Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Rep. Amy Sheldon (Chair)]: I'm just trying to go to right. We are, reconvening our morning hearing on h 06:32 with deputy commissioner Gavin joining us remotely.

[Rep. Ela Chapin (Member)]: Make it bigger.

[Rep. Rob North (Member)]: I was on Mike's table. Now

[Rep. Amy Sheldon (Chair)]: you're nice and and large here like a person in our community.

[Neil Kamman (Deputy Commissioner, VT Department of Environmental Conservation)]: I see that. I always, dislike seeing myself on Teams, but I guess I'll have to deal with it for the morning. How's everybody today?

[Rep. Amy Sheldon (Chair)]: How's your back?

[Neil Kamman (Deputy Commissioner, VT Department of Environmental Conservation)]: I'm getting down to Rutland, so I'll open by saying for the record, Neil Cameron, deputy commission DEC, I've got a hard stop at ten minutes of eleven so that I can head down to Rutland for an appointment. I am really looking forward to, but thank you for asking, Representative Pritchard. Appreciate it. It's been a tough sled. So good morning, everyone. I thank you, Chair Sheldon, for sending a slightly advanced copy just so I had an opportunity to prepare. That was really helpful. And I'm very happy to speak to sections of the bill as it's been revised. And I'm also happy to answer to any questions that you all including some of the ones I just heard in the last hour. Would you like me to just go ahead and start rolling through the sections? Yes. Great. Okay. Well, again, thank you so much for, you know, the continued attention on this. It's great to see that a lot of this language is living on and I do want to flag some concerns with a couple of sections and we'll talk about those. In regards to, I'm going to just bypass everything down to section four, starting at the bottom of page three, which is Flood Safety Act and those dates that we've been talking about. So we are we're generally fine with everything that's in here. I think it was flagged for me that if we change a study date in there, and I'm not exactly sure which one it is, but we have a study date. And if we change that study date, we need to change the study sunset date as well. Rebecca Pfeiffer flagged that for me. But that's not a big deal, and generally speaking, we appreciate what you're doing here. And if you'd like, I can try and answer to some of the questions about sort of doing things in the interim. I believe I heard questions from Representative Chapin, I think, on why not make rules for the existing 3,000 miles of river, but not for the remaining 5,600.

[Rep. Amy Sheldon (Chair)]: Meaning or total? Think it's Anyway, total maps, we were curious about interim. I think many of us are curious about the 3,000 miles of already mapped.

[Neil Kamman (Deputy Commissioner, VT Department of Environmental Conservation)]: Right, so the 3,000 miles of already mapped represents what we've got SGA on, and what the department is trying to do, and I'm going to ask the, if you want more detail, I'm going ask the rivers program to come back in and present science to you. But you know, we're trying to create LiDAR mapped corridors for the entire regulated area. Use those and go through rulemaking once with them, just sort of as a reminder, 45,000 properties involve a lot of outreach. And so noting, I really appreciate the continued outreach until such time as the rule is adopted. The program would be concerned about doing an interim rule adoption and then a subsequent rule adoption.

[Rep. Amy Sheldon (Chair)]: Yes, think what we're imagining isn't so much a formal rulemaking process, but making sure that the communities that already have the data are acutely aware of it, more of a communication. And maybe it's a slow rollout on the outreach that's going to be necessary for the final rule. I think we have some information. We know we don't want to put more people in harm's way and just making sure that the municipalities that already have good maps are aware of them at the very least and, you know, yeah, just a little more how how are communities aware of that data now, and could we ramp that up a little bit?

[Neil Kamman (Deputy Commissioner, VT Department of Environmental Conservation)]: I appreciate that. I'm going to defer somewhat to Rebecca Pfeiffer, if you have time to have her back in to talk about that, what is happening both in the education space in coordination with TNC by the program, what's envisioned and what we are doing now. One of the things I can just provide because I got a little bit feedback from Rebecca is that right now, any project that happens, we're going out and ground truthing that project. So if somebody is looking to do a project in the river corridor, we wanna actually look at it, and we're trying to get to a place where once the rules are fully adopted, that doesn't have to happen. That's a workload management thing if we're looking at every individual project. That's a lot. But beyond that, I do have to defer to Rebecca. I'm sorry. Don't have more granular subject matter knowledge on that piece.

