Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Rep. Amy Sheldon (Chair)]: Alright. Good morning, and welcome to the House Environment Committee. This morning, we have Ben Montrose and Silly Larson in to talk

[Ben Montross (ANR Drinking Water Program Manager)]: with

[Rep. Amy Sheldon (Chair)]: us about our on-site wastewater and water program and permitting therein, and why it is the way it is. I know there's a lot of folks questioning some things about setbacks, and I really wanna level set with what we do today, why, and, how it works, and how successful it has been. Welcome.

[Ben Montross (ANR Drinking Water Program Manager)]: Thanks. For the record, I'm Ben Montross. I'm the drinking water program manager under the Agency of Natural Resources.

[Sille Larsen (ANR Engineering & Water Resources Program Manager)]: And I'm Sile Larsen. I am the engineering and water resources program manager under Ben, also with, ANR.

[Ben Montross (ANR Drinking Water Program Manager)]: And we've got a bunch of slides to talk about isolation distances, kinda what they are, why they are, all that sort of stuff. It's multiple semesters worth of college geology, hydrogeology, soil science, epidemiology, all that crammed into as close to a half hour, forty minutes as it can be. It's dense stuff. We're happy to answer questions. We're we have left the materials with you all, hopefully, in a moderately coherent fashion so you can review them at your leisure. Feel free to reach out after the fact if things come up and you have further questions. So, basically, the purpose for the isolation distances is the prevention and reduction of mitigation of contaminants. So we're gonna be talking about three different rules. There's the wastewater supply and potable water I'm Wastewater system and potable water supply rule, which is chapter one of the environmental protection rules. So the first rule in the environmental world for the state. So, you know, this has been around the longest and was one of the most important rules that we've had on the books for a very long time. We're also gonna talk a little bit about the public drinking water supply rule that governs isolation distances and source protection plans, And then it also integrates with the groundwater protection rule and strategy. So there's common threads throughout all three of those major regulations.

[Rep. Amy Sheldon (Chair)]: Can you say the last one? Groundwater?

[Ben Montross (ANR Drinking Water Program Manager)]: Groundwater protection rule and strategy. That's kind of an overarching rule that kind of that oversees the quality and protection of discharges and things like that into groundwater. So really just a little bit of a roadmap for what we'll be doing this morning. We'll we'll talk about why it matters, just set kind of the foundation of why we're here. We'll talk about some of the science and the regulations. We'll get into what the core concepts are for isolation distances. We'll talk about some source contamination issues. If there's time, we can talk about source protection areas, but we can also truncate that and leave that out. And then we've got a little bit of a case study and an example of a real world situation where isolation distances came into came into play. So why does this matter? Why why why do we do this? Why are we here? So a really good early example of this is the cholera outbreak in 1854 in London. Are we talking about London? Well, this is a very easy example. Six hundred and sixteen people died due to this outbreak, and they didn't really know why for a long time. Doctor John Snow ended up doing some heat mapping. He did some, epidemiological mapping to see if he could see that there were any trends to where the deaths were happening from cholera. And ended up he found a hot spot, and that hot spot was right around the Broad Street pump. And when you think pump, you know, an old well pump. People in the eighteen hundreds didn't have on-site septic. They didn't have municipal sewer. They had gutters, basements, and they had bedpans, and they had all sorts of smelly mess everywhere. So literally, there was no separation between drinking water and wastewater disposal. Everything happened together. So the wastewater got into the drinking water, created a cholera outbreak. In order to fix the cholera outbreak, they took the handle off the pump, and the deaths slowed down and stopped eventually. So, really, this was one of the one of the early drivers for needing to separate and isolate drinking water and wastewater disposal and wastewater management. This graph shows life expectancy increases from seventeen ninety to twenty twenty, and you can see some hiccups and, it plateaus a little bit. But really the steepest section right there that I highlighted in yellow to help put this in perspective a little bit was from 1880 to 1920. This is before antibiotics. This is before the flu shot. This is before the polio vaccine. This was the inception of sanitary construction. This was the inception of drinking water protection, wastewater management, garbage disposal, food inspection, things like that to try to separate the things that can harm you from the things that you need every day. So that those changes happen, and that's the steepest part of that curve. So we've seen you know, it was a very low bar back then. We're definitely not in that same place, but very steep climbs and climbs through that period. What are the numbers on the left?

