Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: Education on January 28. For testimony now, we are gonna continue our discussion of H542 as well as the state budget and in particular where it falls in line with hopefully continued funding for remediation of the post COVID-nineteen outbreak. Now PCBs, I'm going to jump right into it and turn it over to Matt Chapman from the Department of Environmental Conservation.

[Matt Chapman, Director of Waste Management & Prevention, VT Department of Environmental Conservation]: So for the record, my name is Matt Chapman. I am the director of waste management and prevention with the Department of Environmental Conservation. So it's alright I'm going to combine sort of my testimony because the budget will be quick. So as you may or may not be aware, there is not any funding in the governor's 2027 budget for PCBs and schools. I think it's reflective of the general constriction that's taking place throughout the budget in a number of different areas. DEC is not alone. I mean, we we are certainly seeing limited funds sort of across the board within our budget. And I guess I would say that, you know, we noted in our prior testimony, are limited funds continuing to be available from the 9,500,000.0, and we continue to work on sort of the six priority schools that have been identified as those that have work that needs to be done and completed, and we're using the available funds to sort of move forward and and try and get those schools to a place of either where they've been remediated or they're they're in a sort of stable condition. So then, you know, just to sort of frame a little bit, I mean, in past years testimony, I think that both Secretary Moore and myself have stated that our primary goal is to address schools with known contaminant issues prior to expanding the testing regime to other schools. And as a result, just to let the community know, we have not required any additional schools to be tested over the past fiscal year, and there's not plans in the upcoming fiscal year based on funding to do any additional testing. There have been several schools who voluntarily wanted to go through for their own various reasons, and we've tried to help support them in that process.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: Actually, tell us at the point where you were sort of transitioning from I think we're about ready to jump out of budget and into How something new much do we basically have left? So it's about

[Matt Chapman, Director of Waste Management & Prevention, VT Department of Environmental Conservation]: in the range of 4,000,000. Trish has the numbers much more dialed in than I do. Most of that money that's left is planned for Green Mountain Union, and we're working with them to refine what their plans are and to deploy that money into the work that they need to have happen.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: And then within the whole big budget, there's no money shifting from one fund to another as you were able to do several years ago?

[Matt Chapman, Director of Waste Management & Prevention, VT Department of Environmental Conservation]: No, I can talk about that as we go through.

[Michael (Legislative Counsel)]: I mean, I think there's the I

[Matt Chapman, Director of Waste Management & Prevention, VT Department of Environmental Conservation]: think to the extent that there is as we well, it maybe is a good bridge to basically come in. It's I mean, I think that the the the tightness within the state budget is sort of helped us sort of take another look at how we've looked at the program and the program's design and going forward what we might approach on. And while I guess I would say that I have some concerns with some of the framing at age five forty two, we've tried to basically develop an alternative, and it's been passed out to the committee, that recognizes the state's fiscal constraints and tries to incorporate both elements from what the committee has put forward and other comments that we've heard from the field to hopefully build a greater set of consensus around the program. I just want to note that this is in large part due to sort of fiscal constraints and shouldn't be construed as the agency saying that we don't have a problem. I think from our standpoint, PCBs continue to be both an issue that we would like to see resolved and something that we would like to come back to as funding permits it. But there's sort of a restructuring that we're proposing to help reframe things. So you will see, I think, in the materials that I gave you a little earlier that are in committee, and I'm just gonna sort of walk through a set of proposed changes to five forty two. Obviously, these are the document. Yes, sir. Just sort of walk through them, explain to you what they are, explain to you some of the concepts behind them, and then answer any questions. So the proposed changes proposed to remove the mandatory 2027 date for testing of all schools. It does require that schools test if they are accessing state construction aid. And while I appreciate today, there's no funding for state construction aid, we believe that in the future, it's important that if the state is funding these schools in construction, that this is an appropriate time to sort of take a look at PCB contamination and address it sort of with the construction that's taking place at that time. We're recommending that if the school's basically evaluating their existing facilities, that as a part of either consolidation, decommissioning, or a locally but not state funded construction, that they take a look and test for PCBs. And again, I just note that while that's a recommendation, it's not mandatory. And then lastly, we we would enable schools to test sort of on a voluntary basis when they so choose sort of at their discretion. So the last two things I

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: just wanna Sure. One, we don't need to put that into the statute. Do they can test if they want anyway? Well, I

