Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Speaker 0]: Alright. We're live.

[Representative Larry Labor (Vice Chair, Acting Chair)]: Good afternoon. Chair Sheldon is out, so I am her replacement, I guess. Welcome to the committee. This is firemen, Don't you know? This afternoon, we're gonna be taking testimony from the Vermont Clean Water Initiative, and I believe Claire Madden is first.

[Unidentified Committee Member (male)]: You. The floor is yours.

[Claire Madden (DEC, Clean Water Initiative Program)]: Thank you. For the record, my name is Claire Madden. I'm the tracking and accounting supervisor for the Clean Water Initiative Program in the Department of Environmental Conservation, and I'm joined by my colleague,

[Sarah Coleman (DEC, Clean Water Initiative Program Manager)]: Hi. Good afternoon. For the record, my

[Sarah Coleman (DEC, Clean Water Initiative Program Manager)]: name is Sarah Coleman and I'm

[Sarah Coleman (DEC, Clean Water Initiative Program Manager)]: the program manager for the Clean Water Initiative Program.

[Claire Madden (DEC, Clean Water Initiative Program)]: Thank you, representatives, for inviting us to speak with you today about the Vermont Clean Water Initiative 2025 performance report. I'm going to provide a brief overview of the background and context that compels this reporting, and then we'll present the results from this year's report. First to introduce the Clean Water Initiative Program, we are housed in the Water Investment Division of the Department of Environmental Conservation, and we have a three part mission: to align and coordinate statewide clean water efforts, to develop financial and technical resources to support our partners in completing clean water work, and to capture, assess, and communicate the progress and impact of clean water efforts. And the report that we're discussing today is a primary function of this third piece of our mission. Results from this report inform planning, budgeting, program development, and adaptive management across state agencies to make sure the state is on a path to reach water quality restoration and protection goals. The report is a large interagency effort, and our program serves a key role in aggregating, analyzing, and summarizing the results. So we're here today to represent the reports and the entire interagency clean water initiative, is made up of several state agencies, state affiliates, and a few federal partners who administer dozens of programs to support our network of clean water partners working to improve water quality on the ground. Vermont prioritizes the protection and restoration of water quality for a lot of reasons. We rely on clean water as a source of drinking water, supports recreation and tourism economies that are really important to our state, provides for aesthetic and quality of life values, and supports healthy habitats and ecosystems. And for the most part, we benefit from healthy and clean lakes, rivers, and streams throughout our state. Where these resources exist, we want to be sure to protect them. Where there are water bodies that suffer from excess pollution, those require restoration. Water quality impacts in Vermont are often a result of excess sediment and nutrients like phosphorus and nitrogen within the system. And over an overabundance of sediment and nutrients can lead to undesirable water quality impacts, one of which is cyanobacteria blooms or blue green algae blooms. So most of the state is covered by large scale water quality restoration plans called total maximum daily loads or TMDLs. And TMDLs are a part of the federal clean water act. It's a nationally applied framework to setting pollutant loading maximums and identifying required pollutant load reductions necessary for water bodies to meet water quality standards. The map on the screen shows the geographic coverage of the state's large scale TMDLs. The Lake Champlain Basin in dark green, Lake Memphremagog, and the northern part of the state in a lighter green. Both of these lakes have TMDLs for phosphorus. The Connecticut River drainage, the eastern half of the state, is part of a five state Long Island Sound TMDL, which is addressing nitrogen imbalances in the sound that are causing low oxygen and dead zones there. I should note that TMDLs can be applied at a variety of spatial scales. So while we have these three really large regional TMDLs, the state also has some smaller localized watershed or sub watershed scale TMDLs. Across the state, the water quality work that we're investing in is targeting excess sediment and nutrient pollution that is addressing the requirements under these large scale TMDLs, but actions implemented to address these regional plans also provide local benefits to water quality, provide climate resilience, and support local communities. The black lines on the map show the 15 tactical planning basins in Vermont. Foundational to the state's water quality restoration and protection work is the tactical basin planning process, which is led by DEC's watershed planning program. Good investments require smart planning and the tactical basin plans, are updated every five years for each of the 15 major watersheds in the state, identify sources of water quality challenges, and then prioritize actions to address those challenges and maintain or protect watershed health. The plans are developed with local stakeholder and community input and serve as a sort of roadmap for how our network of clean water partners can engage with and act on clean water opportunities that have been prioritized, have funding support, and have technical assistance behind them. Tactical Basin Planning uses an adaptive management approach in the five year planning cycle to assess progress, identify gaps, and establish additional strategies to further our clean water progress. The Lake Champlain TMDL also has an accountability framework that was negotiated between US Environmental Protection Agency and the state where EPA is providing an additional level of oversight and how the state is doing achieving the water quality