[Unidentified Committee Member]: There's none of yours.

[Ben Montross (ANR Drinking Water Program Manager)]: That's the yeah, yours. It's the life expectancy. And I'm sorry, it's green on green on green. So the lighter green is women. The darker green below is men. Got it. Thanks. Thanks. All right. So I don't presume to think that everybody is on the same page and knows everything. I apologize if someone we talk about is going to be a little bit redundant or beneath you. No offense is intended there. I really want to start from a really basic foundational standpoint with this. So I want to talk about what groundwater is just to make sure we're on the same page. So surface water protection is equally important. Surface water is a little bit easier to understand, streams, rivers, lakes, ponds, things like that. The necessary protections there, but what we're gonna really focus on more is the groundwater protection. And groundwater is defined as water beneath the ground surface. So it's not not necessarily, you know, rocket science to understand that, but how it comes into play and how it works and integrates is really important and is very complicated. So really breaking this down into into two major forms of groundwater, there's there's kind of a surficial groundwater in deeper bedrock aquifers. So you've probably heard of springs or dug wells, things like that. That's a bit more surficial. We also have a lot of villages in river valleys that have gravel aquifers. So those are higher up in the in the section, looking at the soils and bedrock. And basically what those are are water that fills in the spaces between rocks and gravel that can then be pulled out or or just flows out, like, through a spring. So that's what you see here in these upper layers there. It's more sand and gravel, and you can see the red just kinda works to slowly permeate through those two types of sand and gravel. But then we go deeper, literally, into the bedrock. And when you think of a drilled well or, you know, you see a well casing with a a blue lid, a blue cap on it in the yard, that's more what we're talking about with ground with a bedrock aquifers. Those are wells that are drilled into the aquifer, and there's cracks in those stones that allows the water to flow. So there's two different types of aquifers. The way the water travels through those is really important, and that factors into the isolation distances that we're going to talk about. So with that, soil is everything. The rate and speed at which things move into and through the aquifer is dictated by the types of soil. And what might be good here might not be good across the street, might not be good across town, across the state. So it's really the single most important factor to determining how far a contaminant can travel, and there's different types. So like I said, the river valleys have more sand and gravel from the rivers flowing and moving and flooding and depositing over the years to more like kind of agricultural, just kind of like fields and plains type soil, which is more loam, which is more just kind of multiple different sizes that create a slightly tighter weave. And then we get into clays and silts, which is more if you ever tried to dig through clay around here, it's hard to do. Right? So that's very tightly packed. And you can see the way water can flow through sand quite quickly, maybe a little bit less less direct and more circuitous. And then the clay, it's gonna hit and stop and bump. So these different soil types really dictate and and govern the rate at which, and therefore, some of the distances for which some of these isolation distances are set and established. Vermont's geology is really complicated. That adds another complexion. So, literally, the next layer down once we get through the soil is getting into the geology and bedrock and things like that. This has, you know, great effects. I think one of the key takeaways from this discussion this morning is that the standard setback distances are largely developed on uniform porous aquifers. They're not based on, fractured bedrock where where things can move very quickly. It can find a crack and really zip around. But I'm not gonna get into this the the the details of every single different type, but a lot of Vermont is what's was left back from the last ice age, last from the last glaciers. So it can be composition and piles of rocks and silt and sediment, and you can have pockets of this and pockets of that that all are just it's not a uniform, you know, nice and even, clean, predictable model. So a little bit of the science seal that's gonna dig much no pun intended, get into a lot more of the details with all of this sort of sorry. That was terrible.

[Sille Larsen (ANR Engineering & Water Resources Program Manager)]: Oh, that was good. Rob, shot it. Sorry.

[Ben Montross (ANR Drinking Water Program Manager)]: I do

[Rep. Amy Sheldon (Chair)]: like guns.