[Matt Chapman, Director of Waste Management & Prevention, VT Department of Environmental Conservation]: mean, I think I think that's true, and I think that I think the only reason we're putting it into the statute is because we might want to make it clear that those things are eligible for basically, it would happen under state supervision, and it would be eligible for reimbursement from the state, depending on the availability of funding. Right, which is not available? Not today, correct.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: And then you've sort of guess I'd be hesitant to put a recommendation to the statute as well. I understand.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: Yeah. I've wondered what that actually meant understate. I mean, there's

[Matt Chapman, Director of Waste Management & Prevention, VT Department of Environmental Conservation]: Sure. I mean, I think it's

[Unidentified Committee Member]: State supervision is the word you just used. Sure. So I'm curious about if a school district was going to go forward with it, it's not just the rules that they would have to follow if they were ever going to get future reimbursement for something they're taking on on their own, but supervision as well?

[Matt Chapman, Director of Waste Management & Prevention, VT Department of Environmental Conservation]: Well, that's the way we normally do these things. So there's a set of rules that basically govern how you conduct the testing and then what you do when if you find anything. So if they It's Exactly. And I think, I guess I would say, when we first started talking internally about this, it was permissive, frankly, on both. And I think that while it may make all the sense in the world to keep it permissive, I think that it makes sense, at least for purposes of conversation, to say that it's encouraged and not just permissive. And I think that from an education and outreach perspective, it would be at least the Agency of Natural Resources' stance to educate schools and try and encourage them that when they're taking these steps that they exercise their voluntary ability to go through this. So it's not mandatory and I don't want to lead anyone to think that, but it's probably a good idea at that time frame for you to be thinking about doing that. So, again, a job for guidance issuing and a job for statute. And no disagreement. No disagreement. And and again, if you elect to do it, then you need to follow the process of doing it. But if you elect not to, is your election to do so. So the other thing that so so basically, for schools that both either identify PCBs identified PCBs above the South currently or in the future, we're recommending that there be a plan put into place that basically addresses management practices to bring the school into sort of a think of it as sort of a good housekeeping state of equilibrium. So for those schools that have a SAL exceedance and have not gone sort of further into the process and notified EPA, it would be a series of cleaning, HVAC updates, sort of good housekeeping measures to make sure that they're minimizing the amount of PCB dust that's in the school and minimizing exposure for those who have it would also contain things that are mandatory for EPA for those that have EPA task requirements, so episodic testing, maintenance of treatment units and such. That's sort of the one part of the proposal. For those schools that have exceedances of the immediate action level or the sort of higher levels, there'd be an expectation that they continue to mitigate those impacts. And the statute basically requires that ANR only require implementation of sort of a cleanup when there's a concurrent construction or renovation activities taking place. So with an exception, if you basically try to mitigate and you still have exceedances above the immediate action level, then we would move towards doing some sort of more intrusive cleanup in those those situations. In those cases, the that the secretary requires a cleanup work, there's a commitment to funding that cleanup work.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: So this is really and I can probably later talk with the This is more of a process of, like, what's a statute? What's a rule? What's a regulation? And I'm just sort of trying to get clear. Currently the statute says everybody's got a test. I don't think it says anything more than that, and all of the rest of that is in rules and regulations, right? That's true, and I mean,

[Matt Chapman, Director of Waste Management & Prevention, VT Department of Environmental Conservation]: I think it's simplest form if one wanted to remove the 2027 Dayton testing and require testing prior to receiving state capital funds, you That's okay. And now the only thing I guess I would say is that we're also trying to coordinate some of the work that gets done with construction activities, because we've certainly heard from the field that that is the time. If you basically have a planned disruption that you're going to be going through anyway, that's the time to be focusing in on doing these sort of more intensive intrusive type activities. That's not what our regs say. Our regs would sort of push us towards a more expedited cleanup on these laws. I don't think we can change those regulations, can we? Well, they're state regs for for purposes of of cleanup, and I think we're comfortable if we're putting schools into a situation where they are mitigating and addressing the issues that the sort of longer term, more intensive work gets coordinated with school construction activities.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: Didn't name it immediate action level.