restoration in Lake Champlain. The Lake Champlain TMDL establishes the overall phosphorus reduction target to be achieved during a twenty year implementation timeframe. And the tactical basin plans serve as those incremental implementation planning documents for each of the watersheds within the larger Lake Champlain Basin, identifying regionally specific actions and priorities and interim targets over the five year recurring planning cycle. So each year with the Clean Water Initiative annual performance report, the state also prepares basin level interim and final progress reports that address progress to date on implementation strategies that have been identified tactical basin plans. And EPA uses this suite of documents to assess our progress and issue report cards to the state on how we're doing. The map on the screen now shows the schedule for those interim and final progress reports for the watersheds in the Lake Champlain Basin. This year an interim report for the South Lake Champlain Basin is included with the performance report, reporting out on progress made to date on phase three implementation strategies in that basin. EPA keeps a pretty close eye on our progress by way of these basin reports and the full performance report, reviews them annually and issues our report card back to the state to ensure accountability. And to date those determinations have been satisfactory and the state continues to be in close coordination with EPA to ensure that we're meeting expectations and adequately demonstrating progress in the lake. There are a few key pieces of state legislation that underpin Vermont's water quality work and provide a statutory framework to support implementation of those TMDLs. In 2015, the state legislature passed act 64 known as Vermont's Clean Water Act. This was prompted in large part by requirements from EPA to address phosphorus imbalances across the state and to meet the state's obligations to restore water quality in Lake Champlain. That act set up expanded systems of regulation and enforcement for nonpoint sources of water pollution, established the Clean Water Fund to provide a financial mechanism to accomplish the work of protecting and restoring waters of Vermont against degradation and initiated accountability and transparency requirements to track account and report on the progress of water quality improvements supported through state investments. In 2019, the state legislature passed the Clean Water Service Delivery Act or Act 76. This built on Act 64 by establishing a long term clean water funding source with revised clean water priorities, restructuring the administration and implementation of clean water funds, and establishing four new grant programs that came along with additional reporting requirements to assess and report on whether those grant programs are adequately funded to meet the clean water initiative. So each year we compile this annual clean water performance report to address reporting requirements under Act 64, Act 76, and the Lake Champlain TMDL accountability framework. Much of the report includes data visualizations presented by land use sector. So the table on this screen is meant to illustrate examples of clean water project work that fall into each of the five primary land use sectors that we identify throughout the report. Clean water projects are primarily intended to address sediment and nutrient pollution, and on the whole across sectors, they function to slow down and promote infiltration of water and runoff before it reaches our waterways and to reduce erosive energy of water moving across our landscape through improved land management strategies. While this body of work is driven by water quality restoration and protection goals, the same investments can provide numerous co benefits, including climate resilient working lands and built infrastructure, improved soil health, carbon sequestration, local workforce development, economic stimulus, and improved public safety. We track four primary categories of data to include in our report. Investment measures show all state funding awarded and spent towards clean water projects. Education measures demonstrate the scale of state supported efforts in outreach and technical assistance to support the clean water workforce and network that is doing this work on the ground. Output measures are standardized metrics to quantify the impact of clean water investments and to meet results based accountability requirements. And pollution reduction measures are modeled estimates of nutrient load reduction achieved through implementation of clean water projects. For this report, those estimates are limited to phosphorus reductions in the Lake Champlain and Lake Memphremagog basins, but in the future we expect to also estimate nitrogen reductions in the Connecticut River drainage. Now getting into some of the data from this year's report. This figure shows state administered investments in clean water over the reporting timeframe, which started in state fiscal year 2016. This most recent report reports out through state fiscal year 2025. And the data is organized by land use sector and state fiscal year. So over the past ten years, the state has invested over $755,000,000 in clean water efforts across a wide array of project types. We continue to see relatively high funding levels in state fiscal year 2025. This is again a result of more American Rescue Plan Act dollars moving out the door to projects. And because ARPA dollars need to be spent by the end of calendar year 2026, we don't anticipate for current funding levels to be sustained indefinitely, but there are other funding sources represented in this mix. And there's been a lot of intentionality at the state going to planning and budgeting for post ARPA days. We report on funding as it's awarded, but the results of investments are often not available in the same year as a funding award is made. So there's a lag time between callers out the door to recipients in the form of financial assistance and the data coming back to us on the outcomes of those investments.

