Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Unidentified member or staff]: Question. We are live. It is yours, James.

[James (unidentified presiding member/staff)]: Oh, thanks a lot. I'm just gonna plug in if you don't mind.

[Commissioner Jason Thatchaulder, Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department]: Abigail's gonna be on the screen clicking through for me. Thanks for having me back. I'm Jason Thatchaulder, Fish and Wildlife Commission.

[James (unidentified presiding member/staff)]: I'm I'm thankful for that.

[Commissioner Jason Thatchaulder, Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department]: Thank you. And I am joined by my executive assistant, Abigail Connolly, who's gonna click through. Hopefully, it'll be seamless. Hasn't been every time we've tried. But I'm here to talk about, an effort that has been, maybe a thirty year brainchild. And I'm the lucky commissioner that gets to, to roll it out. And I mostly mostly mean that it's, it's a year when, when the governor took a shining to it. And at a time when there's no doubt we have need, as you saw in our budget proposal, that things are tight. But this is less about making any type of profit than then I've sort of been calling it a fairness exercise. And I'll get into why that is, but I'm excited to talk about it. Please reserve the right to be prickly. I know not this doesn't fall well with a lot of people. So I'm good for it. And I've heard a lot of a lot of angles and and I won't take offense. Slide two, please, Abigail. So this is an infrastructure need. We have a tremendous amount of lands and infrastructure, two zero five fishing access areas, 102 WMAs, five fish culture stations, two conservation camps, and two shooting ranges. The shooting ranges you currently need a license for. But some of these other places, and we're not proposing fees for all of these. This is this is been pared down to an access area effort at the moment. We were pursuing wildlife management areas, so lands also. But that proved a bit confusing for everyone to discern between state parks and fish and wildlife lands. And rightfully so. We didn't see that coming. I didn't see that coming. And we've stepped back from lands at the moment. We hope to embark on an intense education outreach effort over over the next six months to a year and push lands a little bit. But at the moment this is fish and wildlife access areas. Slide three please, Abigail. So we manage these areas that provide access to 132 unique public waters for recreational boating, fishing, hunting, trapping, wildlife watching. And once people get on the water, can do whatever they want, right? These are the these are the approved uses that we allow for our fishing access areas. We provide concrete or gravel boat ramps, courtesy docks, 21 universally accessible shore fishing platforms. Paddlecraft can be used at all these sites and over 36% are designated as universally accessible. And that by the 2028 fifty percent will be fully accessible. And one of the rubs with these these places is parking and that that sometimes is what comes to a head. Not always, but parking can be at a premium at some of these not again, not all. Next slide, please. So here's the why. These are our user funded areas that are paid for through motorboat registrations, Dingle Johnson excise taxes, and about $100,000 a year in capital funds for ongoing maintenance. As the public has become more diverse in their outdoor recreational activities, placing pressure on the department lands and its infrastructure, we've recognized the need for something like this. Some of you may have seen an earlier rendition of the slideshow and I had ice skating in there, which is not an approved use case that got back to you. I pulled that out. But essentially, anglers and motorboat users and and and some hunters have been paying for these access areas. As long as I can tell you we we these access areas have been in existence as long as the Dingell Johnson fund has been in existence. And I wish I prepared to tell you when that was, but decades and decades. Paddlers without a fishing or hunting license or trapping license, Sailors, bird watchers, have been have been, and we welcome them, have been among the priority uses and they haven't had to pay. Motorboat users without a fishing license or hunting license or trapping license are paying into this system. But a paddler who does not otherwise purchase a department issued license would not be paying into this, into this system. And that cues the fairness piece that I kind of led with. I don't I don't look at this as you know, we don't. Obviously, we we've welcomed people there now. We don't look at this as we don't we don't want to hear. We obviously want everyone to use our access areas for an approved use. We feel that it is that it is time

[James (unidentified presiding member/staff)]: for more payers.

[Commissioner Jason Thatchaulder, Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department]: Next slide please, Abigail. As I talked a little bit about this morning, or maybe alluded to, we have tremendous financial burden in this post COVID world, managing land. And the current funding model is stressed. We don't shy away from that. Hunters and anglers trappers provide funding for management land management activities historically. And as you have seen, we do not have the demographic that we had in the in the 70s 80s, to support that any longer. While our participation remains very steady, very high, it it I think I have said, it's worth repeating over the since 2019, the we're at approximately twenty percent of newborns in Vermont receiving a lifetime hunting and fishing or one of the other license. So some of you may have purchased one for kids in your life. Purchased them for my kids. So let's say you buy a fishing license for a child. They're not entering into the system like they normally would be, it's great for us. We we do accrue some interest and are able to capture, what we find is is the meaningful participation out of that person, but they they're paying as as they normally would. We do get those first few years, which they wouldn't normally have to pay for. But once they turn 15 and beyond, they don't have to have to purchase. And so that that hits us. And so we're looking for looking for other user payers, Not to make a profit as it states, but asking those who who benefit from these areas to help invest. And all this money isn't gonna turn around and go back to that particular access area or even access areas in general, but to our general administration. And therefore, some of it will return to these access series. But it's it's a it's a general, pot. This is going to go in into our Fish and Wildlife Fund. Next slide, please. These new licenses will be required by all visitors to fishing access areas who do not currently possess a license that we provide. So hunting, fishing, trapping license could be exempt. If you had a motorboat registration, you would be exempt. So even if you had a small motor on your boat, your registration fee pays enough into the system where we'll we'll exempt you for that. Yes, please.