[Rep. Amy Sheldon (Chair)]: Yeah. Okay. I do you know how those ground truthing projects are identified, or how do you find out about those?

[Neil Kamman (Deputy Commissioner, VT Department of Environmental Conservation)]: I'd have to I'd I'd have to defer to Rebecca.

[Rep. Amy Sheldon (Chair)]: Okay.

[Neil Kamman (Deputy Commissioner, VT Department of Environmental Conservation)]: I'm good on some things, but this is not the world that I've worked in. So this is Rebecca and Rob's world.

[Rep. Amy Sheldon (Chair)]: Sure. We can keep going.

[Neil Kamman (Deputy Commissioner, VT Department of Environmental Conservation)]: Okay. So let's jump to the stream alt jurisdictional threshold, the point five square mile and section 10. I really appreciated representative Chapin the opportunity to chat about this with you and kind of just want to reiterate for the committee some of the items that we chatted about. We have some substantial concerns over like sort of a time limited, especially a one year time limited allowance. It feels like it creates less regulatory certainty than what we're after for the municipalities. In order to implement that, so we would receive the charge in statute, we would update the stream alteration rule that would take three, four months. Once that's done, we would have six, seven months to implement on that, and then it would revert back. So nominally, recognize Section 11, which is the sort of, I'm going call it the scale jurisdiction study, and just want to offer that I think this level of technical inquiry about how much sediment removal is appropriate to what size stream is a much bigger research project than what might be accomplished in six months of staff time doing sort of background research. If we seriously wanted to do this, I would actually recommend that instead of making law about it, that we have a conversation around prioritizing this for something like a Lake Champlain Basin program funded inquiry so that proper academics could get in there and actually do work like this. And there's a lot of people that do really good work like this and Chair Sheldon, you know who some of them are. I have to go to the defense of the team, you know, the reason we're asking for dates and the reason we're asking for the modification of the jurisdictional threshold is to create capacity for the team. This would demand capacity for the team, and I just, you know, I have to sort of say straight up that that would be a challenge for us. I understand the value of the inquiry and the technical basis of it, And we might come back to that theme in a different section of the bill. But, you know, allow me to stop there and see if there's anything you want to ask. I could propose an alternative concept for you if you are interested in it.

[Rep. Amy Sheldon (Chair)]: Yeah, we are interested in it.

[Neil Kamman (Deputy Commissioner, VT Department of Environmental Conservation)]: Are there any? Okay. There is Go what you ahead. Sorry. Representative

[Rep. Amy Sheldon (Chair)]: Chapin has a question.

[Rep. Ela Chapin (Member)]: I guess I would just as you launch into more that you wanna share, which I welcome, I guess as we spoke, I think the committee didn't get a lot of answers to our questions around the sort of technical impacts and the ecological impacts of this change that was requested when the team, stream outpatient team was here. And so I guess I'm just wondering in your conversations, if there's anything you want to enlighten us about the impact of this change from sort of moving to this 0.5 square mile. Sorry, I can't even remember what it is right now. It's been a while since we've done it. You want to just enlighten us a little bit on what you've learned over the last few weeks as you've been talking with folks, I would just welcome that. There's just a lot of still unanswered questions from that initial testimony that we got.