[Ben Montross (ANR Drinking Water Program Manager)]: Sheila's gonna get much more into the details of the science of all that sort of stuff. I'm going to talk a little bit now about permitting. I think that's that's part of the friction you might see with our programs is some of the permitting requirements. So the the private water systems, this is what's governed by the wastewater system and potable water supply rules. Again, this is environmental rule one, chapter one. This was the first rule that's been on the books for decades. Under these rules, the permit is required to construct, replace, or modify a potable water supply for any building, campground, or structure that needs to be certified by a licensed engineer or professional designer. Applicants need to identify their their potentially presumptive isolation zones and notify neighbors if that crosses over. So you might heard questions and complaints of overshadowing. That's where that comes into play. Where if somebody says I can put my septic here, but eventually it might flow over there onto your land, that's that's how that integrates through this rule. There's also the permitting requirements to install septic system, and each of those are done on a case by case, site by site basis based on, the types of soil, the depth to water table, things like that, and see how we'll get much more into that. So that's one aspect of permitting. The other aspect of permitting is the public water systems. So this is through the water supply rule. So a public drinking water system is what you think of when you think of town water. Montpelier is a public water system, But a public water system is also a school that has its own well. It's also a campground that has its own well. It's a bed and breakfast or a base lodge that has its own well. So when you think public, it's about the population that is able to be served, not who owns the system. So there might be an individual who owns a campground. That individual is a public drinking water system if it serves enough people. Those different types of public drinking water systems have different levels of risk based on different levels of exposure. Good question. Okay. Different levels of exposure is based on are people coming and going, are people staying there, or do people live there in terms of how much they're exposed to different contaminants. Long story short, public drinking water systems need a permit to add, replace, or modify an existing source. That source permit is quite extensive. It requires that the water systems provide for both adequate quantity and quality of water. So it's not just that they have enough water. It meet needs to meet quality standards and then also vice versa. It doesn't matter that it's meets the quality standards if they don't have enough of it. And that can be a challenge in Vermont. We have seen systems that have been very, very challenged based on where they are, what property they own, what's around them in terms of where they can find sufficient water. Our our program dictates implements those rules. We dictate the requirements that are through those rules, and we issue those permits as required. Now, Sheila, it's in the table.