[Representative Sarah “Sarita” Austin (Clerk)]: Which so do you be exempt for if you were using, like, a sailboat? Or would you be exempt from using any of those?

[Commissioner Jason Thatchaulder, Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department]: So if you had a big sailboat with a motor on it or just a just a No. Just a dinghy. You would not be exempted from that. Just a dinghy. You would if you if you did not have another license provided by the department.

[Representative Sarah “Sarita” Austin (Clerk)]: So you'd need two licenses. One for, like, a little 18 foot fishing boat.

[Commissioner Jason Thatchaulder, Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department]: You

[Representative Sarah “Sarita” Austin (Clerk)]: have to register.

[Commissioner Jason Thatchaulder, Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department]: So you would you if you had a boat registration, on a on a fishing boat Mhmm. You would not need this license.

[Representative Sarah “Sarita” Austin (Clerk)]: But how so how do you

[Commissioner Jason Thatchaulder, Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department]: how do just had a a sailboat with no motor on it, no motor no motor driven conveyance on that boat, we would ask you to buy this license. And I'm sorry to interrupt.

[Representative Ela Chapin (Member)]: That's okay.

[James (unidentified presiding member/staff)]: Cut you off.

[Representative Sarah “Sarita” Austin (Clerk)]: Was interrupting. I just have one more question. So how do you enforce this?

[Commissioner Jason Thatchaulder, Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department]: Yeah. It's a wonderful question.

[Representative Ela Chapin (Member)]: I It probably comes up later on.

[Commissioner Jason Thatchaulder, Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department]: I'm not sure it does. I if it if it I'll I'll cover it now because it's worth touching on a couple different times. So I'm committed to a to a passive rollout of this being in the warden service and realizing what it can be like to be enforced against. We don't want this to be a big scary effort where people are fearing going to the water. We we would like to handle this through QR code voluntary for the first couple of years. Right? Our our access areas will be retrofitted to say, the use area, with a QR code where folks can scan and download a license on the spot. And we're just gonna require it on a phone. There's not gonna be a sticker or a decal. And so it would transfer from boat to boat if you needed a door, kayak to kayak in the instance. But let's say you're out on the water, you see a warden, you're the only person there and your car is in the access area. The warden would say, may I see your life jacket? And may I see your access area license? Right? So that is how we will roll this out. Warnings for the first couple of years, if probably verbal, we'd much rather sell you one of these licenses than write you a ticket. The tickets go to the general fund. These licenses go to us. And so it's and it's been like that with our our fishing license, fish and wildlife license fees for a long time. Excuse me, fines, not fees, fish and wildlife fines. If we write you a ticket for fishing without a license, that money goes to the general fund, and some of it goes to Veterans Affairs, which you likely know. But we'd rather have that $20 instead of the general fund getting the 147 because it's a direct impact and we can match that those those those licensed funds up to three times. And so we'd much rather have the license than have the ticket. So if that helps, I know that's been a worry for some that we would have a heavy hand rolling this out and I'm committed to not doing that. I don't want to be a deterrent to tourism to anyone coming to Vermont. But it would apply to non residents as well. And, and obviously, there's a worry from the warden services while we talked about capacity this morning. And I don't want to put another another bucket of work into the warden services lab, right? I want this to be passive. If they're checking light jackets and they're checking fishing licenses, it wouldn't be a big lift to ask for their well, if they had a fishing license, they wouldn't need one. But if if they were checking my jackets, they would ask for this as well.

[James (unidentified presiding member/staff)]: Yeah. Perfect. Just for clarification, think, help out with what representative Austin is asking, I own two boats.

[Unidentified member or staff]: I

[James (unidentified presiding member/staff)]: own a larger boat that's that has a registration or some sort of a paddle boat or a small sailboat doesn't require a registration. Would I just carry the registration for the one boat that okay. So I think Got it.

[Commissioner Jason Thatchaulder, Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department]: Yep. And I don't think I captured that in this slide either. Okay. We're, you know, touching the wave tops early, but I I expect some of these finer details will come out in our subsequent rollouts in our education. So that's a great question. Take a picture of your registration, and the wardens can check that too. Right? They punch in a number, and they know. So that's very easy.

[James (unidentified presiding member/staff)]: So if I buy a hunting license, but I'm using one of these access areas as long as I have verification of my hunting license, I'm good. Absolutely. Yeah.

[Representative Rob North (Member)]: Thank you. Representative. No worries. Thanks. The the license is just to use one of the public access areas. I mean, if I don't want a place on the water, can launch my own kayak into

[James (unidentified presiding member/staff)]: the water, and I can paddle all over the lake. Yep. License.

[Commissioner Jason Thatchaulder, Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department]: To just to use one of our access areas that's that's paid for by these traditional funds. Great question. Yeah. The public body of water is still free. Yeah. The parking will be are

[Representative Rob North (Member)]: toxic in air that I've heard in time soon.