[Speaker 0]: So are these dollars out the door that year or awarded that year?

[Claire Madden (DEC, Clean Water Initiative Program)]: Thank you for the clarifying question. We report on dollars as awarded and then reconciled as expended at the end of a grant or contract. So this figure represents all dollars that have been awarded and any agreements that have been closed, it's reflective of the dollars exceeded under that award, if there's any difference. Sorry, let me just repeat back. So in the earlier years,

[Speaker 0]: this is really reflective of what was actually expended in that year, but then in the most recent years, it also includes what was awarded, but not yet expended. Correct. So, these will also be revised in future Okay. You.

[Claire Madden (DEC, Clean Water Initiative Program)]: This figure shows all investments reported to the state. So that includes state administered dollars, everything that was shown on the previous figure, as well as some match dollars and a small amount of federal funding that is administered outside of state agencies. And then the figure is organized by sector and by the origin of the funding. So state agencies administer funding that's a combination of state generated revenue sources pass through from federal programs, local contributions to specific projects. And project funding may be awarded in the form of grants, contracts, loans, or other financial assistance depending on the program. I'm going to walk through each of the pieces of the figure to try and help explain what's being shown here. The navy blue portion of each bar is showing funding that originates from a federal source. This includes American Rescue Plan Act dollars, federal transportation dollars, money available through the Lake Champlain Basin Program, and funding through USDA Natural Resource Conservation Service. The Clean Water State Revolving Fund is sort of its own special category of funding in this figure. That is a loan program that is a combination of a federal capitalization award issued to the state annually and recycled loan repayment dollars, which becomes state funding at the time of repayment. A portion of the Clean Water SRF loan amount may be forgiven in loan subsidies. That's shown in the light purple portion in the wastewater piece of the figure. And the remainder of the Clean Water State Revolving Fund loan is awarded out as a combination of those state and federal monies and repaid by a local source, almost always a municipality. And for the vast majority of this loan fund, municipalities are accessing loans to support capital improvements in wastewater treatment facilities. The light blue portion of the figure is representing local sources of contributions to the projects. This includes any local match that has been reported, philanthropic contributions, landowner or project sponsor type contributions. Every funding program that we report on has different requirements and obligations for local contributions. And then the green section of each bar is the state generated sources of funding. So the big ones here represented our capital bill, clean water fund, general fund, and the housing and conservation trust fund. The goal of this figure is really to illustrate the mix of funding that's going to the projects that we're able to report outcomes on. Both federal funding and local contributions play a large role in total investments we're making in clean water and in the outputs and outcomes we're able to achieve through this work.

[Unidentified Committee Member (male)]: That's representative Todd. Thank you, mister chair. Me. Just question on on this chart that we're looking at now. Does this cover the same ten year time frame as the previous chart? Yes. It is. Correct.

