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[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: We're live. Alright. Welcome back, to House Energy and Digital Infrastructure. It's, March 26. I'm rep Kathleen James from Manchester.
[Rep. Bram Kleppner (Member)]: Michael Southworth, Caledonia 2. It's Rare Howland, Rutland 4.
[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: Dara Torre, Washington 2.
[Rep. Bram Kleppner (Member)]: Bram Kleppner, Chittenden, 13 Burlington.
[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: Great. Joining us? Liz Royer. I'm the executive director of the Walter Oil Water Association. He'll testify at 11:30. Super or sooner. Yeah. Yeah. I'm ready.
[Isabel Walker (Intern)]: I'm ready whenever I should. Okay. I'm Isabel Walker, interning for Senator Dara Torre.
[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: Great. Alright. For the record, thank you for joining us.
[Bryan Redmond (Director, Drinking Water & Groundwater Protection Division, VT ANR/DEC)]: Okay. Good morning. For the record, my name is Brian Redman. I'm the director of the Drinking Water and Groundwater Protection Division, which is within the Agency of Natural Resources Department of Environmental Conservation. Thank you for the invitation to come testify on S two thirteen. If it's okay with you, Chair James, I'd like this is the first time I've been in front of this committee, so I'd like to do a little context setting. Please. That would be great. Okay. Great. And then offer a few brief comments specific to the bill and Super. Hopefully be able to answer some of the questions the committee has, although I did listen to the dialogue early and I think it would the water spires and public works officials themselves would be, more helpful in answering some of those questions. Great. Okay. For a little bit of context, a public drinking water system is defined as a source of water or a combination of sources of water that serve 25 or more people, sixty days or more. There are three basic types of public water systems, and there are approximately 1,400 of them in the state of Vermont. The most basic type of public water system is referred to as a transient noncommunity water system. These serve 25 or more people sixty days out of the year. There's about 700 of these. These are very small scale, think restaurant with a well, hotel, motel, campground, serving sorry, 25 or more people sixty days out of the year, but not the same people. Generally speaking, the lowest level of regulation. The next step up is what's referred to as the non transient, community water system. These are 25 or more of the same people for at least six months of the year. So these are your schools and day care facilities. You and I, Jerry James, worked very closely in 2019 to pass the legislation and the drinking water of schools and, child care facilities. That's a law I'm very proud of.
[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: Same. And I was trying to remember, was like, how do I know this guy? That was a great deal.
[Bryan Redmond (Director, Drinking Water & Groundwater Protection Division, VT ANR/DEC)]: That is how. And this class of systems, schools, child care facilities, office buildings, like if the State House was not connected to a municipal system, it would be an MTNC. That's this class of systems. More regulation, more requirements, but still not the the full scope of all the requirements. The highest level of regulation is what are referred to as community water systems. These are 15 service connections, or 25 or more, people in a residential setting. There are 400 of these currently in the state of Vermont approximately, that number fluctuates up and down, and these systems range from the size of the city of Rutland to a small fire district in Rutland to a small manufactured housing community, to homeowners associations, which there are many of those in the state of Vermont supporting and around our ski areas and other recreational economy tourism. There's many of these systems that are really small scale and run by volunteers. There's 400 of them, and they really run the gamut in size and complexity. They are also very heavily regulated under the Safe Drinking Water Act, as well as state other state regulations that we've added. And, the regulations themselves are really focused on the quality and the quantity of water to make sure that Vermonters and visitors to Vermont have access to safe water. This is also the class of systems where this bill will mostly impact in terms of their operation and the requirements themselves. Okay, a little more context setting in terms of metering in Vermont's public water systems. There are two different ways a water system really uses meters. The first is a production meter, and this is the also referred to as a master meter. This is the, meter that is measuring all of the water that the facility is producing, quote, finished water, and sending out to its customers. So that's that's what we would refer to as a production meter. And then there's service meters, and this is what this bill really addresses. And this is the measurement, a device that would measure individual service connections to monitor the amount of water use that's happening at an individual connection. In terms of our state requirements, state and federal requirements, the water supply rule is the rule that governs public water systems in Vermont, and our requirements require that public water systems have the ability to measure and monitor finished water. So that reduction meter is a requirement under the under the current regulations. And while we support and strongly encourage service line metering, we do not have any requirements related to individual service line meters on public water systems. So there is no mandate for a public water system to have individual service meters. We don't have specifications about installing, maintaining, or reading service meters, and we don't have requirements or specifications about rate setting or billing. These types of issues are generally handled at the local level.
[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: So the so all of those policies about meters are handled by the utility itself?