[Commissioner Jason Thatchaulder, Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department]: No, sir. Just making No plans. Nope. Next slide, please, Abigail. So implementation is ideally next spring. If you can believe it, we have to get our Fish and Wildlife Law Digest ready before almost before the summer hits. So we can start making edits and tweaks. Having the having these meetings are are wonderful to gauge, support and and and otherwise. So we're looking to implement this next spring probably by Memorial Day. So a year from May, we'd like this to be rolled out when the boating season begins. We'll require six months of intensive outreach and education with partner organizations and the public. And then we put it we put a year here. That's traditionally been our rollout period for new for new actions that might require enforcement. But in reality, it's longer than two years for this kind of thing. I think it took us six or seven years to write the first lead singer ticket. And I I think I I think when when historically things have been one way, we take a long time to enforcement wise to roll out a heavy hand and don't mean to belabor that, but I just wanna put everyone's mind at ease. And this would be similar to a hunting or fishing license. So we're thinking I've said anywhere between 15 and $20. Andrea, I think Andrea is leaning toward 20. So we may end up at 20. Next slide, please. So these will be again fishing access areas. You'll need some sort of license or registered motorboat. As I said in the onset, shooting ranges will continue to require a hunting or fishing or trapping license. And just just pointing out some of the lands that we own won't be required for conservation camp access, fish culture stations where we do public tours, or stream bank management areas, which are essentially our lands that are adjacent to some some riparian areas that folks can use for parking and fishing access will not be required there. Not always properly signed. So that I think that's why we drew away from that too. Next slide, please, Abigail. So the commissioner of the day has authority to promulgate this rule, it will still have to go through one of the legislative committees, I believe it's ICAR. It could be wrong, but it will go through one of those committees. And I I I say that because it it doesn't necessarily involve committee jurisdiction. I certainly wanna make sure you all have a hand in in in blessing it or otherwise, but we we will be able to handle this through commissioner and and secretary signature and some public outreach and then through ICAR. We'll roll it out through our point of sale system where you would buy your normal license and again, through QR codes at access areas. I think just for conversation sake, the first year, first two years, we anticipate a lot of education. Once we can get people using these QR codes, we'll be able to remind them on an annual basis that these are coming due. And hopefully, we'll be able to roll this out in conjunction with a three hundred and sixty five day effort. So if you bought it today, it would be good till yesterday, next year. And again, compliance through the warden service. Next slide, please. That's it. Undoubtedly have some questions. I've heard from a lot of users that are that are adamant that that this is a fee at a time when fees are not kosher and not being pushed by the administration. We are looking at this as another license. And I'm sure they're synonymous in some people's minds, but this is an access opportunity for people to pay in and help a system. I know that sounds like a political answer, but not a fee. It it is a license, and it it will be I believe the studies we've done with the 14 states that we've done including Maryland, Montana, Delaware, to name some of the high and low points in the country. Virginia was a place we studied because they had a very troubled rollout and then turned it around. Montana's had a lot of success. We've studied a lot of other places. And we're we're confident that this will be worth the squeeze within a couple of years. I had the numbers with wildlife management areas rolled in to tell you how much we were gonna make, but wildlife management areas have been pulled out. So I don't have those numbers on how much we expect to to draw in with just access areas at the moment. But I can certainly get you that number. It's it's knowable.

[James (unidentified presiding member/staff)]: Yeah. Respect to the boat registration, being if I'm out paddling around kayak or something, would one registration cover everybody on the boat? Great question. How that work?

[Commissioner Jason Thatchaulder, Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department]: We've had this this very discussion. That that boat itself with everyone on it will be covered. It was not initially the proposal. It is now the proposal to have the entire boat be encompassed to encompass all users on it.

[Unidentified member or staff]: Okay. Great question. Representative Chapin?

[Representative Ela Chapin (Member)]: Like, eight questions, but I'll try and only ask one or two right now and then Problem. See where we go. So my the place I most frequent and use is a pond that has this kind of access with some parking and then has just down the road a trail with some spots that people use for swimming and has, I don't know, at least 20 private properties around it. And we go there all the time. I see people go there who won't go to a state park cause it's a free access for swimming and boating. We just heard from the state parks forever talking about the work they've been doing over the past few years, trying to actually increase equity access to our state park system because there's always been fees that were not large, were not fairly similar to the kinds of costs you're talking about here. But we've just heard about how incredibly valuable it's been to make freeway for lower income Vermonters to access state parks and how much more access is happening now. And so I think of these And I know it's not the point of these access areas nor the parking nor is the parking substantial enough for all of these. So in the moment, from my experience, I'm thinking about this almost as like a parking fee and that the parking areas might be the biggest infrastructure that your department manages that's getting used by many other kinds of users. So for example, at Kurzana, I can park in the fishing access area and launch my canoe, or I can park at the swimming trail and carry my canoe longer than my parents could carry their canoe, but I can carry my canoe. So just wondering about, really I'm wondering about equity. I see the importance of acknowledging who's using our resources and that the state needs to manage these resources and they become more expensive. Then if we have And what I witness is some of these parking areas are not sufficient for the increased types of use. And somebody's pulling out their fishing boat and somebody else is trying to get out their kayak and they're navigating the same boat ramp. So some of those dynamics that I think are really important for your team to be thinking about and figuring out. And so I really acknowledge the infrastructure stuff, but I'm just thinking about many of the places where I see where I can walk through the woods and get in the water five feet away from the access. I'm just wondering if really what we're talking about is like a parking day use fee. And so you're saying per boat, you only need one license. And I'm thinking maybe really what we're talking about is more akin to per car fee for parking access. So it's just from my experience, was just sort of curious about that. I'm also, and related to that, the use of the word license here is curious to me for some of the same reasons. And when I think of licenses, particularly within your department, think of things that we try and manage the numbers of. And sometimes anybody who wants a license has access to a license. Sometimes there's pool, so many licenses that are issued. So find the use of the word license in relationship to the types of uses you're using, curious. And I'm wondering if you've given any thought to that. So yeah, there's a lot embedded in this, but on the equity side, I know there's environmental justice laws. I'm wondering if in the rulemaking, we would have to go through some kind of equity lens to look at that. Do you know? Sorry, there's like five questions.

