Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Amy Sheldon (Chair)]: Welcome back to the Health and Environment Committee. We are going to shift gears and have a committee discussion on H-six 52, an act relating to wastewater discharges from landfills. We took a fair amount of testimony on this topic, and as recently as yesterday, Matt Chapin joined us to clarify the agency's position on it. And I guess I thought it would be helpful for us to have a discussion about where folks stand on this bill. Anyone want to start?

[Larry Labor (Vice Chair)]: I'll be glad to start. Representative Larry Labor. Coming from the Northeast Kingdom, we have been a depository for the state's waste for quite a few years, which has contributed to the formation of leachate that contains PFAS, Very elevated parts per trillion. The lake has been tested by two countries because Lake Vanford Magog extends 21 miles into Canada. It's an international body of water. And over a 175, depending upon this data you read, between a 175 and a 185,000 Canadians in the province of Quebec use its source for their drinking water. They closed their landfill up on that island and moved it to a different part of their province. But we didn't. And our PFAS is showing up Mid Lake at 2.8 parts per trillion. As you heard from ANR, they have not set the boundaries. We know EPA, federal, is four parts per trillion. That came down from 20 parts per trillion. Are they going to readjust it? I have no idea what's going on in Washington, but we should be able to control what we do with ours. So that's the genesis of the pill is actually for public safety on both sides of it. The way we can accomplish that, we feel, is to this is not a war against the cell. I wanna make that perfectly clear. This is a war against contamination. They simply want to make sure that leachate does not get does not have the municipalities, whatever we can't control, but we can try to control the watershed. So this isn't about dumping just into Lake Memphremagog. This is to control the watershed that goes into Lake Memphremagog. And the only way we can control that is to make sure that no leachate is dumped that has treated or untreated into the watershed area that goes to that building. I've been to the seller repeatedly because some of my constituents said, well, they're doing this, they're doing that. I go up and I talk to the water quality manager that we met, Nikolay, and I've talked to Jeremy Labor Larry, and he's the head engineer up there that oversees the Marcellus Mountain. And I call it a mountain. If you ever go up there, you will see what I'm talking about. It's really an injustice for our Northeast Kingdom to have the biggest and own landfill in the state of Vermont when our whole top population in our area can only contribute 7%. 93% comes from a way. That's an injustice. Needs to change. So this is a small request for a change.

[Amy Sheldon (Chair)]: Other thoughts for Kristi Essex?

[Larry Satcowitz (Ranking Member)]: Yeah. I I agree that PFAS in water is a is a terrible problem, Something that I also really deeply care about. It's a horrible poison in our environment, and we need to be doing whatever we can to remove it and, more importantly, to prevent it from entering our waters and food supply, etcetera. So it's going to be the task of a generation or more, probably. My understanding is that is not now going into the watershed, that that leachate is all trucked from Coventry to either Montpelier or it Plattsburgh. Plattsburgh. That's right. Well, I understand wanting to keep leachate out of Lake Memphremecos. That makes a lot of sense, but it seems like that's what we are already doing. So I've been a little confused about what the bill is actually what problem it's actually solving. And maybe I've got that wrong. I'm missing something. But it seems like we want our bills to to solve a problem, and I'm not sure this is doing that.

[Amy Sheldon (Chair)]: Representative Tagliavia. After

[Michael 'Mike' Tagliavia (Member)]: the presentation, I guess it was last week, something came to me, and it was after we were done. Landfill that's closed, that was closed in Quebec, I think you said. Are they utilizing a similar filtration system like Casella is using for the leachate that's coming out of that?

[Amy Sheldon (Chair)]: Can I ask that question? Don't we I don't we don't know.

[Rob North (Member)]: Okay.

[Larry Labor (Vice Chair)]: And they moved it away from the watershed, its interior, from the city of Bangkok.

[Michael 'Mike' Tagliavia (Member)]: The new landfill. Correct? Correct. Okay. I'm talking about the one that's that's there. It's still I I imagine it's capped, but I'm curious what, if anything, is done to

[Rob North (Member)]: filter LAJs. That LAJ.

[Larry Labor (Vice Chair)]: Right. That water flows north.

[Amy Sheldon (Chair)]: I have that question too. Right. What are they doing? Because and we it did also come up that there's six other landfills in our state that could ultimately benefit from this technology that Casella's working on at Coventry that have to deal with leachate too. So there's other leachate coming out of closed landfills in Vermont that are going to treatment plants and not being treated. We know about this one because it's active and has a community of people engaged about it, but others we know less. I know less about. Representative Pritchard? Yeah.