[Sille Larsen (ANR Engineering & Water Resources Program Manager)]: Thank you. Do you mind if I stand up? I'm one of those people. Alright. Great. Thank you so much. So I'm gonna dive into the core concepts of isolation distances, And they're basically the minimum setback distances between a potential source of contamination and a source of drinking water. And this here is actually the 1949 edition of the Rural Source Disposal book that laid the foundation for Chapter one, setting a minimum setback distance of 100 feet. So, as Ben said, this Chapter one has been in place since 1949, very successfully so. Okay, but let's just start by identifying what is a septic system. And the real professional terminology is a soil based wastewater system. That's what we're talking about here, but most people refer to these as septic systems, and so I'm gonna use that term. These systems work by letting the wastewater drain down into a tank here where the organic material, the sediments, the sludge will fall to the bottom of the tank where you will have a buildup, which is why you need to pump it out on a regular schedule. And you'll have the oil and the grease floating to the top, and then you'll have that wastewater that you will discharge into leach field, basically discharge out either by gravity or by a pump out to your typically distribution box from which is then moving into the perforated pipes where then the wastewater can percolate out in those trenches that define the leach field into either natural soil or soil that has been brought in if you need a mound system. Okay, so how does soil actually remove the viruses? And obviously, we know that there are lots of pathogens in human waste beyond viruses. There's bacteria, there's porsoans such as giardia and cryptostridium. What we are mostly concerned about in wastewater is the viruses, because they are harder to kill, the die off is longer, and they are not as easily filtered out by the natural processes of the soil. So we're typically talking about two mechanisms of treatment in soil. We have the vertical treatment and then the horizontal treatment or separation. So we start out with the vertical separation. So, at the bottom of the leach field, there will over time develop a biomat, basically spanning the entire area of your leach field, from which you will have naturally occurring bacteria breaking down of the wastewater and some of the pathogens. And from there, it will percolate, infiltrate down through the natural soil layer. And this is really the unsaturated zone. So, we haven't hit the groundwater table yet. This is where the magic happens. This is where the majority of the virus treatment occurs. Filtration, absorption, and enzymatic inactivity via the naturally occurring bacteria all happen in this unsaturated zone, which is why we need that minimum separation of 36 inches between the bottom of the leach field and the seasonal high groundwater table, because you want to achieve that unsaturated zone for the virus removal. Once that water, wastewater percolates down through and then hits the groundwater, now we're talking about the horizontal separation. And now that wastewater will dilute into the groundwater and move with the groundwater, with gravity, grade. And obviously, we know that viruses are very mobile in groundwater. And so the greater of a distance, the longer time we achieve for virus die off. In Vermont, the isolation zone between a septic system and our drinking water source depends on the size of the septic system, how much gallons per day are you flowing into your septic system, or the size of your drinking water source, how much water you're pumping out. Obviously, if you put more virus load into your septic system, there's more that can contaminate. If you're pumping more water out of the ground, you'll have a bigger cone of depression, a bigger area from which you're drawing water, and so you can have that risk getting greater, and so you need bigger distances. However, that distance can be reduced under chapter one and chapter 21 using a two view time of travel analysis. And I'm gonna talk more about that analysis. But basically, if a designer, through a two year time of travel calculation, shows us that it will take more than two years for that wastewater to reach the drinking water source, then they can reduce that isolation distance, but never to less than 50 feet for a grouted source or 100 feet for an ungrouted source, because that grout will add another layer of protection for the source. This here is to tie sort of the wastewater treatment and protection of public drinking water in general into our geology, as Ben talked about. This here is a map of the overburden thickness. So this is the amount of soil overburdened deposited on top of the bedrock in Vermont. And Vermont Geological Survey put this map together based on well completion reports, 100,000 well completion reports throughout the state of Vermont, and did some interpolation. And as you can see, so maybe a little hard to see, but the majority of Vermont is either light brown or light yellow indicating very shallow overburden with bedrock protruding or up to 20 feet of overburden. And how does this matter in terms of the design of septic systems? Well, the overburden thickness and depth to bedrock basically defines the storage of groundwater in that area, in that soil, in that volume of soil. And if you have a shallow overburden, you have rapid saturation of that soil profile. It rains, there's not a lot of material, you'll saturate it, which then means that you have a shallow or near to surface seasonal high groundwater table. And remember, we need that unsaturated zone to achieve the treatment of viruses. And so the geology of Vermont just makes it, I'm sure maybe you all know, that the siting of septic systems in Vermont is problematic, and it's because it can be really hard to find the right soils type and the right amount of material needed to achieve the treatment. Thanks. What's going on in the white area of the Northeast Kingdom? Yeah, so the white Yeah. You look at this map, so this is the map, and we don't have a lot of wells in this area. And so, let me see here, I believe this indicates that we have some unknown overburdened thickness area right here simply because we don't have the data to make Lack of data. Yeah, exactly. Okay. I talked a little bit about pathogens, bacteria, protozoans, but really viruses are what we're most concerned about. Why is that? Well, human waste contains lots of types of viruses. We have enteroviruses, noroviruses, adenoviruses, hepatitis A, and all of these can exist in concentrations that are well, even very low concentrations can cause illness. And there are studies that have found that viruses can travel far, and that we know geology and soil can impact the die off rate of viruses. Research have shown that a standard septic system design can kill off ninety nine point nine percent of viruses if it's properly designed and implemented. And if you compare that to EPA regulation for drinking water, then EPA basically says if your drinking water source is considered vulnerable to pathogens, to contamination of viruses or bacteria, then you must achieve four log virus inactivation for you to consume that water. And that's obviously based on risk assessment that accepts some level of illness across one to 10,000 population, etc, etc. So, we need at least a one log removal throughout that horizontal distance, if not more in certain situations. This here is your reference slide. I'm sorry, you may

[Unidentified Committee Member]: have already explained this, but what does log stand for? Log, yes. Thank you. Thank you. And you may have already explained it.

[Sille Larsen (ANR Engineering & Water Resources Program Manager)]: No, no, I didn't. So 99.9% equals three log removal. Ninety nine point nine nine equals four log. 99.999 equals five log. So it's basically just saying you have 100 bacteria or viruses, and then you remove 99.9 of them, you have a three log removal rate. What is log? Is it a net? It's a logarithmic. It's a

[Ben Montross (ANR Drinking Water Program Manager)]: line on the graph that goes very steep.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: Gotcha. Okay. Thank you.

[Ben Montross (ANR Drinking Water Program Manager)]: Yeah. One

[Sille Larsen (ANR Engineering & Water Resources Program Manager)]: log is a factor of 10. 10. Okay.

[Thomas Weiss]: So three logs is a thousand. Okay. A thousand reduction. Yes.

[Rep. Amy Sheldon (Chair)]: We wanna look at it that way.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: Right, the mathematical.

[Thomas Weiss]: I'm Thomas Weiss, won't feel here. You. Just so you can be identified.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: Yeah, yeah. Great, thank you very much.