[Commissioner Jason Thatchaulder, Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department]: I'm happy to wrap all that into a thought, I think. We certainly, our first foot forward is always equity and accessibility. Find using Curtis Pond as an example. Curtis Pond experiences conflicted uses on a daily basis on especially in the warm days in the summer. I think if a warden is not driving by or they're they're they're on their way most days because of the complaints that they received because of the overcrowding of that access area. I don't see this license of being a solution for that. Because Curtis Pond is such a unique spot, right without buying the land across the road and, and adding more capacity. I don't see that as solving it. I do believe and I'm in I, I could be wrong here, someone may be listening that that can correct me. But most of our priority uses come down to parking capacity. So I think you're, you're on to the point. Some of them are simply not a factor when we get down to like a like a Mallet's Bay, Lake Seymour, it's hard to fill those up. But there are places where, because of use and capacity, are we are looking we are bumping up against budget and bumping up against capacity to maintain these accessories with with the kiosks, degrading the plowing, sanding, the mowing, the trash pickup. I, I don't know how to reconcile the traditional uses. Know that people were using Curtis Pond Access Area before was a Fish and Wildlife Department, right? And so to insert ourselves, then insert ourselves now is going to be uncomfortable for some people. Completely understand and I'm happy to visit that conversation. I do feel that this will be a point in time to move forward and bring some understanding to people of what they're what they're getting when they have access to a lake or a pond. I think looking at the backside of Curtis Pond, it's very daunting to think about trying to go another place, right? There are some places where you where you could carry a canoe or a kayak to another place, but some of this would be paying for the convenience of being right on the water. And using the car analogy, if you if you got 10 people out at an access area to do most things, it wouldn't be lawful now to do that. If you if they all had a fishing pole, they'd all be great. But if they all got out of that car to go swimming or something at the access area, it wouldn't be an approved use now. So that that's a clarification that some people don't consider. Swimming is not an allowed use at an access area, we've never allowed it, we, we try not to be too heavy handed with it, but it's not an approved use now. But if it, if it were a car pass, they we've been steered away very strongly from car passes and from and from boat passes, because they're not transferable in there. They have to be renewed every year and wardens have to check the date on them. So we've been encouraged to go the phone route. But you know, 10 people in a boat is easy. 10 people getting out of a suburban to go do something that may not be approved is a challenge. And I'm I'd love some clarification on the on the worst of word of use of the word license because I, we have we have a couple different terms we use permit for an analyst allowance, right, a landowner or a person can apply for an analyst permit or a moose permit. But I guess that's where that's where my understanding of the question might end. I would love to call it something else. We've batted around names for it for a long time, but we feel it's most appropriate because of mythical law enforcement that's tied to it. The what I've been saying is, and it may sound cheesy, it may sound not appropriate, but I do feel that there are people because we have studied a few groups like bird watchers who feel as though they would would like to pay, know what they're getting from from a bird watching experience, they know that we manage wildlife species, they don't have a way to pay into this fish and wildlife system, unless they hunt or fish or trap. And so using it as a license has a positive connotation to me on on that side of it. But I I completely, well, I don't completely understand, but I would love to have the conversation further on on on a better name.

[Unidentified member or staff]: Of course. We're sending it to Fredrick, then we'll it all.

[James (unidentified presiding member/staff)]: Thanks, commissioner.