[Neil Kamman (Deputy Commissioner, VT Department of Environmental Conservation)]: I appreciate that. I do appreciate that. And just a fair reminder that, you know, this is we present this in the context of public safety and managing conflicts between rivers and largely roads, right? And the ecological question is an important one when the stream alteration engineers are out there making jurisdictional determinations to help a municipality restore a crossing or a private citizen restore a crossing, they're keeping in mind, you know, having enough passage under that crossing so as to allow adequate water which is protective of aquatic biota and stream ecological condition and stream equilibrium condition. But their primary focus when they're out there is making sure that the structure can pass enough water so that it doesn't take the road out another time. You know, with respect to an ecological threshold, if you wanted to create an ecological threshold that actually provided some ecological some regulatory certainty for the size of stream that we're looking at. As I said to you before, Chapin, would be onefour square mile, two five. The net effect of a point two five square mile as opposed to a half a square mile would be to increase the number of stream miles each engineer has in their portfolio from 2,300 to 4,000. So that's, you know, but that's less than what they have now, which is sort of a little bit unlimited all the way to the smallest stream that there is. So that is another way to look at it if the committee is particularly focused on the ecological ramifications. But if you're interested in revising and reviewing how the stream malt threshold indexes to an amount of gravel that may be needed to be removed or allowed, that is a much bigger effort than a six month legislative study committee and requires academic engagement. That said, I think the Stacy Pomeroy river scientist type person from our team would be appropriate, or Rebecca Pfeiffer would be appropriate to speak to you more about that. Because we had Jaren come in and Jaren, our chief stream melt engineer, and his primary role is out there helping municipalities and landowners deal with those crossing conflicts.

[Rep. Ela Chapin (Member)]: Great, thanks for that added information.

[Neil Kamman (Deputy Commissioner, VT Department of Environmental Conservation)]: I'll just I'll just repeat, I'm really worried about taking on additional study requirements at a time where we have a very significant body of work to do for you to comply with what's already on the green books.

[Rep. Amy Sheldon (Chair)]: Representative North.

[Rep. Rob North (Member)]: Yeah, so exactly along those lines, Deputy Commissioner, I had just a question of what is your rough estimate of the amount of man years of effort that it would take to do the study that's currently being outlined here in Section 11?

[Neil Kamman (Deputy Commissioner, VT Department of Environmental Conservation)]: Well, I haven't specced it, but if you think about the variables involved, upstream flow hydrology, width of channel, width of crossing, gradient of stream, soil type, and I could kind of go on and on. There are a lot of factors you would need to control for those factors, select a number of sites, create an experimental design where you literally went in and excavated different quantities to then see how the stream reacted to that, either in a real world experimental setting or model it using some form of computer modeling, which is out of my ken, but there are people likely at the university who know how to do that. But it's a big effort.

[Rep. Rob North (Member)]: I'm just trying to get a sense of how big is big. Mean, even if it's roughly a million dollars or man years of effort or whatever.

[Neil Kamman (Deputy Commissioner, VT Department of Environmental Conservation)]: If we solicit, so in a different context of my job, I serve as the Chair of the Technical Advisory Committee for the Lake Champlain Basin Program and I get to I get to see all of the research that flows across the desk of that program, which is substantial and we fund. Around $3,000,000 a year of ongoing water quality related research towards management of Lake Champlain. If the Basic Program Steering Committee were amenable to funding something like this, I would expect a project like this to land on our desk at about $400,000 with two to three year runway. That's typically what we see for things like this. This is the type of stuff we funded for the functioning floodplains initiative. Rebecca Deal's group at UVM and others. Kristen Underwood's group at UVM, those folks are the ones who have done that research. Legit, if I put this out as a research priority, I guarantee you that's what we'd get. And we may get a good proposal.

[Rep. Larry Satcowitz (Ranking Member)]: Thank you. Representative Satcowitz. Yeah, I would be somewhat surprised if we're unique in wanting to hear about these kinds of effects. And so I'm wondering if we should find out if other folks have already done this very research or something strongly, you know, related to it.

[Neil Kamman (Deputy Commissioner, VT Department of Environmental Conservation)]: Well, I can offer that not every state in The United States manages their streams with the primary stated goal by the general assembly of the state and by the green books of the state to pursue the equilibrium condition of streams. A lot of other jurisdictions just don't do it that way. But again, I can get the technical folks in to chat with you about what they know, which is far more than what I know about other jurisdictions.

[Rep. Larry Satcowitz (Ranking Member)]: Just even outside the state wanting the information, it just seems like a natural research project for someone who's interested in the way rivers work.

[Rep. Amy Sheldon (Chair)]: Mhmm. Think it is. I think Neil's agree. I think it is. I think so I think this is a very interesting thread that we've come upon, and we'll follow through on it. And it may not be that it belongs in this statute right now. So thank you for that.

[Rep. Ela Chapin (Member)]: Thanks, Nick.