[Larry Labor (Vice Chair)]: So

[Christopher 'Chris' Pritchard (Member)]: I agree with Larry. I think we're concerned of it and, you know, everybody has that concern. But what, you know, what I'm trying to really, you know, understand representative labor is is, you know, how does how does this bill address that? And and I think Larry makes a a good point. I guess, you know, has this has the source of the 2.7 parts per trillion, has that even been identified where it's coming from? Has it had been identified that leachate is escaping the Casella facility? Is it somehow out of compliance? I, you know, I would just feel a lot better if I knew that because, I mean, at the end of the day, what you're trying to do is preserve your Lake Mem from AGOC. And I think everybody wants to do that. But as representative sacred said, how does this bill accomplish that? How does how does it accomplish that? So that that's what I guess I wanna try to understand.

[Larry Labor (Vice Chair)]: I think our entire area wants to understand that because Co seller has brought in over a million dollar piece of equipment from a distributor, and they've run leachate through it, and it has greatly picked up the concentration, and they're taking that and they're putting it mixing it with cement and putting it in That's fine for a temporary, but it's not taking it all out. So you still see trucks were spewing diesel into the air to get that leachate out of the kingdom, to bring it to Montpelier and to bring it to Plattsburgh. That's the only way we can stop it right now in Costello's have waiting for permits forever to try other technology. So part of it's our own fault with different agencies, permitting process.

[Amy Sheldon (Chair)]: Representative North. Yeah. So I I'm trying to ask this. I I don't feel

[Larry Labor (Vice Chair)]: like we got an answer to the question still yet. We don't have a solution. Our only solution is to stop making sure going forward. That's not the that's not the question.

[Rob North (Member)]: The question is, what are we expecting to change if we pass this bill? What what what are you looking to have changed by specifically by this bill, the way it's worked? Going forward. Going forward. What what are you looking to have changed? What what is it who's gonna do something differently if this bill passes? Is anybody gonna do anything differently when this bill passes?

[Larry Labor (Vice Chair)]: Technology changes.

[Rob North (Member)]: I'll take that as a no, I guess. No. I just okay. I can't get I didn't answer to the question. Sorry.

[Amy Sheldon (Chair)]: Representative Saks. Yeah. I I think what I'm hearing from representative labor is that he would like to see the development of new technologies that would do a better job of removing PFAS from the leachate and not to have to truck this stuff all over the place or put it back into the landfill in the form of concrete blocks. I think that sounds like a wonderful idea. It makes me wonder, though, whether this bill would actually make that harder rather than easier because the bill is saying no person shall discharge leachate from a landfill, blah, blah, blah, tinsolipin and formagog, regardless of whether the leachate has been treated or untreated.

[Larry Satcowitz (Ranking Member)]: So it would seem like under that language, we would not have the option of coming up with a system which did like Maybe we can develop a system that removes all the PFAS. And now we have leachate, which is PFAS free, and we could discharge the clean water from that process into the lake because it would cause no harm, this bill would prohibit that activity.

[Amy Sheldon (Chair)]: Representative North.

[Rob North (Member)]: Thank you, Sarah. My other concern with the bill, just the way it's written, is first sentence talks about leachate, and the second sentence talks about PFAS. Which is it that we're trying to address? Because leachate is a much bigger category of contaminants than just PFAS. Correct. But which is it we're talking about?

[Larry Labor (Vice Chair)]: Both. Because the leachate that they're treating right now at the plant, it's only addressing the top five out of the 1,400 detox. Mercury or other heavy metals or they're already sparked biotoxics or whatever.

[Rob North (Member)]: So the second sentence then says the prohibition on the discharge of PFOS, where is that? Where is the prohibition on the discharge of PFAS? The first sentence didn't say anything about the discharge of PFAS. Where are

[Larry Labor (Vice Chair)]: you on the bill?

[Rob North (Member)]: I'm at the very bottom of page five on to page six or sub case of one. Page five. First sentence, no person shall discharge leachate from a landfill or solid waste management facility into the water within that may got watershed in Brazil, but the leachate has been treated or untreated. Second sentence. The prohibition on the discharge of PFAS into the water. Where? Where is the definition of prohibition of

[Amy Sheldon (Chair)]: So I think maybe that's a reference to the permit that they're operating under right now, because it is a prohibition under the permits that they have today. Maybe that's where that language I don't know, but maybe that's where it comes from.