[Representative Christopher “Chris” Pritchard (Member)]: So Dingle Johnson was 1950. If anybody asks you about Robinson, that's 1937. '37. Yeah. So for me, this sets I guess it sets an alarm off for me and not so much of the program. But, you know, I have felt for years that the Fish and Wildlife Department of Vermont, perennially, has been

[James (unidentified presiding member/staff)]: underfunded. And

[Representative Christopher “Chris” Pritchard (Member)]: when this comes up, it that just that just makes that clear to me that that's a problem. And and it could create other problems as, you know, representative of Chittenden's equity problems and and so on and so forth. While we were going through the budget process today, and it was being laid out, you know, I just looked at a couple of things. And, you know, the three examples they gave us were the amount of employees at DEC, FPR, and Fish and Wildlife. And if you break down the amount of employees by the budget they have, it's eye opening. Fish and Wildlife is getting the job done based on the overall budget for 132,000. FPR is twice as much. The EC is four times as much, which tells me, I just don't think we're funding this department the way we should for responsibilities they have and the things that we ask them. You're responsible for all the wildlife in Vermont, for everybody to enjoy, all the flora and fauna, and the list goes on and on. We gave you an FTE last year, but we really didn't give you an FTE. We gave you a lot of extra work and gave you a person that I don't even know if one FTE is enough for 100 So, I would like us to really look at your department. And I think it gets overlooked. And I think that the things that the folks do there is really underappreciated. So when I see something like this, I just say, you know what, we ought to take a pause and say, why is this necessary? You know, to take care of the department. So, you know, that's just that's my that's the way I feel about it. That's my feelings on it.

[Commissioner Jason Thatchaulder, Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department]: It's very kind of you to say, and staying in my in my current lane, I would I I know if you looked at the budget, you would see much smaller numbers than we stand to gain in this effort. And I think I'd go back to what I said about, maybe we we come back and look at this ten years from now, and and we are flourishing with all the money in the world. I still think we would be happy that we had this $200,000 that we're going to make off of this license. I understand the equity, the equity piece, and I meant to elaborate a little bit more on representative Chapin's questions. We do plan to have a very long list of exemptions to this license. And we haven't had time to reach all partners yet, but we do have there are many exemptions to our license system now. We did the numbers the other day, we give a tremendous amount of well deserved free licenses. And this would certainly fall in many categories for persons of need or qualification. But I think, and I appreciate everything that you said, I but I do think no matter how small the amount and no matter how far away we get from, from debt, just just call it. I think we would still be glad we have this, this fee. And and I'm just one person that could be very wrong about that. But thank you for the kind words.

[Unidentified member or staff]: Sir, this last weekend, Seymour Lake was covered with trucks and trailers and snow machines, none of which were fishing. So you may wanna consider some sort of patent, whatever you wanna call it, for alternative uses for the parking lots, because a swimming access parking lot, full. Boat launch parking lot, full. And that's a large lot. It takes a lot of vehicles to fill it up. Just saying. I don't particularly like the word license because in most cases, they're not vision.

[James (unidentified presiding member/staff)]: They're not public. They're not traffic.

[Unidentified member or staff]: So you may wanna go to Webster's and look for an alternative word to see what would cover that. But that's not the only thing. Sure. This was put out by Snow Cross.

[Commissioner Jason Thatchaulder, Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department]: I was wondering if it was the snowmobile event.

[Unidentified member or staff]: Yeah. Yeah. It was. There should be I'm not home to look at the newspaper, but I'm sure there's gonna be adequate amounts of coverage that hasn't already occurred.

[James (unidentified presiding member/staff)]: Just a thought. Thank you. Representative Tagliavia then representative Austin. To follow on with Representative Pritchard was talking about looking at other agencies within ANI,

[Unidentified member or staff]: since

[James (unidentified presiding member/staff)]: Fish and Wildlife is managing wildlife, there a way to, I don't know, I'm just wondering out loud, for DEC to be able to supplement the budget that Fish and Wildlife serves? Just wondering out loud.

[Commissioner Jason Thatchaulder, Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department]: I'd love to pull the secretary in and and have that conversation. I I would I would have to wait for her on that. And I don't I don't truly know how much I mean, they're to answer some of of your question too, much of their money is is is passed through from from the federal government. Right? Their budget does look huge, but they're supporting a lot of municipal efforts at the same time. They have money that they never see. But great question.

[James (unidentified presiding member/staff)]: Awesome.

[Representative Sarah “Sarita” Austin (Clerk)]: So if you go to, like, Sandbar or Button Bay or Neeka Bay and you pay an entry fee to a park, do you still have to pay this?

[Commissioner Jason Thatchaulder, Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department]: So our lands are disassociated from one another. So I've used this example in the past. If I go to Elmore State Park and bring my family, I pay at the at the gate. And and it is and it's essentially you're you're paying to park. If I go and park at the church, I can walk across and go swimming at the beach for free. Right? And same with with Green River, I can park at the Green River access and go go to the gate. These are just areas near me. But if I go up the road and walk through the woods, I'm free. And so, the answer the answer is no. So if you park if you went through to Button Bay or Niket, I think Niket State Park, yeah, you would you would be a a singular point of pay that you wouldn't have to worry about this.

[Representative Christopher “Chris” Pritchard (Member)]: It's not.

[Commissioner Jason Thatchaulder, Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department]: It would just be fish and wildlife events.

[Representative Christopher “Chris” Pritchard (Member)]: Any other further questions?

[Unidentified member or staff]: I'll let them take them.