[Claire Madden (DEC, Clean Water Initiative Program)]: Great. Next, we we have another set of cumulative results from project output results from state fiscal year 2016 through 2025 project output metric measures are tracked statewide to fulfill results based accountability requirements. And we collect these standardized output metrics for each clean water project type to quantify the impact of state investments across programs for all phases and types of clean water project work. These four are just a selection of dozens of output measures that we collect data on and include in the report. And the results quantification approach presented here also helps us to track and outcomes for projects that we are not yet able to estimate a pollutant reduction for, but I'll have some more on that in a little bit. Outputs in any year can fluctuate based on a variety of factors, we've done our best in the body of the report to acknowledge those factors for each individual project output measure where they're known. In addition to any specific variations by measure or by program, we started to gain a better ability to highlight impact of data lags on the results that we're able to report each year. So what I mean by this is state programs operate on many different schedules and timeframes in terms of when grants are issued and when reporting is required back. But we collect data for this report once a year, starting at the turn of the state fiscal year. So it is often the case that the data that we have available to include in the report may be under representative of some ongoing initiatives. And the way that we address this is by reconciling past year's reported data every time we collect data, providing the opportunity for our reporting programs to backfill any results that may have been missed or not available in a previous year.

[Unidentified Committee Member (male)]: Yes.

[Representative Michael “Mike” Tagliavia (Member)]: This page here, show 28 as a number of wastewater collection systems refurbished. How many in the state are there that are in need of that are left in need of refurbishment?

[Claire Madden (DEC, Clean Water Initiative Program)]: That was an excellent question. I do not know the answer to, and I'd be happy to follow-up with that when I have a chance to connect with the folks that Thank you. Sure. Thanks. Alright. Next, we're

[Unidentified Committee Member (male)]: at the also a question relative to that 2,756 acres of existing impervious surface. So we've treated that many acres. Any idea how much that translates to into pounds of phosphorus or kilograms of phosphorus prevented from flooding?

[Claire Madden (DEC, Clean Water Initiative Program)]: Yes, I could definitely get you that number. Unfortunately, I don't have it at my fingertips, but we do have that estimate available. I will say this metric is representing results statewide. So some of these acres have been treated in areas where we're not tracking a phosphorus reduction, but I can follow-up with the number of acres that have been treated in the Champlain and Memphremagog Basins and what the associated phosphorus reduction is. Thank you.

[Representative Christopher “Chris” Pritchard (Member)]: Sunny, Pritchard. Hi. Thanks. So quick question again, I just want clarify. On these three current previous projects that are being done, the phosphorus is captured, but it's not removed. Correct?

[Claire Madden (DEC, Clean Water Initiative Program)]: You mean through the treatment practices?

[Representative Christopher “Chris” Pritchard (Member)]: Are you considering the swales and retention ponds?

[Representative Michael “Mike” Tagliavia (Member)]: Through both.

[Claire Madden (DEC, Clean Water Initiative Program)]: Think if I'm understanding your question correctly, the purpose of structural stormwater treatment practices is to catch runoff and the phosphorus sort of

[Representative Larry Labor (Vice Chair, Acting Chair)]: collects

[Claire Madden (DEC, Clean Water Initiative Program)]: tied up in that runoff Stays. And then there is a maintenance requirement that, say, a bio retention, it collects sediment over years of that runoff being caught, that

[Sarah Coleman (DEC, Clean Water Initiative Program Manager)]: needs

[Claire Madden (DEC, Clean Water Initiative Program)]: to be cleaned out and removed to maintain the function of the practice.

[Representative Christopher “Chris” Pritchard (Member)]: So the phosphorus gets removed when that happens?

[Sarah Coleman (DEC, Clean Water Initiative Program Manager)]: Well, yeah, I think some of it is probably specific to the specific stormwater best management practice that's implemented to treat the impervious surface. So it varies based on the stormwater practice as well as what types of technologies and media is incorporated into that practice that might make that difference between whether it is captured or treated. There are some filters and materials that are being used to actually bind phosphorus. But there are other folks in DEC likely in the stormwater program that could probably speak to that more.

[Representative Michael “Mike” Tagliavia (Member)]: With respect to representative Pritchard's question, how much is there a number of the phosphorus that has actually been required to take from some of these stormwater treatment practices and and remove and and actually transfer to another site? Are there actually numbers of that amount? Whether it be sediment, treated soils, whatever. Where would it go?