[Rep. Amy Sheldon (Chair)]: Conversation. Yeah. You good? Yeah.

[Neil Kamman (Deputy Commissioner, VT Department of Environmental Conservation)]: Okay, so let's let's keep going. Are you are we are we all set with this Section 10, the point five square mile quarter square mile alternative? You know that would again that quarter square mile wouldn't would be a larger number of miles that each engineer would be responsible for, but it would be a fixed universe. And having it not be time limited. Would allow us to impute it into the rules, have it be binding code and standard that FEMA may reimburse for if FEMA reimburses. And I think that's an important consideration.

[Rep. Amy Sheldon (Chair)]: So to clarify, can you just say again the number of stream miles that under the 0.5 and then under the 0.25?

[Neil Kamman (Deputy Commissioner, VT Department of Environmental Conservation)]: Yeah, think what the team told me is 2,300 miles per engineer at a half square mile, 4,000 at a quarter square mile. I'm not getting any phone of friends telling me otherwise, so either nobody's listening or I'm right.

[Rep. Amy Sheldon (Chair)]: So then to clarify, you're still saying point five for practical reasons, but if we wanted to do more of an ecological, we would go to point two five and staff up to do it.

[Neil Kamman (Deputy Commissioner, VT Department of Environmental Conservation)]: I mean, I'm not in a position to say let's staff up more. If we were a No,

[Rep. Amy Sheldon (Chair)]: no, get that. I understand you're not advocating for that right now. I'm just clarifying. You're not saying you could support 0.25 right now either.

[Rep. Larry Satcowitz (Ranking Member)]: It is actually

[Neil Kamman (Deputy Commissioner, VT Department of Environmental Conservation)]: more challenging. Point two five would be more challenging than point five, but less challenging than the current state.

[Rep. Rob North (Member)]: Got it.

[Neil Kamman (Deputy Commissioner, VT Department of Environmental Conservation)]: The current state is all perennial streams. At least, you know, you look at a map, you either are or not at point two five square miles, and therefore I either either go and it's jurisdictional or I don't go because it's not jurisdictional, but I don't go up there to try and figure out whether it's perennial.

[Rep. Amy Sheldon (Chair)]: Yeah, Okay. Thank you. Yep.

[Neil Kamman (Deputy Commissioner, VT Department of Environmental Conservation)]: Okay, let's fast forward to 18, Section 18, which is the restoration permit section, and I appreciate this conversation a lot. And part of why I appreciate the conversation is because I've definitely heard from folks at VNRC and other dam removal advocates, you know, that the intersection of environmental authorizations is complicated. I also want to offer, and I spoke to Karina Daily about this, and she's coming before you in a little bit, but, you know, we only found out about this bill, this proposal in November and didn't really have the time to engage very much with the NRC about what the intents are and what the alternatives might be before it landed on your committee table. I think this is a great area to get into, and I will acknowledge that I think VNRC has been trying to approach the Rivers program to talk about these issues for a while, including alternative ideas like having one or two people that's particularly specifically focused on restoration while the other folks are focused on river management considerations. But I do want to flag that a general permit that covered everything associated with a dam removal would be a very complex permit. You would incorporate in it wetlands provisions, would incorporate in it, you know, river geomorphology, you would incorporate in it dam order related or stream alteration related functions. It would be particularly large general permit to create. And there would be a lot of boxes for a practitioner to check-in order to be able to be fully compliant with the entire general permit. Not sure that is the way to get where where I think the restoration community wants to get, which is help us make it easier and don't regulate these projects like they're developing a Walmart in a floodplain. And I think there's something to that, right? Like we've created our jurisdictional programs, our permitting programs around regulating development in our watersheds to protect water quality, and we do a decent job at that. And each jurisdictional slice, the wetlands, the rivers, the lakes, the shorelands, all do a good job of it, and the intersection of them is complicated. And in all instances, those permit programs were created around development. They weren't created with the concept of restoration in mind. So I've been talking to Corina about, you know, are there alternative ways that we can look at this that don't require us to issue a general permit within six months, which we just spoke about capacity for the rivers program in the frame of Act 121 and in the frame of the stream all jurisdictional threshold. So here's another area where putting this into law would add a new body of work to the Rivers program where they're trying to get 121 stood up. A couple of other just details on this. I do want to point out that I see culverts listed in the list of project types as one of the restoration project types. The vast majority projects that we do are the stream out related projects we were just talking about. And those are subject to the permitting, you know, are relatively streamlined and straightforward. Sometimes we do do culverts or sometimes partners do do culvert replacements for the specific purpose of restoration. But the stream geometry needs to be the same, so I would just caution against kind of any opportunity where, you know, a river road conflict becomes pointed to as a restoration project so as to ease the passage of permitting that project. That's sort of my comments on Section 18. I know Corin is going to be in in the next hour, and I know that I'm going to ask folks just to listen in so that we can be fully informed as to the position there. I do want to speak to section 18 regarding dam orders as well. Representative oh, sorry.