[Representative Ela Chapin (Member)]: You mentioned at the very beginning that maybe there's decades of work leading up to this. Guess because I'm particularly interested in the years leading up to this, what other things you've been looking at as options to address this? I feel like maybe you're both And maybe you can clarify. I feel like you're both addressing a budget issue and costs increasing and certain kinds of income going down. And

[James (unidentified presiding member/staff)]: you're

[Representative Ela Chapin (Member)]: trying to address the fact that the outdoor recreation reality in this day and age has changed. And the use of these particular, right now we're just talking about fishing accesses on public waters, have changed. And so instead of being like, you all who are not hunting and fishing shouldn't be using these accesses, you're trying to actually be inclusive here and say, public's use has shifted and we do want this to be accessible. If you have a boat, maybe that's still trying to understand the list of approved things because if I take my paddleboard, I don't have a paddleboard, if I take my friend's paddleboard and put it all out in my car and drive to Curtis and park in the fishing access and paddle out, I can go swimming, but I'm just not supposed to swim from the ramp. Basically, don't get in the way of the boats. Anyway, I think I see you both trying to address a financial issue and who's really using these spaces and what's the public need and trends in public outdoor recreation right now. So I'm curious about the lead up to this choice and other things that you considered, and maybe you don't have time to really fully answer that now.

[Commissioner Jason Thatchaulder, Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department]: There's quite a bit of it. And I appreciate that that positive spin. It's varied over the over the years. This and I, I'm nearly certain it's been thirty years in the making to have the support from the administration and the right idea to do this. But it's varied from parking passes to vessel passes, stickers each year, to, well, I'll stop there. Those those are the two that I know that have been studied. Commissioner Porter and Commissioner Barry both took took swings at this and, and spoke to me about their experiences. I couldn't recall them. But I know that there is quite a study at hand, we could provide to you about the history of our effort. And, and again, the stars aligned this year with with the governor and his, and his ability to allow this for us. And and the the right idea is coming from all the states that we studied. Was Paul Hamlin, some of you may know that that really led this effort. He retired, right before the right before the session. We don't have access to him, but we have all his work. There's something in writing.

[Representative Ela Chapin (Member)]: Absolutely. Yeah. That looks at some of the other alternatives that have been considered, I'd love to see that.

[Representative Christopher “Chris” Pritchard (Member)]: Gotcha. Senator Pritchard? You brought up the other states to it. You mentioned Montana. Are you referring to like BLM and BMA lands? Or what kind of programs Montana have?

[Commissioner Jason Thatchaulder, Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department]: So there is so it's, it's Fish, Wildlife and Parks, Montana FWP. So, right right now, you can go camp at one of their access areas, you just have to pay while you do it. That is their that is their example of allowing different uses and camping wouldn't still be allowed at our access areas. That's just one of the things that they allow. But, that's the extent of my knowledge about about the Montana program. They allow people to use their their access areas for other purposes. But this these are state. There may be some federal tie in to them that I'm not aware of. This is coming from a little bit of personal experience and a little bit of the study. But Montana has gone to a model similar to this that we did cover in our in our study language. That's the extent of my knowledge about it.

[Representative Christopher “Chris” Pritchard (Member)]: Yeah. I was just wondering. I mean, I I mean, the, you know, the the BLM and BMA programs out there are great. They're great for the folks that live there. You know, it gives the ability and it's different geographically. You know? It would be different with Vermont because you don't have the, you know, you don't you don't have the I don't think you would have the access or the the amount of land that Montana has. But, you know, I I I know, for example, on on on block management out there, you know, there's little sign in boxes at each. Ranchers participate in it, and say they have a 20,000 acre ranch, they may put 10,000 of it in in BLM land. You sign in, you get a permission slip to hunt or or whatever. At the end of the day, you put it in, and the state of Montana reimburses those landowners for allowing access to their land. So, you know, I think that that would be a hard thing to try to to do with our geographics. Know, I I was just curious as if if that was a program you were referring to, but it's entirely separate. Sounds like it is. Running over, so we've gotta close the session.

[Commissioner Jason Thatchaulder, Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department]: I wanna thank you very much for coming. Thank you so much for

[Representative Christopher “Chris” Pritchard (Member)]: all the information. Thank you.

[Representative Ela Chapin (Member)]: Thank you so much.

[James (unidentified presiding member/staff)]: To be here so much. I will see

[Commissioner Jason Thatchaulder, Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department]: you again soon, no doubt.

[Representative Rob North (Member)]: Have fun

[James (unidentified presiding member/staff)]: on the floor. You're charged at getting their state parks. So

[Representative Ela Chapin (Member)]: thank you so much.

[James (unidentified presiding member/staff)]: Absolutely. It's worth talking about and thinking about some more of our important years of thinking about it for a long time. It is. Paul just retired with thirty something years. Think it was him that says that one of his ideas are important to get going. But I'm also That's a big one to go and see what I can survive. Don't know

[Representative Christopher “Chris” Pritchard (Member)]: if his study goes back down. We're still alive. I

[Representative Sarah “Sarita” Austin (Clerk)]: mean, they're not the topic.

[Representative Rob North (Member)]: Thank you, colleagues on the environment committee for giving me the opportunity just to very, very quickly, and I realize we don't have a whole lot of time to go ahead to the floor, to present bill h eight zero five. Eight zero five.

[James (unidentified presiding member/staff)]: Neither. Even if you're in the Hussie.