[Claire Madden (DEC, Clean Water Initiative Program)]: I don't know the answer to that, but I'm happy to follow-up.

[Unidentified Committee Member (male)]: Sarita?

[Representative Sarah “Sarita” Austin (Clerk)]: Phosphorus is in dirt anyway. So it's just a of a question of measuring how much phosphorus, let's say, is in surrounding area, and if it had less phosphorus in it, would that be where on phosphorus would be placed?

[Claire Madden (DEC, Clean Water Initiative Program)]: I mean, is it good for farming? Yeah, so I should say that the goal is not to eliminate phosphorus. It's a really important nutrient for natural systems, we want some of it. It supports plant growth. It's a key element to our natural system function. The issues that we're trying to address is an imbalance in phosphorus relative to other nutrients in the system. So yeah, the goal is not to eliminate or capture all of the phosphorus, to just get that loading back into balance in the system. And this figure actually might help to illustrate that a little bit more. So this is a set of figures from the Lake Champlain TMDL. The TMDL is a modeling exercise, but it is informed by and calibrated with water quality monitoring data of measured water quality parameters. So the TMGL modeling sets a baseline load. This represents the starting point, the estimated average annual phosphorus loading to Lake Champlain in this case during the baseline period. For the Lake Champlain TMDL, the baseline period was the early 2000s. And then the modeling also sets a load allocation that's represented by the middle figure on the screen. The load allocation represents the modeled amount of phosphorus load that can reach the lake while maintaining or staying within water quality standards. So you can see there the load allocation still represents quite a bit of phosphorus entering Lake Champlain, but about two twelve metric tons less than where we started from. So the figure on the far right shows the net reduction or the reductions required to meet the load allocation under the Lake Champlain TMDL. This is what we're trying to reduce through a wide range of practices to treat and address phosphorus loading. The margin of safety, that purple slice of the pie, is added to the load allocation as a sort of buffer. It accounts for uncertainty in the modeling itself and also uncertainty in future loading that might be associated with a changing climate. And the other piece that I will call out is the wastewater sector, which is the only other sector where the modeling anticipates a potential increase in loading. This is to accommodate future growth. So the load allocation is tied to the permitted maximum for wastewater treatment facilities that are discharged to Lake Champlain, and that is greater in the load allocation than in the baseline to account for future population growth. The TMDL doesn't require that we reach these exact reductions by sector, but we presented by sector because it does provide a pathway for the scale of implementation that would be required through different types of practices in order to achieve our overall reduction goal. This set of figures shows estimated phosphorus reductions for the Lake Champlain Basin. The scale of tracking doesn't allow for site specific best management practice monitoring across every implemented practice in the Lake Champlain Basin. Monitoring data and field based measurements of best management practice effectiveness are used to inform the development of the accounting methods that we use to generate these estimates. The agricultural sector contributes a lot of the phosphorus load reductions that we're able to report on to date. And we've made a change this year in the report how we present this information tied back to the data lags that I've been discussing, which is to present the penultimate year's estimated phosphorus reductions as the best estimate of our progress towards the TMDL so

[Unidentified Committee Member (male)]: far.