[Rep. Amy Sheldon (Chair)]: Just, I mean, I don't want to take the wind out of Carina sales, but can you share with us some of your suggestions? You you shared one. Like, which one are you interested in? Like, having a staff that maybe was more focused on working with restoration projects or among the alternatives? What's your choice here on the ecological I'd

[Neil Kamman (Deputy Commissioner, VT Department of Environmental Conservation)]: like to truly understand what the barriers have been in order to structure that, right? So that's the piece. Here are some barriers. Wetlands permitting when you're doing a dam removal, there's wetlands on the upstream side of the dam, parenthetical wetlands, littoral wetlands, that means stuff on the edge of the water land interface, right? You remove that dam, those wetlands are no more, so there's a wetlands program review associated with that. It's outside of our can, but historic preservation takes a fair amount of wind out of the sails of projects, takes a lot of time, but it's valuable. These are historic structures. The engineering associated with the removal, or in particular the decision as to what to do with all the soil sediment that is upstream of a dam, and Representative Sheldon Wainwright down in your neck of the woods is a really good example where there was a lot of accumulated sediment and the Department had some concerns about letting that just completely digest its way down the Helmand Brook into the Otter Creek. And so you know, we worked with the partners to put in place some, you know, alternative sediment management approaches that didn't require excavation, but also didn't just let it rip or digest is the technical term for that. And you know, those are sort of fact specific and complicated. I've also run into legit, I've run into issues where different programs of my department were guiding the practitioners in different ways, where one program was championing the interests of another program, where in fact that other program had already signed off. So there are these complicated things that happen in these big, expensive, complicated restoration projects. And again, I want Corina to have her say with you all, and I won't be there to listen to it. And even if I was there in the State House, I'd get out of the room and let Corina have her say. It's fine. But there's a lot to this, and I think BNRC has been asking for the conversation for a while, and I think I may be, you know, noting their significant interest in making law around it. You know, let's get the conversation going before we make law out of it.

[Rep. Amy Sheldon (Chair)]: Okay, thank you.

[Neil Kamman (Deputy Commissioner, VT Department of Environmental Conservation)]: Section 18, the issue, Sorry.

[Rep. Amy Sheldon (Chair)]: Do you have

[Rep. Rob North (Member)]: a Representative Norton? To I would Thank you again, for sharing this with us. Tend to feel like this is all very newly added to what otherwise would be a pretty straightforward technical miscellaneous bill. We're complicating it significantly. I'm wondering if we're just biting up more than we can chew with this particular section being added. There's lots of other permit reform bills out there, and maybe we could lump all this in with that and talk about those all at the same time rather than try to squeeze a permit reform into a otherwise magnificent stone.