[Representative Rob North (Member)]: Even if I am in the Hussie, still need to introduce myself. My name is representative Rob North from Ferrisburg serving the Greater Virgin's area, Ferrisburg, Virgin's, Patton, Addison, Waltham, and a third of New Haven. And I'm here to talk about h 805, a bill that, I authored and, co sponsored along with a neighboring, district, Herb Olson. The the ideas presented in this bill came from constituents, all all of them. And I really liked them, so I thought, well, I'm gonna I'm gonna try to codify that and see if can get them to go through. Then and some of the constituents were actually in Herb's district. So that's why Herb and I cosponsored. Couple of those constituents were water systems engineers. So lot of these ideas came from. Some of them are fellow commissioners in the Act two fifty program, fellow Act two fifty commissioners. And some are just constituents worried about the implementation of Act 181. So let me just go through an overview and then I'll walk through the bill. When it comes down to walk through it, can pull up H eight zero five on your screen if you'd like. There's only four basic things that this bill does. It's kind of a collection of these four things. The first is that it asks the agency of natural resources to treat the engineering approval and design and permitting of wetlands and stormwater activity the same way that it currently does wastewater activity. And you'll see the wording in the bill, but basically wastewater gives deference to is the language and the wording. It's run as a kind of outsourced where the agency certifies engineers to do the work, and when those engineers do their engineering work and design work, the agency really just takes that work, sees that they've followed the rules and stamps it off. There's no additional engineering work within the agency, and so this bill asks the stormwater program and the and the wetlands program to do that same kind of thing, set set up, certified engineers to do to do the work. It also, and this is another idea that came from the storm water engineers, so the the water system engineers, was to allow owners of residences to waive their or or reduce some of the standards on their own property relative to the some of the engineered water related solutions to allow either alternative engineering solutions to beyond beyond what's currently identified in the standards, or they themselves take on liability that gets recorded as part of their deed for maybe putting their own well water system and septic system too close to each other than violating some some boundaries or I'm just using that as an example. But. In other words, I'll I'll giving the engineer a little more flexibility in in coming up with and even giving the resident, the owner of the of the house a little of their property, a little more flexibility and taking on the liability themselves. That was the second thing. Third thing is really starts to address taxation by valuing the property in accordance with what we currently use as a use value appraisal or current use valuation of our property if and for whatever segment of your property is identified as wetlands or identified as tier three. If your property that you have owned and paid taxes on for a long time suddenly gets classified as part of a wetland or part of tier three, then you shouldn't have to pay the full rate of taxes for that portion of property, that is classified in those sections, in those, designations. So that's the third thing. Fourth thing is a tiny little thing. Again, this this came from, several of the the, my fellow Act two fifty district commissioners, that when we do an on-site visit of a parcel that is going through Act two fifty permitting, we often or it's oftentimes convenient to go and do an on-site visit. And when we do that, that should be exempt from the online meeting law. We we shouldn't have to go go there, do the visit, talk about it. And specifically for the purpose and and and I wanna it's narrowed down specifically for the purpose of doing what the commissioners all do offline. It's not an online thing is make the decision between a major and a minor permit requirement. That's that's really the entire responsibility of commissioners is to decide if a particular permitting is is major or minor. If it's major, it has to go through the whole public hearing thing. We decide it's minor, then it can go through without public hearing. Just doing that visit so we can see the property itself shouldn't have to be online meeting. There's confusion the the rules are written right now as to whether that requires us to then go back, have another session to talk about what we saw and do that all online. Even though we currently make our decisions completely offline, we just email each other with the decision, just kind of back and forth email. Yeah, I think it's minor. I think it's minor. Okay, we'll go for it. And that's all offline. Why would if we all go to a site to look at it to help us make that determination, why would that have to be online? So those are the four things that it does, and I can walk you through the specific wording. If you look on page two at line 12, can see the underlined text there that's added. And this is the key verbiage where line 12 where it says the sentence that says the secretary shall give deference to a certification by a licensed engineer. That's the key phrase that currently appears already relative to wastewater and it's being added here in the section under this section thirteen and ten VSA nine thirteen specifically to wetlands. Right, so that whole paragraph. According to Michael or greater, our alleged counsel was was required, but that that's the key phrase shall give deference to a certification by a licensed engineer that that's the key phrase. And so what that does is allows the agency to set up a certified list of engineers, identify the certification process, certify engineers to do this work, third party engineers that they come with, and then they just approve what the engineer did. Same kind of thing then appears on page three toward the very bottom. In fact, it's the last line, line 21 on page three. And this is in 10 VSA section twelve sixty four relative to storm water. And again, Secretary, where the risk of harm from storm water runoff is low, the Secretary shall give deference to a certification by a licensed engineer. So that's the key phrase that allows some licensed engineers to take on this task as opposed to retaining it all within ANR. Let's see. That kind of language already exists, as I said, in the wastewater arena, which is included, I think, in the bill just for reference. You can see on page five, line 16, section F1, this is all in the wastewater section, you can see the language already exists there. The secretary shall give deference to a certification by a licensed unit. That already exists relative to the wastewater. However, moving on within the wastewater section on page six now, and this is something I guess I didn't present this in the overview at the beginning. This is something that was very specifically asked for by the wastewater engineers because of the lack of consistency that they see as these wastewater engineers who are already certified by the state, that wastewater already has this certification in place for the engineers to do the work. But when they go to one of the district when when they submit their plans in one of the districts of the state, everything goes through just fine. If they're working in another district of the state, they get raked over the coals. All of their design work gets redone and so they really struggle. So a lot of them just refuse to even bid on jobs in certain areas of the state because they know that the person doing the oversight there gives them such a hard time. So what they've asked for is really on page six, starting at line four, this is subsection three there. It says of this section do not require department review and the activity will pose only a minor risk or harm to health the human environment. And then item four, this is specifically asked for by the engineers. Secretary shall issue a permit under this chapter for a potable water supply or wastewater system serving, and then here's the specifics that say whenever it's below this threshold, all you do is just a department administrative review. Serving a residential flow, so it's a residence, not commercial, residential flow of a thousand gallons per day or less, and then after reviewing the design related information submitted by the license unit, only administrative compliance with the requirements of the chapter. So that kind of defines that bar. The design engineer is working on something in a small residential setting, then the secretary, the overseer has only reviews for administrative compliance. In other words, they check all the boxes, they sign the bottom, you know, they're not redoing any of the engineering. So that just makes very clear what the bar is. Whereas currently, that's in flux, no clear definition of that. So it leads to a lot of inconsistency across the state and the water system engineers are doing their job. Lastly, let's see on page nine Is the section that secretary shall by rule at the very top of the page, identify technical standards for an owner of an occupied residences and notice that it's their it's their place. They they allowed some of these standards to be waived or reduced if they can, A, an alternative engineered solution or B, they assume all the liability for damages incurred. Again, that this is currently being done in New Hampshire that this whole section was modeled after exactly how it's done in New Hampshire. So again, the water system engineers I was working with were pointing to New Hampshire said we should be able to do the same thing. And very lastly, the little tiny change at the bottom of oh, I'm sorry, no, this is not very lastly. At the bottom of page nine, portion or parcel of a land owned by a resident of the state that is wetlands or tier three land shall be valued at the lesser of fair market value or the value of a forest land is determined by the current use advisory board. In other words, the the use value appraised for the land. But notice notice that online page nine at the very bottom line 18, it's this only applies to Vermonters. So if an out of state or somebody who is not a Vermont resident owns land, they don't get they don't get these nice tax breaks. Alright? This is the the intent is to support Vermonters owning land. So the portion of land owned by a resident of the state that is wetlands. They'll be valued