[Claire Madden (DEC, Clean Water Initiative Program)]: And that is because you can see here in the state fiscal year 2025 results that are slightly faded out, those results are preliminary at this point. We do really anticipate that we're missing some data from implementation that happened that didn't quite make it into the reporting timeframe that we're working under for this year's report. So we'll backfill that next year and have a more complete picture of 2025 estimated phosphorus reductions. That is supported by the figure on the right side of the screen, which the lighter purple bars on the figure on the right show the exact same data that we're presenting on the figure on the left. That's estimated total estimated phosphorus reduction for the Lake Champlain Basin for each state fiscal year. And the darker outlined bars show what we reported for estimated phosphorus reductions for last year's report. So you can see that data lag play out in what we've been able to kind of add to each year's estimated phosphorus reductions through our data reconciliation in this year's report. This figure presents the estimated phosphorus reductions for the Lake Champlain Basin and the darker portion of each bar relative to the total TMDL reduction goal for the Lake Champlain Basin. Sharing this figure, I think it's important to underline that we can report progress towards reaching the TMDL for those practices that we have systems in place and methodologies established to estimate a phosphorus reduction for. And there's a few types of gaps in this progress reporting. One is the data lags that I just spoke about. We address that each year through this annual data reconciliation process. Another type of gap that we've identified is state supported implementation of practices for which we do not yet have the systems in place to collect data and or estimate a phosphorus reduction for that work. So in some cases, this gap is due to research being done to inform, you know, the scientific research done to inform the development of an accounting methodology. In other cases, it's the work being done to establish a system to collect the data that we need to apply an accounting methodology. Another type of gap is programs that are underway in terms of implementation, but not yet at full implementation, 100% implementation. So there are cases, particularly in the regulatory space, where we have a framework set and implementation is occurring, but we do expect further implementation over the remainder of the TMDL timeframe that will contribute additional phosphorus reductions to what we're able to account and report on.

[Unidentified Committee Member (male)]: And this is great data. Really appreciating this presentation. On the previous chart, where you show the difference between SFY24 and '25, I would expect to see there would be differences in the recent years of getting more data in, but some of the differences go all the way back to the very first year, 2016. Was there a significant shift or modification in model values with the amount of phosphorus taken out per project kind of thing and getting applied across the board? Is that what happened there?

[Claire Madden (DEC, Clean Water Initiative Program)]: That's a good question. It is a combination of factors. We had a change in some source data availability that added more eligible projects to the dataset that we're working with to estimate phosphorus reductions. That is a lot of those earlier increases in state fiscal year 'eighteen-'nineteen are explained more by that change. And then some of the more recent would be also just that backfilling of the recent data.

[Unidentified Committee Member (male)]: A chart that we're getting to that has fewer red boxes in it than it used to. That's the reason why figuring out how to estimate the phosphorus reduction for growth. Yes,

[Claire Madden (DEC, Clean Water Initiative Program)]: we're incrementally trying to expand and work on filling those gaps where we can. Each year, we're sort of reflecting any of those incremental

[Unidentified Committee Member (male)]: So is it logical to expect that as we fill in the rest of these red boxes on the two charts later here that, again, across the board, we'll see increases in all the years going back to the beginning, potentially?

[Claire Madden (DEC, Clean Water Initiative Program)]: Potentially, yes. Yes. Some of that implementation, I'll get to this in a couple of slides, think, but we have data on implemented projects for which we have not yet accounted for a phosphorus reduction, and some of that implementation absolutely occurred all the way back to 2016.

[Unidentified Committee Member (male)]: Maybe you'll answer when you get there, but when do you expect to have more of these red boxes filled in, turn into green boxes?

[Representative Sarah “Sarita” Austin (Clerk)]: We don't.

[Speaker 0]: As soon as possible. Is that in the future? That's why

[Unidentified Committee Member (male)]: I think you Yeah, can yeah, answer Once you've just got to get to it,

[Claire Madden (DEC, Clean Water Initiative Program)]: I'll switch to that slide now and say a little bit more. I think this is what you're referring to? Yes. Yes. Okay. So this table, recognize that it's a lot to look at on one slide.

[Representative Larry Labor (Vice Chair, Acting Chair)]: Excuse me. Do you have many more slides? Because I don't want to cheat Sarah out of time. We've only got

[Unidentified Committee Member (male)]: to two.

[Sarah Coleman (DEC, Clean Water Initiative Program Manager)]: Claire's taking the lead on the presentation. I'm just here for support.

