissioner currently has in that program for inspection. But if you're gonna be doing inspection of large or medium on a three to five year period, you're probably gonna need more people than they have right now.

[Rep. David Durfee — Chair]: You. We need to take a break. But if there are clarifying questions on this while we have Mike, let's do that.

[Rep. John O’Brien — Member]: On this sort of discussion, I just wondered, is their consistency nationwide on CAFOs and CAFO permitting? Because that's really the EPA is watching that, right? Or is it wildly different when Jamaica's Bay?

[Mike O’Grady — Legislative Counsel]: So first you have to realize that there's different KFO rules for different KFO animals. And so there's variation right from the jump.

[Rep. John O’Brien — Member]: Right.

[Mike O’Grady — Legislative Counsel]: So then each agency in each state has different ways of dealing with their different programs. And then there's different standards that those states apply. So I would not say it's it has a base floor that provides consistency, but as applied, would say it's not consistent.

[Rep. Richard Nelson — Ranking Member (Derby)]: Well, so

[Rep. David Durfee — Chair]: if we got a question about the language, I don't I don't wanna go off too much on tangents here because we're about to have our next witness show up and then I, as I hate to say, So we're running him and I do want to acknowledge the collaborative efforts of the stakeholders and the farmers in this process. I think it's very encouraging after somewhat contentious events that led to your getting together in the first place. Just, I'll say thank you on behalf of community. Think that's something to be appreciative of. The $300,000 via the appropriation, so this is going to be something we need to try and figure out. I think bringing it as is to the appropriations committee isn't going to be enough. So I will welcome all of us to be thinking about where could that $300,000 come from, and that may require some creativity. The furious point. Yeah. It's in the budget that's just passed out, did you say, of the committee, Mike? I hadn't been following that.

[Mike O’Grady — Legislative Counsel]: Yes. It passed out of the senate yesterday.

[Rep. David Durfee — Chair]: Of the senate, approves? Approves. So I

[Mike O’Grady — Legislative Counsel]: It's on the calendar. Yeah.

[Jared Carpenter — Lake Champlain Committee]: So mister chair, I had been talking to, folks downstairs about probably not $300,000, but it was it was a lesser amount. It did not make it into

[Rep. Jed Lipsky — Committee Clerk]: the budget.

[Jared Carpenter — Lake Champlain Committee]: One of those issues there.

[Unidentified Committee Member (referred to as “Representative Reagan”)]: So we're a little late

[Jared Carpenter — Lake Champlain Committee]: on all fronts, so to speak in the process, but that's not to say we're still talking about going to, we'll definitely go to conference committee and I'm sure there might be a way to, for the agencies to come up with a little bit of money and then we come back in the BAA and try to get a little money back. So I think there's avenues but suggestions from the committee would be fabulous as well.

[Rep. David Durfee — Chair]: Okay, all right. Thank you. Thank you all three of you for that testimony and we'll continue conversations about this. Let's take a break