[Matt Chapman, Director of Waste Management & Prevention, VT Department of Environmental Conservation]: Well, again, I think, again, going back to my testimony, I mean, with respect to the immediate action level, if there's an immediate action level exceedance and it can't be mitigated, in other words, we've tried to take the sort of steps to mitigate it and we can't, then I think that's the exception to that coordination function. And those hopefully very limited set of circumstances. Those would be the ones that we would focus on doing things outside of the school construction. Moving on, it also proposes to create a new special fund. And again, I think the the purpose of that is to both have a landing place for any future recovery from litigation, any future state funding, and it creates, frankly, a prior a prioritization scheme to the extent there is state funding about what gets funded in what rank order. It contains basically the same reimbursement and cost recovery provisions that have been passed in previous legislation. And then I guess I would just with respect to h five forty two and specifically the study in subsection e, while I'm never necessarily in favor of a new annual reporting requirement, If the committee thinks that the information contained in the report has value, I think we collect all of that information currently anyway, and it wouldn't be an extreme burden on the agency to basically put it together for the committee and the legislature to have it in the report. And that concludes my testimony. I'm happy to answer any questions.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: I do have some questions specifically on the documents. Oh, please. Yes. Yeah. So if we just go down to

[Matt Chapman, Director of Waste Management & Prevention, VT Department of Environmental Conservation]: few lines under number one, it says a school shall investigate for PCPs when evaluating environmental contaminants as part of a facility's master planning process. Mean, districts, especially large districts, go through master planning processes every five years. It's basically a paper exercise. Well, and again, I was trying to pick the same language up that is in the state will construction aid for environmental planning purposes in that construction aid planning process. And I guess I envision, just in looking at this, that those two processes get linked up. When you're going through your sort of pre award planning process to obtain state construction aid and you're looking at all of your other environmental hazards, that you would need to look at PCBs as well if you were going to obtain state funding.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: So I guess my concern is that this is essentially requiring testing for airborne PCBs in buildings that could end up not part of a facilities change. In other words, doing facilities master planning is not the same thing as we're going to do renovations to this building, yet this language sort of requires it be investigated. And I assume by investigate, you mean airborne. Yes. Okay. So, it just seems like this is a way that would require schools to test when they may have no intention of doing a major renovation to a school. What they do have an intention of doing is coming up with a five year facilities master plan or a ten year facilities master plan. Sure. I mean,

[Matt Chapman, Director of Waste Management & Prevention, VT Department of Environmental Conservation]: I guess I would say that the intention was to coordinate it with capital construction planning processes, if there's a better way to do it than the way that I put it in here.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: I would say it would be it would be more with you would test for it at the time of which you actually have a construction proposal as opposed to just going through a facility's master planning process.

[Matt Chapman, Director of Waste Management & Prevention, VT Department of Environmental Conservation]: Sure. Again, I guess I would just say, you know, I think that to sort of disagree necessarily, but just as you go through your planning process, ensuring that the time and investment you're putting into your facility, that you don't get to an actual construction proposal and realize that you may have had a better building over here because this one has a significant PCP problem. And so again, you actually have spent much more time as a committee than I have in this I

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: your philosophy because logically makes sense, but you can imagine the fear people would have of testing, ending up with an immediate action level, no funding available from the state, and now you are really screwed.

[Matt Chapman, Director of Waste Management & Prevention, VT Department of Environmental Conservation]: I mean, I guess I would say the other thing, just to clarify, I mean, of the reason that we were looking to create a new special fund is because, as the committee probably knows, you can spend money out of them and then request a budget adjustment, those funds. Right? So if the situation you had arose, if there would be a contingency put in place to address and make sure that people weren't left sort of in

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: the goal with respect to I haven't seen a proposal in this year's EAA fund, but we have a fund. And I know there's no special fund. Let me get some clarity, Legis Council has their hand up. Michael, go ahead.

[Michael (Legislative Counsel)]: I just wanted I just wanted to note that this would be for all schools. It's not just pre 1980. And I'm wondering if that was Matt's intent.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: I I I you know, you bring up an interesting point. I would also say this is all for public schools when the original law said. Right.

[Trish Coppolino, Sites Management Section, VT Department of Environmental Conservation]: Independent and

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: Right. If you Sure. But they don't they aren't required to do facilities master plans.

[Trish Coppolino, Sites Management Section, VT Department of Environmental Conservation]: Oh, okay.

[Matt Chapman, Director of Waste Management & Prevention, VT Department of Environmental Conservation]: So if I can just say, so it was, so as used in this section, Mike, the first in sub A, it defines school as public schools approved and recognized independent schools. It's defined in sixteen seven eleven that were constructed or renovated before.

[Michael (Legislative Counsel)]: Okay.