[Unidentified member or staff]: at those. K.

[Representative Rob North (Member)]: Alright. Then lastly, go all the way to the very bottom, page 11. One added sentence site visits by district commission or its members as part of permitting process under 10 visit chapter 151 that's. What the district commissioners do are not subject to requirements of this chapter, this chapter being the the online meeting requirements chapter.

[Representative Christopher “Chris” Pritchard (Member)]: So there you have it. Question, Rob. Yes. Didn't see it here

[Unidentified member or staff]: septic, especially if it's a mound system, any provisions for the shadow Mhmm.

[James (unidentified presiding member/staff)]: Say on sloped. Mhmm.

[Representative Rob North (Member)]: Yeah. Those standards already exist, and the design engineers have to work to those standards. I think the section you're referring to is if they want to violate those standards, this section gives the engineer the opportunity to, well, normally in this grade that would be considered too close, but if I build some intermediate or a wall or some channel to keep, I don't know what the possible design differences would be, but you know they could violate those standards if they do some alternate engineered solution or they say, well, I I can't. You don't have enough space on your land. If you want me to do this, you know, you're gonna have to take all the liability, mister Landowner, and this gives the land over to take that to take that to assume that liability.

[Unidentified member or staff]: Representative Bob?

[Representative Sarah “Sarita” Austin (Clerk)]: So that, like, the cold press, there were failed septic systems all along East Lakeshore Drive because of soil there. And so we have to put in we're putting now a septic system in, but a liability there is Ballots Bay was getting killed. Yeah. So how does the landowner

[Representative Rob North (Member)]: If it's gonna affect somebody else, yeah, then they they become responsible for, like, the infection of the entire Mallots Bay. Yeah.

[James (unidentified presiding member/staff)]: So yeah, That's probably not such a good idea.

[Representative Sarah “Sarita” Austin (Clerk)]: But their neighbors grab.

[Representative Rob North (Member)]: Yeah. I I have to admit out of all of of all of those ideas, that's the one I liked the least out of all of these that that assuming a liability, I I I was okay. Yeah. Fine. They can find an alternative engineered solution, that make sense to me, but assuming a liability, then like what about when they sell the property? I have to admit, personally, I didn't like that one so much, but that was what my constituent was looking for. But if we decide to

[James (unidentified presiding member/staff)]: pick this up, I'm happy with editing that out.

[Representative Ela Chapin (Member)]: Thank Thank

[Representative Rob North (Member)]: you all for listening.

[Commissioner Jason Thatchaulder, Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department]: Thank you.

[James (unidentified presiding member/staff)]: Very happy.

[Representative Rob North (Member)]: Thanks. Thanks Rob. Yeah, and