[Neil Kamman (Deputy Commissioner, VT Department of Environmental Conservation)]: I'll let you all consider that, but I just want to make sure that you know, Karina has decent reasons, important reasons she wants to bring this to you. So obviously don't want to stand in the way of that and just be available for the subsequent dialogue. That said, Section 18, I respectfully request that we please let the Safety Program not respectfully do anything other than do their job and get those phase two rules implemented and on the books. I will quote Ben Green, The Dam Safety Program would like to leave Chapter 43 alone for now and get these rules done and implemented, which will completely change the dam safety regulatory atmosphere in Vermont. It will. We are going to have technical specifications for private owners. They're going to be expensive. There's going to need to be funding sources, and we talked about that already, dam safety loan fund. And, you know, I think it's going to increase the opportunities for removals as owners realize, okay, in order to keep this amenity and those, you know, those nice things that I have associated with this amenity could cost me several $100,000 that I don't have. Do I really need this amenity? Would it be better for the environment for it to be removed? Ultimately, the dam safety program is that. They're the dam safety program, not necessarily the dam removal program. And while the safest dam is one that's not there, it's not always the role of the state to tell an individual owner whether or not they should or should not own a dam unless representative Austin, unless it's been determined to be unsafe, in which case we compel its restoration or removal. So there's the, you know, there's the emergency operations planning bill on deck right now as well, which you know we've had some good engagement in and we are supportive of the pilot working with VEM, presuming that VEM is able to do that work. That's a different bill. I know that, Representative Chapin. But beyond that, let's let that team do their work. And I appeared in Senate Natural the other day to speak to concerns about the pace of rulemaking, and there seems to be a lot of energy in making sure that that work gets done, and it is their top priority. So I really would appreciate that. Beyond that, the remainder of it, the Department is is comfortable. The HHW household hazardous waste language around extinguishers. We understand where that is at comfortable with that. Checked in with Director Chapin. Likewise with the tire management, that's good policy and he'd be he or Josh Kelly would be happy to say more if you need to learn more.

[Rep. Amy Sheldon (Chair)]: We haven't heard from the fire extinguisher. Yeah, we will reach out to them on the fire extinguisher piece of that.

[Neil Kamman (Deputy Commissioner, VT Department of Environmental Conservation)]: Were there any other key questions that you wanted answered? Representative Austin, I think you were interested in sort of how the dam, you know, how the Department deals with unsafe dams.

[Rep. Sarah "Sarita" Austin (Clerk)]: Right.

[Neil Kamman (Deputy Commissioner, VT Department of Environmental Conservation)]: So there's a. Is that okay for me to go there? Sheldon?

[Rep. Amy Sheldon (Chair)]: I have a question for you before you go too. So I guess go ahead, but I just want to make sure.

[Rep. Kristi Morris (Member)]: Yeah, you want

[Rep. Ela Chapin (Member)]: to ask

[Rep. Kristi Morris (Member)]: a question?

[Rep. Amy Sheldon (Chair)]: Go ahead.

[Rep. Kristi Morris (Member)]: Okay. So just having been involved in emergency management and response as an EMT and just being on certain committees and just studying disasters. You know, what happens during the disaster and how planning and training and practice is what have saved people's lives. And so I'm I'm I'm wondering why this hasn't been done like four years ago. That kind of looking at dams and looking at their potential, but I'm very relieved to hear that they are inspected and that a landowner would have to take it down if it was unsafe. So I'm fine with this, but I feel there's a sense of urgency for me to get these plans in place, the response plans in place and kind of the coordination that needs to go on in order to operate when we're three months away from snow melt and possibly just a lot of rain. So it just concerns me and I'm just kind of in a rush.

[Neil Kamman (Deputy Commissioner, VT Department of Environmental Conservation)]: No, I understand that's sort of part and parcel of the the emergency operations planning bill that you all were chatting about earlier. But you know, just just to reemphasize that the Department does under Section ten ninety five, Chapter 43, have the unsafe dam provisions. The chief dam safety engineer does not have to be asked by 10 people. The chief dam safety engineer can go, can make a determination immediately that there is an unsafe condition and compel its restoration. And that restoration can be restoration or it can be removal. There was a dam in Williamstown where this was called the Rulo Pond Dam, and this happened as a result of the twenty twenty three floods. It became unsafe. We were able to assist that landowner and Carina Daily was involved in it, you can ask her about it too. We were able to assist that landowner through the Unsafe Dams Fund without having to condemn their dam because they realized the risk, and we were able to get that thing in a safer state, right? So we dewatered it, we took some pieces of the dam down, and now it's on the path towards removal.

[Rep. Ela Chapin (Member)]: Thank you

[Neil Kamman (Deputy Commissioner, VT Department of Environmental Conservation)]: so So really critical, are on that.