[Rob North (Member)]: It seems like we just suddenly shifted what we were talking about. Were talking about Nietzsche, and then also we were talking about PFAS. But then at the end of that second sentence, it goes back to talking about transfer of leaching. I'm just having trouble understanding Because

[Larry Labor (Vice Chair)]: of the deal saying that I transfer it. It's containing

[Amy Sheldon (Chair)]: the PFAS. A landfill

[Rob North (Member)]: or some

[Larry Labor (Vice Chair)]: of these nanites. Okay. Yeah. I fully expect accept that. Now Montpelier is further treating it or Lansburg is further treating it. I have no idea what they're doing with it. I suspect Mount Pitter is probably discharging their treated waste into the Winooski River. That they said that.

[Amy Sheldon (Chair)]: Oh, they are. And Yeah. I mean, that the the sort of point is that this treated leachate is way better than even the other Oh, yeah. Other effluent that's being treated from municipal waste in that, which is a

[Christopher 'Chris' Pritchard (Member)]: When you say way better, do you mean cleaner?

[Larry Satcowitz (Ranking Member)]: Well, less pests. Less

[Amy Sheldon (Chair)]: language here that you've drawn our attention to, would this have an unintended consequence of slowing down the process of treating of the waste. What was it? We have landfills around the state that are sending leachate to our treatment plants that is less treated than this.

[Christopher 'Chris' Pritchard (Member)]: What specific verbiage are you looking at?

[Amy Sheldon (Chair)]: I've lost my but

[Larry Labor (Vice Chair)]: The very end of the at the very bottom, page five.

[Rob North (Member)]: Okay. That sentence starts with k one.

[Amy Sheldon (Chair)]: Okay. That's it,

[Rob North (Member)]: A person shall discharge blah blah blah blah in the watershed regardless of whether the leachate has been treated or is untreated. In other words, it doesn't matter what cool technology you come up with, you still can't discharge. That's the language. And it's like,

[Amy Sheldon (Chair)]: could be even cleaner, could be potable. Maybe they get to a technology that's way better than what we have today, and you still couldn't discharge it with this. Representative Morris.

[Kristi Morris (Member)]: Thank you, Madam Chair. When I asked the question of Matt when he was in about discharge fleet shape, I said, Does that include discharging it in a truck to be located elsewhere? And this bill under that K sub one, if you can't discharge it if it's been treated or untreated and you can't transfer, what are we doing? That's what I'm saying there.

[Rob North (Member)]: You can't transfer it within the Lake Mount Magog Watershed.

[Amy Sheldon (Chair)]: Yeah, you can't. Yeah. Couldn't put in another Mission on the

[Rob North (Member)]: transportation to a wastewater treatment facility in Vermont, Southern Massachusetts, within the Lake Mount For Magog Watershed. You can transfer it outside. You can transfer it to Lake Champlain or Bisti River. It's all fine.

[Amy Sheldon (Chair)]: And

[Kristi Morris (Member)]: Matt did say that's wrong, but they're discharging after the post treatment is cleaner than most wastewater. You mentioned that earlier. Cleaner than what I'm discharging. It's what we're discharging in Springfield from our wastewater facility.

[Amy Sheldon (Chair)]: Yeah. So it also maybe leads to so I have a little list of buckets that this committee has almost unanimously agreed to wanting to talk about, and one of them is permits. And Matt brought up the bill for the research and development permit. Maybe that's when we should get introduced. And from last session, was one something one

[Larry Satcowitz (Ranking Member)]: hundred fifty two? That's what

[Rob North (Member)]: I remember.

[Amy Sheldon (Chair)]: To 15952. But anyway, we'll find it. Oh, right there at the top of talks and maybe

[Larry Labor (Vice Chair)]: Third row. Yep.

[Amy Sheldon (Chair)]: So maybe we have that conversation. That's what this could lead us into, and then we'll learn more about what they're asking for and the need the need for that to move.

[Rob North (Member)]: Sounds like that's what what China's labor is really asking for with this. I'm trying to get to the root of the question, what are you trying to expect to change here? It's this big technology? Let's get something new and better.

[Amy Sheldon (Chair)]: Is that Michael O'Grady's bill? Yeah.

[Larry Labor (Vice Chair)]: Okay.

[Amy Sheldon (Chair)]: Is that satisfactory to folks on this topic? I do feel like this is an environmental justice issue and that the way we are maybe right now not it's the best we can do with the tools we have, but that, we need to deal with this waste, not just from Coventry, but from other landfills in the state. So think, like, where are we where are we trying to get to, and how do we get there?

[Rob North (Member)]: I just don't think the wording in this bill accomplishes what what you're trying to do against us.

[Amy Sheldon (Chair)]: Yeah. It's in here. Okay. Further thoughts before we adjourn for

[Larry Labor (Vice Chair)]: the morning?