[Matt Chapman, Director of Waste Management & Prevention, VT Department of Environmental Conservation]: Alright. It was intended that that be sort of framed throughout this whole process. It's a limit to what schools are applicable. So, it just took the language from from previous acts as far as the applicability of what schools are out there and and apply.

[Michael (Legislative Counsel)]: But but independent schools aren't doing the thirty four forty five process.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: Correct. Yeah.

[Matt Chapman, Director of Waste Management & Prevention, VT Department of Environmental Conservation]: Okay. Sorry. Thank you.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: Anything else, Michael? No,

[Michael (Legislative Counsel)]: that's it.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: Okay. So if I go down to three quarters of the way down to page one, PCD management plan, school. Perhaps to develop a PCD management plan. I would assume you would have no objection if we were to use that, we'd say with assistance from the Agency of Natural Resources, as schools are not equipped to do that work. No. And and

[Matt Chapman, Director of Waste Management & Prevention, VT Department of Environmental Conservation]: Tricia and I were speaking to this earlier. I mean, most the vast majority of these, it would be a fairly simple plan that we could frankly help them write or or or move them through the process into it. Yes, with the assistance of the agencies, absolutely fine.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: And then at the bottom of the page, two, the secretary shall mitigate any impact associated with PCBs identified by the investigation. Can you give me a little more specific what that means? Sure. Putting in carbon treatment filters into a classroom. But but it shall mitigate me. The secretary shall mitigate does that mean that the secretary shall pay for those mitigations?

[Matt Chapman, Director of Waste Management & Prevention, VT Department of Environmental Conservation]: So I think our intention was that if there's an exceedance of an immediate action level, that we would we would facilitate and and pay for the immediate

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: So I I don't wanna facilitate. I wanna mitigate. I want pay for it. Is that what you mean by that? That

[Matt Chapman, Director of Waste Management & Prevention, VT Department of Environmental Conservation]: is the intent, yes. That we would continue doing exactly what we've been doing up to this point, which is paying for the mitigation associated with it. Well, and provide them with. Again, you say, there's no request for funding budget this year or BAA. That's correct.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: Top of the next page, secretary shall only require a school to implement a corrective action plan to remediate PCBs when the school is undertaking construction or renovation activities. But what about that's all well and good, but where does the EPA fall into this? In other words, the secretary shall only require it under the circumstance, but if there's a release that triggers the EPA.

[Matt Chapman, Director of Waste Management & Prevention, VT Department of Environmental Conservation]: Trish, you wanna help her join in on the EPA related? Let me

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: go to Legis Council first. Michael, go ahead. That's a new hand.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: Oh, never mind.

[Michael (Legislative Counsel)]: Sorry, that was legacy.

[Matt Chapman, Director of Waste Management & Prevention, VT Department of Environmental Conservation]: Okay. Goodbye.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: Trisha, if you'd like to sit up front with us, that'd be great, and you can introduce yourself.

[Trish Coppolino, Sites Management Section, VT Department of Environmental Conservation]: I don't know, Leland. Trish Coppolino from Montecisi, site management section. I just want to make sure I understood your question clearly. It was what if the EPA requires additional work for the school agency still?

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: It says the secretary shall only require a school to implement a corrective action plan when the school is undertaking construction. Maybe I'm probably interpreting this incorrectly.

[Trish Coppolino, Sites Management Section, VT Department of Environmental Conservation]: I'm charged if

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: you will. But my concern is that it's not just a Vermont thing once PCBs have been identified.

[Trish Coppolino, Sites Management Section, VT Department of Environmental Conservation]: The way things have been working right now have been once the PCBs have been identified and the school or whoever is ready to actually implement cleanup is when EPA is notified. And so that would most likely be the same time that we would be requiring cleanup if we're notified. There are lots of PCB mitigation projects that are happening in the state that we haven't been part of. It's been a window replacement. The PCBs are being disposed of and copied. The EPA gets a notification and we get CC'd on it. So most of the information is a notification to EPA that some violation has happened, the work is going to occur and the process moves forward. And in that instance, assuming indoor air is tested at the same time, the state would be also requiring the same work for most of it.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: Guess My interpretation, I think it's a little

[Trish Coppolino, Sites Management Section, VT Department of Environmental Conservation]: bit off I was gonna say, the process continues the way it's written or the way we've been doing it, I don't see an instance where EPA is going to be ahead of the state doing work and requiring work to happen. It would be when the state is no longer involved in the process or indoor air wasn't sampled to indicate a release to the way we're regulating PCBs.