[Rep. Amy Sheldon (Chair)]: Neil, we're going to hear from DMV on the admissions repair program, but I guess what I would ask you is if we have this small but existing bucket of money to help folks, Do you have thoughts on making that program a little more efficient or easier for people to access?

[Neil Kamman (Deputy Commissioner, VT Department of Environmental Conservation)]: Yeah, I understand the committee's concerns there, right? So you have a bag of money. It's not a huge bag of money, but it's there for the purpose and only a couple people have taken advantage of it. And to the degree that it has a relationship to individual service stations providing waivers, and then those folks are free to go for another year versus not. You know, if that's the forcing factor, that is. I would offer that let's, if to the degree that the waiver program is is going away now, then I think we should leave those dollars in place and let that program persist for another year or two and see how it ends up helping Vermonters because you know there are a lot of vehicles that have good emissions warranties, but once you're out there and your emissions warranty is done, those are super expensive repairs and everybody around the table knows that because we all live in Vermont, right? And like our cars get consumed. So that would be my thought is Yeah,

[Rep. Amy Sheldon (Chair)]: appreciate that. I think that's our thought too, but it seems as though we've spent a lot more in administering the program than we have actually sent out the door. And I'm looking for some suggestions for streamlining that. The point is not to have waivers, but to help people actually meet the air quality requirements. We have the money to do it, so somehow there's something we'd like to straighten out so it gets to people and helps them solve their problem.

[Neil Kamman (Deputy Commissioner, VT Department of Environmental Conservation)]: Yeah, agreed with that, and you know it does take time and there are administrative costs with setting up a new program. Then you set up a new program and and it doesn't see a lot of use, and that's kind of a bummer, right? Because you've invested all those dollars, so it looks extremely imbalanced and representative North you you know cotton grade onto that. I'll offer a flip side where, you know, the administrative investment in, for example, the Healthy Homes program under ARPA has resulted in, you know, literally hundreds of Vermonters being helped out. So. I think we just need to let this one ride for a little bit longer and see if we can help Vermonters get their cars fixed up.

[Rep. Amy Sheldon (Chair)]: Okay. Well, with that, I know we need to run, but I also want to make sure, Representative Logan, that like, you asked us to make changes with the qualifying criteria, and, it's not my area of expertise, but it is representative Logan's area, and she reminded us that we didn't need to reinvent the evaluation criteria, that there were already standards. So I want to make sure that we are on the same page with you on that as we move towards closure on this bill. So putting you on the spot a little bit on the issue. Okay.

[Rep. Kate Logan (Member)]: Yeah, no problem. Yeah. I'm curious as to why there was a a decision to change the in income qualification criteria for the emissions repair program to something that's a considerably more burdensome administrative responsibility. Page 36, 37.

[Neil Kamman (Deputy Commissioner, VT Department of Environmental Conservation)]: From Vermonter's assistance, maybe that's what we should do. And I think Deirdre will have commented on why those thresholds were selected. And if not, and if her note to the committee doesn't cover it, we can certainly ask that question.

[Rep. Amy Sheldon (Chair)]: Representative Chapin.

[Rep. Ela Chapin (Member)]: I just I'm just looking back and remembering what we heard, and it was that LIHEAP is related to households and cars are related to individuals ownership, and it just doesn't make sense and is restricting some people who are individually should be eligible because of the way their income is to their car. It should really be it it just was a mistake to align this with YEE, but should

[Rep. Kate Logan (Member)]: be aligned with other types of income eligible programs that are related to individual option. Sure. That might be the case, but then it would I think it would make sense for the department to align, eligibility with a different program rather than establish

[Rep. Rob North (Member)]: A new.

[Rep. Kate Logan (Member)]: Eligibility criteria internal to the department because then you get into the business of doing income eligibility determinations as part of this program, which is really administratively burdensome.

[Neil Kamman (Deputy Commissioner, VT Department of Environmental Conservation)]: I wish I remembered what they indexed to, and I'm sorry that I don't have

[Rep. Ela Chapin (Member)]: it on

[Neil Kamman (Deputy Commissioner, VT Department of Environmental Conservation)]: the top of my head. I can dig it up.