[Sille Larsen (ANR Engineering & Water Resources Program Manager)]: Yeah, no, absolutely. Okay, this here is more of reference slides. It will show you where to find the horizontal setback distances associated with private sources. So, think of the single family residences or up to 10 connections or 25 individuals, those are considered private. That's within chapter one, you'll find all of the horizontal distances associated there. For public water systems, we have two major categories. We have non community water systems and community water systems. And non community water systems, Ben talked about the schools, the office buildings, the gas stations, the campsites, they are treated similar to the private. So those horizontal distances and tables are mirrors of each other. And then for community water systems, we have a different set of regulation, and I have some slides later on that. What are the implications of land use regulation versus these rules that are protecting the sources? Well, these rules identify where to put a source or drinking water source. So let's say a designer wants to put in a new private well. They will then have to do the horizontal isolation distances and see are any of these activity present. If not, great, I can have a well driller come in and put that source there. Now it's there. Then there's no more protection under these two rules for that source. Now that source relies on the land use regulations to protect that source in a reciprocity type of manner, meaning we need the waste water rule to make sure that there are no septic systems now in the future put near the source. We need to make sure that the storm water rules are not putting storm water practices within the distance. And so these regulations now regulate the future activities, making sure that those distances are also being enforced in a similar manner. And then of course, have the overshadowing. We know that when you do these horizontal isolation distances, the designer draws it on a map, they take contours into consideration, you might end up with a well shield that moves on to the neighboring property. And now that neighbor has there are activities that he or she can no longer do on their property based on that well shield, which has caused disputes among neighbors, as you all know. Again, a little bit of a reference slide. This is the table that defines how to draw the setback distances from septic system and a source. And the size of this setback distance depends on the volume of water you pump out. So, the more volume, bigger distance, or the size of your septic system. Again, a bigger septic system, bigger distance. I mentioned earlier that that distance can be reduced if a designer or consultant shows us that a two year time of travel calculation has defined that the groundwater will not move more than from here, will not move all the way to the well within a two year timeframe. And why is that? Why are we using that two year timeframe? It's because studies have shown that virus identified to die off in the subsurface in a two year time frame under Vermont groundwater temperatures. So viruses can live a long time, two years in the subsurface, and especially in colder temperatures. So the warmer groundwater, the faster die off rates. And in Vermont, unfortunately, we have colder temperatures, so longer die off rates. The two year time travel area is determined using groundwater flow modelling, but that's often way too complicated. So instead, we're using simplified analytical calculations based on hydraulic conductivity, so how fast does water flow through the type of subsurface, Hydraulic gradient, what's the level of which wastewater is flowing out of the septic system and where is water being pumped in from? And then the porosity of the aquifer material. And why is this a really hard thing to do? Well, that's because making this of two year time of travel calculation requires a lot of site specific data. So the hydraulic conductivity depends on the type of soil you have. And you need to know what the soil is across this whole area. And oftentimes you just have a test pit, you know a little bit about the soil right here. You may have a well log 200 feet down the gradient, but what's happening in between, no one really knows, and for a homeowner to find that out to make a really accurate assessment is way too costly. The majority of drilled wells, they draw from bedrock fractures, not actually from that overburden. If there's a confining layer here, that actually means if you have a septic system here and water is draining and a well is taking water from the bedrock aquifer, then there might not actually be any connection between those two. But how do we know if that confining layer comes across that whole area or does it end and now water can flow down? There's so much information that is very site specific. You can't say anything on a Geograimat scale, for example. And then also viruses, we know they are very mobile in groundwater, but how mobile? What's the loading rate coming out of the septic system? Obviously, you need an infected individual. What's the dilution rate? There's a lot of sort of unanswered questions around the infection rates as well. And that's not even taken into consideration in a two year time of travel calculation. So reducing those setback distances can be easy. There are some situations where it's like very easy to define a brake, a hydraulic brake, there is no connection brake. But in a lot of situations, that analysis is very difficult. Okay, obviously, I know the focus here was on wastewater, which is why I've spent most of my time there. But there are also setback distances from other non wastewater contaminants. Again, table A11-one for non community water systems and table eleven-one in chapter one for private sources will set the setback distances for a bunch of other types of contaminants. So we have the agricultural crop lands, we have cemeteries, storm water practices, you name it, there's a whole table there that basically says how far away they need to be from putting in that source. So just quickly, some key takeaways from this little section here. Human waste contains pathogens that travel far in groundwater. The minimum isolation distance of 100 feet between septic system and drinking water has successfully in place since 1949 in Vermont. Isolation distances can be reduced, but it's a very complicated analysis required. All the sources of contamination, and I just want to do a time check here. It's 09:36. I know I heard that there were questions. Do you wanna do you want me to go through these really quick or so we can get to questions? Or are we okay with the pace? Do you look at another