[Bryan Redmond (Director, Drinking Water & Groundwater Protection Division, VT ANR/DEC)]: Correct. In terms of in terms of whether they install meters and use the meter to bill their customers, that that is done at the utility level. Our state regulation is just the total amount of water produced that's being delivered to the customers. Interesting.
[Rep. Bram Kleppner (Member)]: Rip Kleppner? Sorry. Presumably, in addition to quantity, you're also monitoring quality of the water going out of Yes, the
[Bryan Redmond (Director, Drinking Water & Groundwater Protection Division, VT ANR/DEC)]: extensively. The regulations are really focused on quality and quantity. And the billing and the metering end, they're not as robust. It's really focused on adequacy and safety. Got it. Thank you.
[Rep. Bram Kleppner (Member)]: I assume so. You just said, you know, our regulation measures the quantity.
[Bryan Redmond (Director, Drinking Water & Groundwater Protection Division, VT ANR/DEC)]: Rigorous amounts of sampling are required at public water systems. It differs between those types. Yeah. It ramps up as you get to the community water supply, but there are many small community water systems in Vermont, I'm sure Liz will speak to this as well, that are subject to the full scope of the Safe Drinking Water Act requirements and our state regulations. We tend to be a little more stringent here in Vermont. And so any new additional regulation on a public water supply really should be thought through in terms of batting burden to something that's very highly regulated already and often run by volunteers. So systems in Vermont really run the full spectrum of billing and metering, ranging from a flat fee based on a building type, just set as a flat fee, to a lot rent or a component of an association due to fully metered connections built based on metered usage, quarterly, semi annually, annually. Because we are in Vermont, water service meters need to be protected from freezing, which means they are often located in basements and crawl spaces connected to water service lines that the public water system typically does not own. It's the the the connection that owns the line that are deeply buried to avoid freezing. For meters that cannot be read remotely, this reading a meter in a basement or crawl space obviously adds considerable time, expense, and complexity for the water supplier needing to go into the the residence. In the water context, advanced metering technology provides the water system with the ability to read its service meters in an efficient manner. Now based on my research and heading up into today and talking with water suppliers in Vermont, it's not considered operational technology and therefore considered a really low risk from a security perspective. There's no real connection between the equipment integrated with the advanced metering and the water being produced and delivered to homes, meaning that somebody from the outside cannot control how how the water is being produced or delivered. It's just measuring the water that's going to the to the connection. In my ten plus years of being a director at the state of Vermont, as responsible for the regulation of public water systems, I've yet to be contacted about an issue involving a public water system and a customer related to advanced metering infrastructure. I just spoke how we don't have requirements related, so that could be an explanation, but this would also lead me to believe that this isn't really a significantly widespread issue that's being addressed by this bill. And generally speaking, it's likely being really effectively managed at the local level. Okay. A few specific comments related to two thirteen. The agency's testimony in the Senate was largely focused on the cybersecurity provisions in the bill, section two of two thirteen. Our concerns have largely been addressed in the current version, and we're supportive of the changes that came out of the Senate related to cybersecurity. The second point I wanted to make specific to the bill is our agency's regulatory programs does not have requirements for service line metering, as I just spoke about. And perhaps more importantly, we have virtually no involvement between the financial relationship of the water supplier and the customer. So currently, the customer rights provisions are placed under the permit section of ANR's water supply statute. If this bill were to move forward, we would request the opportunity to work on a different place for this language. It seems challenging to find a different area of law for it to live in, but if it stays within the public water supplies statute, at the very least, we would want to decouple it from our permit requirements and and and encapsulate it as its own standalone, section. So we would want the opportunity to work with legislative council to make those changes if it if it were to move forward. And then finally, I would strongly recommend, I've heard from a few public works officials about this bill, and I would strongly recommend that the committee hear from some public works officials on this bill. And I think that they have the most at stake and will be most directly impacted. Who would you recommend there? Well, I think Joe Duncan has testified in the Senate.
[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: He works hard.
[Bryan Redmond (Director, Drinking Water & Groundwater Protection Division, VT ANR/DEC)]: He's the President and General Manager for Champlain Water District, which is the largest water supplier in the state. They basically supply water to Chittenden County with the exception of Burlington. So he would be good to hear from you know, Champlain Water District is the gold standard for water supply, so you'll get you'll get that perspective, from from Joe in his in his shop. He is also the sector representative on the cybersecurity advisory council. So that's he would be good to hear from possibly the city of Burlington. I've spoke to them on this bill. That's Megan Moyer, their assistant public works director.