[Claire Madden (DEC, Clean Water Initiative Program)]: So thank you. Thank you for checking, Claire. So this table shows projects and practice types that are currently supported with state funding and or compelled through state regulations. I wanna note that it's not a comprehensive list of every project or practice type that gets reported to us, but it's sort of the suite of projects and practice types where we have a sight line on estimating a phosphorus reduction. So the column in the middle of each table, the status of phosphorus accounting methodologies is showing where we are developing a methodology to assign an estimated phosphorus reduction to that practice type. Many implemented, some under development, and some we have not yet started on. The next column over status of phosphorus accounting implementation is just red green shows which of those practice types are reflected in the estimated phosphorus reductions that we've included in this year's report. So just pulling one example, research at UVM is ongoing to establish a method to quantify the phosphorus reduction potential of restored wetlands. And that research is going to inform a methodology to estimate phosphorus reduction for restored wetlands in the state. So while that methodology is under development, we have not yet reflected those results in the estimated phosphorus reductions that we're reporting, but we do collect data on the implementation that has happened to date. We have data on over 1,300 acres of conserved and restored wetlands just in the basins where we will eventually account for a phosphorus reduction. So that 1,300 acres doesn't count wetland restoration that has happened outside of the Lake Champlain or Lake Memphremagog basins. So we prioritize filling these gaps based on a variety of factors. We're really focused on filling gaps in the natural resource sector. You can see a lot of output metrics, a lot of implementation has occurred, and we have several areas where we're not yet estimating a phosphorus reduction for that work. We'll continue to focus on filling those gaps as a near term priority. Those priorities can change over time. Generally, they're informed by what we're hearing from state agencies about the types of work that's being supported through state funding or being compelled by state regulations. And we also look at where there's science and research available to support the development and implementation of an accounting methodology or where we might invest in that research in order to make a scientifically informed methodology. I want to just touch on another gap that I mentioned two slides ago, which is this sort of projected future phosphorus reductions, particularly those compelled through regulations. So this set of figures shows for four developed lands regulatory programs in the Lake Champlain Basin, the municipal separate storm sewer system, the transportation separate storm sewer system, three acre permits, and the municipal roads general permit. The filled in portion of each graph is what we've accounted for in estimated phosphorus reductions based on permits reported to us to date. The remainder, the sort of outlines the remainder of each bar shows what we anticipate that permit program will achieve in phosphorus reductions at full implementation. So this suite of four permit programs in the Lake Champlain Basin is expected to achieve over 13 metric tons of phosphorus reduction by the end of the TMDL implementation timeframe. We have only reported about three metric tons so far in the data that's been collected. So these regulatory programs, we do have a good sense of what reductions we can expect, And that implementation is ramping up. You can see all of those charts ticking up in terms of the implementation achieved to date. Alright. I'm gonna move a little bit quickly to be conscious of time. So we have estimated phosphorus reductions for the Lake Memphremagog Basin as well. And the story is largely the same. A lot of good progress is underway. It's a smaller watershed and so there's smaller estimated phosphorus reductions achieved today, but also a much smaller target to achieve overall. And we're similarly optimistic about the trajectory we're on and filling those data gaps, as well as seeing continued implementation through the frameworks, both regulatory and non regulatory funding programs that have been established to support this work. We're not yet able to estimate nitrogen reductions achieved in the Connecticut River Basin, but I want to be sure to highlight that work is also happening in that side of the state and a lot of really impactful work. So we are investing in clean water projects in the Connecticut River drainage in the same way we are in other parts of the state. About 24% of all reported state investments over the reporting period or about $183,000,000 has been directed to projects in the Connecticut River drainage. And I compiled here a selection of project output measures just to show the scale of implementation that is also occurring in that portion of the state. Over 80,000 acres of agricultural practices, 84 acres of floodplain restore, two fifty acres of riparian buffer planting. So some really great results there. And we look forward to being able to quantify a nitrogen reduction for many of those in the future. I also wanted to take a moment to touch on the intersection between this clean water work and our climate resilience goals. So I compiled here a couple of project output measures. These are statewide results for the types of practices that really provide tangible climate resilience co benefits. So for example, restored floodplains, including practices that lower floodplains, remove berms, or generally increase a river's access to its floodplains, help to provide space for floodwaters to spread out and slow down, which reduces the erosive energy of that water, deposits sediment, and also creates the public safety benefits of less quick moving water and really constrained systems. Riparian buffer plantings increase the tree lining and streams, which can help to reduce water temperatures and provide really important habitat for cold water species. And also woody material on stream banks helps to stabilize those stream banks and prevent erosive forces of floodwaters. Our road networks are being improved to meet permit standards, those standards are inclusive of practices that reduce erosion and right size infrastructure so that we have less erosion on our roadways occurring during heavy rainstorms. And this is really important, not just for the water quality benefits, but also for that public safety aspect I mentioned earlier, where more resilient road networks make sure that we're able to access communities during these events and soon after and help communities where they need. Wrapping up here. To summarize, we're growing capacity in this work and we have regulations in place and non regulatory funding programs established and underway. And all of this work across both regulatory and non regulatory approaches is supported by a network of partners that are working on the ground that make up our clean water workforce. We also have tools in place to pursue adaptive management through the tactical basin planning process. We're systematically checking back on progress that we've made to date, where there are gaps to fill and where new strategies may be employed to fill those gaps. And in addition, we're working to expand our tracking and accounting systems and methodologies to provide a more holistic assessment of implementation that has been achieved in relation to our water quality restoration goals and where work still needs to be done. We're starting to realize the benefit of continuity and sustained momentum in these systems. The programs that we're working under take a time to establish and stand up and really need to keep support, to maintain support through sustained and predictable levels of investment so that our partners are adequately resourced and equipped to do this work on the ground. There is certainly still work to do, but we're feeling optimistic about the path that we're on and being able to reach our water quality goals within the timeframe of these large regional water quality planning documents. And along the way, we're working to add additional transparency to where the gaps are and how we're addressing those gaps. This last slide, these two images are hyperlinked. You can access the full report. You can also access the Clean Water Interactive dashboard, which is an online tool that allows you to engage with the data that's then compiled for the report.