[Rep. Ela Chapin (Member)]: But you're saying they have to do the Yeah. They have to gather the information. Yeah.

[Rep. Amy Sheldon (Chair)]: You're reinventing a wheel that is perhaps already existing.

[Rep. Kate Logan (Member)]: It has already been created somewhere else. So if I mean, I actually LIHEAP program is, yeah, on the household level, but individual eligibility is always also determined on the household level. So if you're a member of a household of four, you're not going to individually qualify for a program on your own ever, ever. No one's ever individually taken out of their household and allowed to qualify for a program. Like, say, your 18 year old child still lives at home and makes $14,000 a year. They're still part of a household of five. They share housing expenses with other people. They probably share food expenses with people. So they're going to be eligible for programs on the basis of being a member of a household of five. So

[Rep. Amy Sheldon (Chair)]: So I'm gonna say, great. We're gonna we're gonna maybe work on this a little bit and see if we can improve it. I appreciate your time, Deputy Commissioner, and understand you probably want to head out.

[Neil Kamman (Deputy Commissioner, VT Department of Environmental Conservation)]: Shortly. But Representative Logan, would you like me to ask Deirdre Rutland to get in touch with you and see if she can't find a half an hour in the cafeteria to have a conversation?

[Rep. Ela Chapin (Member)]: Yeah, that'd be great.

[Rep. Amy Sheldon (Chair)]: Yeah, okay. I'll do that.

[Rep. Kristi Morris (Member)]: You. And I just sent her email to you. Oh, thank you. Because it it just says,

[Rep. Amy Sheldon (Chair)]: propose Alright. Yeah. Thanks.

[Rep. Kristi Morris (Member)]: And move away.

[Rep. Amy Sheldon (Chair)]: Oh, good. Yeah. Great. Maybe she's already given us her input. Okay. So we will, any final questions for the deputy commissioner? Representative Chapin?

[Rep. Ela Chapin (Member)]: Just back to the dam orders and that section. Guess I'm just the testimony I heard, and just trying to understand this, is that it would just be really great if dam removal was an option on the table clearly stated for folks who are having issues with their dam. And I guess I'm just I'm sort of I think I might have heard that it really wasn't, it was just talking about, we're just talking about repair. And then I just heard you say, dam removal is always a consideration. So I guess I'm just trying to understand that. If you could just say a little bit more about that is When we're coming in because there's some kind of an issue, when DEC is coming in and dam safety because there's some kind of an issue with a dam and they're talking about options, is dam removal always something that's on the table?

[Neil Kamman (Deputy Commissioner, VT Department of Environmental Conservation)]: Yes, absolutely. Because, you know, there's a lot more money around to assist an owner to remove a dam that, you know, should be removed than there is right now money there for the restoration of a dam. Not everybody is going to want to say goodbye to the structure that they've had on their property for many years, but some may, and the team absolutely does that. I mean, there's a real, you know, our dam safety team is responsible for dam safety and regulates owners throughout the state of Vermont. We are partners with the Dam Task Force, which has a larger focus on dam removal, and in fact have replicated that over in the state of New York through the basin program, which I was talking about earlier. Backing up, you know, if an owner comes to us and, you know, if an owner receives an inspection report and there are deficiencies that they must reconstruct and they say, well, how can we do it? You know, we're always open to and will communicate that dam removal is certainly an option. You know, do you really want this amenity on your property? Do you want the risk associated with it? Back in the Act one hundred sixty one days, there was a lot of dialogue around how much risk to attach to landowners who own dams. So that was a prior conversation that resulted in the phase one and phase two rules. Those phase two rules are going to revolutionize how people look at this, right? You're not going to be able to leave something in deteriorating condition anymore once those pass. I do have a hard stop and I really appreciate your all's understanding of that and thank you for your time. And I'll be back anytime you need me.

[Rep. Kate Logan (Member)]: All right. Thank you for

[Rep. Larry Satcowitz (Ranking Member)]: joining us. Thank you.

[Neil Kamman (Deputy Commissioner, VT Department of Environmental Conservation)]: All right. Thank you. Good day.

[Rep. Amy Sheldon (Chair)]: Yep. Take care.