[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: Sorry. So Joe Duncan, Champlain Water District. Yes. And then who was the
[Bryan Redmond (Director, Drinking Water & Groundwater Protection Division, VT ANR/DEC)]: Megan Moyer. She's assistant public works director in the city of Burlington.
[Rep. Bram Kleppner (Member)]: Do you have any medium or small size that we could give a
[Bryan Redmond (Director, Drinking Water & Groundwater Protection Division, VT ANR/DEC)]: take from? Possibly. And Secretary Riley Hughes may talk about this. I don't know if she was able to bring him, but recall from the town of Cavendish. I've spoken to him about this bill. He used to be DPW in Springfield, has a lot of experience and a lot of insight to offer. So I think Cavendish might be a good opportunity for small scale.
[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: And his name was? Rick Hall. Rick Hall. And what's his so I
[Bryan Redmond (Director, Drinking Water & Groundwater Protection Division, VT ANR/DEC)]: can start with that. Rick Zanger. Sorry. Let me let me Okay. Get his information. Yeah.
[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: Rick Kleppner, and then I have a question slash a comment.
[Rep. Bram Kleppner (Member)]: Can you expand a little bit on what you mean by Champlain Water District is the gold standard?
[Bryan Redmond (Director, Drinking Water & Groundwater Protection Division, VT ANR/DEC)]: They are they receive significant amounts of awards for their operational excellence year after year, and nationally recognized as, providing exceptionally high quality service in exceptionally high quality water. They've always been our largest water system in Vermont and very well rated managed utility. So that's colloquially the gold standard, the the the largest.
[Rep. Bram Kleppner (Member)]: I live in Burlington, and it's funny Burlington Public Works doesn't mention how good Champlain Water is. Is there a map available where Champlain Valley works Yes. Services? I mean, I can imagine maybe South Burlington, Essex, and Holchester, but not Shelburne or the river in there.
[Bryan Redmond (Director, Drinking Water & Groundwater Protection Division, VT ANR/DEC)]: I we can provide that.
[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: A couple questions.
[Bryan Redmond (Director, Drinking Water & Groundwater Protection Division, VT ANR/DEC)]: I'll let you I could
[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: let you finish your testimony.
[Bryan Redmond (Director, Drinking Water & Groundwater Protection Division, VT ANR/DEC)]: That's it?
[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: That's it. Okay. Well, great then. So my questions are one, can you please provide written testimony and or do you have it? I think that would be really important. So my questions about this bill in general are I'll echo what Rep. Southworth had asked earlier, like what problem are we trying to solve? How widespread is this problem? Do people who don't want a smart water meter on their house right now have a way to get that off? It sounds like there's a, I would assume a small number of them. Is there already a path? What kind of burden or problem or challenges would this present to our water districts? Like what are they losing? You know, How many of them even have smart meters? Why is the technology important? What would be what if anything would they be losing? I'm I'm less concerned about the cybersecurity. I mean, I it sounds like that was maybe more of a focus on the senate side. It sounds like these are not hackable. So, anyway, I I'm I'm similarly facing a a little bit of crossroads of what are we doing here. The the So that's why I'd really like to get your testimony in writing.
[Bryan Redmond (Director, Drinking Water & Groundwater Protection Division, VT ANR/DEC)]: Sure. I I I will I'll I'll send it to the assistant after. Okay. I do think it would be great to hear from the water suppliers themselves. I think that they can answer many of the questions that you just asked. I again, in my ten plus years, it would lead me to believe that this is not currently a widespread issue. You know, I think most of these issues are resolved through in a municipal context. You start with the operator, the water superintendent, then you would if you're not getting the service that you want there, you would go to the public works director. If you're not getting the service there, you would go to the town manager up the line into the legislative body. So I think that in the municipal context, now all these aren't municipalities, that's how these are being dealt with now if there are complaints.
[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: Okay. Great. So yeah, we'll look for some written testimony. Thank you so much for joining us.
[Bryan Redmond (Director, Drinking Water & Groundwater Protection Division, VT ANR/DEC)]: Thank you for
[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: having me. And appreciate the recommendations. You know, we have time in the coming weeks to put a few more people in, that would be
[Bryan Redmond (Director, Drinking Water & Groundwater Protection Division, VT ANR/DEC)]: probably what we'll do. Thank you.
[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: Yeah, we got more bills from the Senate than I knew were coming over. So, thank you so much. I'm wondering if we want to well, secretary Riley Hughes is joining us at eleven. Liz, I know you do have written testimony. Would why don't we just do you wanna just wait and go after secretary Riley Hughes, or would you rather pop in now? Doesn't matter to me. Okay. Why don't we go off live then take a break? We'll we'll stay in order. Okay.