[Speaker 0]: Any questions?

[Representative Larry Labor (Vice Chair, Acting Chair)]: Yes, sir.

[Representative Sarah “Sarita” Austin (Clerk)]: I'm just wondering, the agriculture you know, it looks like it creates the heaviest load into the water. I'm just wondering how quickly it's improving, and if there's anything else that we need to address. I know we're doing a lot. I'm just wondering if there's more we could be doing.

[Claire Madden (DEC, Clean Water Initiative Program)]: Yeah, I'd love to reach out to some colleagues in the Agency of Agriculture to respond to that question. I think we are doing a lot and across all sectors, like I said, there's more to do, but I'd love to get back to you with some specifics on their thoughts on where that is. Okay.

[Speaker 0]: Just on the agricultural front to help answer that question, I'll just acknowledge, and it's maybe a little confusing because there's three different graphs on but agriculture is responsible for about a third of the phosphorus that goes into the lake and is responsible for about 50% of or more of the solutions. So agriculture is already doing a lot more in terms of the different sectors represented here, because it's one of the most efficient places to make change.

[Representative Michael “Mike” Tagliavia (Member)]: Representative Tagliavia? On that same page, on that pie chart, I think you referred to an increase in the wastewater part of it because of the rise

[Representative Christopher “Chris” Pritchard (Member)]: in

[Representative Michael “Mike” Tagliavia (Member)]: population. We have a rise in population. Aren't we going to have more need for our farmers to grow our food? And is there a an allowance for increase for the farming community as well?

[Claire Madden (DEC, Clean Water Initiative Program)]: That's a great question. The TMDL allocation assigned a reduction in total load from the agricultural sector. But I think there's a lot of land management and economic strategy that is not fully, I guess, contemplated in the TMDL modeling. This is really focused on the water quality management and definitely appreciate those other factors to how Vermont evolves.

[Representative Larry Labor (Vice Chair, Acting Chair)]: Seeing no further questions, thank you very much, Claire.

[Speaker 0]: Thank you so much.

[Claire Madden (DEC, Clean Water Initiative Program)]: Thank you.

[Unidentified Committee Member (male)]: Thank

[Speaker 0]: you. He's gonna give us testimony, hopefully.

[Representative Larry Labor (Vice Chair, Acting Chair)]: Anybody need a bio break?