[Matt Chapman, Director of Waste Management & Prevention, VT Department of Environmental Conservation]: And I guess, let me, to give you a real life example of fat naming school, there's a school that has significant PCP contamination and sort of structural elements of the school. If they were to try to remove those structural elements, it would cause the school not to I mean, would basically cause the school not to be structurally suitable for using more. So EPA is basically fine. It has set up a regime where you're allowing those materials to stay in and are waiting for a future construction activity prior to those materials being delivered. And I think that's similar to what is being proposed here, right? That those sort of ultimate EPA task or required removal activities are going to be deferred as long as we're managing the health related issues that are present by the PCP.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: Just looking at the recovery of damages, the Ed Fund might wanna be reimbursed for some of the money that's gone out of the Ed Fund before creating the special fund, but that's a policy decision on our part.

[Matt Chapman, Director of Waste Management & Prevention, VT Department of Environmental Conservation]: I was ready to say, I guess I would say to the extent that the way I was looking at this was that the, again, Mike should feel free to improve any drafting that I did here, that any of the funds that were spent with the recovery provisions under previously adopted appropriations language, they would be subject to those cost recovery provisions and go back to the So the Ed Fund would go back to the Ed Fund and any other funds would go in here and I think there is a policy decision on what you may want to do with those recovered funds. I think that our position would

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: be I doubt I'm going to be alive at time, but just at the end, you talked about, shall we use up to $4,500,000 Could you talk about just that last paragraph?

[Matt Chapman, Director of Waste Management & Prevention, VT Department of Environmental Conservation]: See the last paragraph, I guess, page

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: Very, very last page. Four. Talks about $4,500,000 to continue air quality testing.

[Matt Chapman, Director of Waste Management & Prevention, VT Department of Environmental Conservation]: So this is just a previous section of the axle. So this is sort of our, every couple of years we've been amending the due date for when schools are legally required to test. This is I'm putting it in for the sole purpose of removing Yes.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: So back to the budget stuff, about 4,000,000 left. That's fairly well earmarked for work at Green Mountain. We've got, I can't remember how many schools now that have to have orderly, say every six months testing. Are they now responsible for paying for all of that?

[Trish Coppolino, Sites Management Section, VT Department of Environmental Conservation]: We haven't been doing it and we haven't been inquiring.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: So, it hasn't been happening? It's no longer required?

[Trish Coppolino, Sites Management Section, VT Department of Environmental Conservation]: There's no money to pay for it, so we haven't been requiring. There's one school that I know of that's moved on to doing its own work and they've been funding the sampling to continue working in that atmosphere, but none of the other schools have been moving that forward. I guess U32 has been, but there's still money left over on a purchase order that we have for them. The state's been funding that work.

[Matt Chapman, Director of Waste Management & Prevention, VT Department of Environmental Conservation]: Okay. Mean, it's

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: obviously very frustrating that this program that the administration has really supported and fought every attempt to be realistic about the cost of it is basically saying, we give up, we started this, we feel strongly about it, and we don't have any money, so you all have to either just stop testing, and I'm talking about schools that are already affected, or pay for it yourself. That's just very frustrating. But this whole journey has been frustrating. Sorry to the to dominate. Are there other questions for our invited guests? I'm sure can't wait for this testimony to be over. How are you guys?

[Matt Chapman, Director of Waste Management & Prevention, VT Department of Environmental Conservation]: You for having me. Go

[Trish Coppolino, Sites Management Section, VT Department of Environmental Conservation]: ahead. I think I feel pretty strongly about the quarterly sampling and that it is really beneficial. Our priority and directive has been trying to work on the schools that have IEL exceedances where we haven't been able to effectively change those and get them to lower concentrations that are below the IEL, sometimes even below the SAL and the schools that we were sampling, we know that they've been below the SAL or below the IAL. But because of the quarterly sampling that we were doing at North Country, we were able to use that information to help with the health department supporting use of the school this starting school year. And so the data is really important and it's very helpful. I think we're just really trying to work through priorities and making sure that we can focus on the highest priorities, not that the others aren't priorities.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: I appreciate that. We are an era of scarce resources. Appreciate that. Well, else? Any other questions? Thank you both for your time and your thoughtful response to the Michelle Bill. Committee, we are essentially off until the floor, but let's hold on a second while we can

[Trish Coppolino, Sites Management Section, VT Department of Environmental Conservation]: Just something at 03:00.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: 03:00. Have a which bill introduction? Charlie's. Oh, Charlie's bill. Okay. Great.