[Ben Montross (ANR Drinking Water Program Manager)]: the members, are there any questions presently for our presenters? Yes, sir. I just

[Unidentified Committee Member]: wanna check on our assumption. Like, when I was building my house, a lot to do with my septic system had to do with how many bedrooms

[Sille Larsen (ANR Engineering & Water Resources Program Manager)]: Mhmm.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: The house had or what I I would be permitted for. And so I'm assuming that looks at the possibility of, let's say, six people in a house with three bedrooms and then looking at the affluent that that would produce. Is That's that correct.

[Sille Larsen (ANR Engineering & Water Resources Program Manager)]: You make some assumptions around how much wastewater does one person produce. And then you multiply that up and then say now you have this much, where what's the size according to that table? And what should the isolation distance be? Yeah. Yeah?

[Ben Montross (ANR Drinking Water Program Manager)]: You defined earlier in your discussion typical sewer septic system, but I've also got people in my district that are employing a presby system. Can you define that for me?

[Sille Larsen (ANR Engineering & Water Resources Program Manager)]: I can't actually. I would have to ask some of my colleagues. Ben and I are in the public drinking water program, so I am no expert in the various types of wastewater systems. Do you

[Ben Montross (ANR Drinking Water Program Manager)]: The only thing I know with that is that it's an alternative. It's a specific design that is approved based on the specific technology that they're using, and it's to it's I believe it's where you don't have those distances. It it creates more. It slows the flow down in order to shorten restrict that isolation distance. Most of these places that I'm familiar with have very shallow topsoil. It's my understanding with it. It's less passive. It's less soil based, and it's more technology based. Any

[Sille Larsen (ANR Engineering & Water Resources Program Manager)]: other questions before I move on? Alright. Okay. What are some of the other contaminants we are concerned about from a drinking water perspective? Rhort salt or chloride. Contamination. This is sort of an emerging concern as we apply a lot of rhote salt every year to the roadways in Vermont and across the country. We are seeing a buildup of that concentration in groundwater over the years. And that's because chloride are permanently there. They don't break down. So the only thing that happens is dilution. And as you're adding more and adding more, you'll see those concentrations going up and up and up. And then there are no federal standards for drinking water and chloride. There's So an aesthetic standard saying at more than two fifty milligrams per liter, you would notice it and aesthetically it's not very pleasing anymore. But from a health perspective, there's no treatment standard. Where are some of the sources of road salt? Well, as in the name it says, winter road maintenance, both sodium chloride and calcium chloride are applied to highways and parking lots. Unprotected salt storage, especially when they're online, can leach a lot of sodium chloride or chloride into the groundwater and then cause a contamination event. And then you also have the water softener. So when you're softening your water, removing hardness, iron, manganese, radium, etcetera, you're basically using a brine, a sodium chloride brine, to regenerate your softener. And that brine will be discharged into either your septic system or dry well and that can also result in contamination. Snowmelt runoff can carry dissolved chloride into lakes and rivers and ponds, and we have seen some spikes, especially after snowmelt. Infiltration through the soils to the groundwater, around roads and parking lots. And then we do see long term trends of chloride in the Northeastern US, streams rising, and a study with USGS showed that private well contamination, there is a statistical significant correlation between distance to roads applying salt and concentration of chloride in your water.

[Rep. Amy Sheldon (Chair)]: Sandeep Sankos?

[Unidentified Committee Member (possibly Rep. Larry Satcowitz, Ranking Member)]: Yeah. This is I'm really interested in this chloride because it's been a topic of conversation in our committee now for quite a while.

[Sille Larsen (ANR Engineering & Water Resources Program Manager)]: Okay.

[Unidentified Committee Member (possibly Rep. Larry Satcowitz, Ranking Member)]: And I'm wondering if you could tell us just a little bit more about because we haven't I don't heard this before about contamination with chloride of the aquifers themselves and how that's been changing over time, where we're at, how close might we be in certain places to having water which is safe for drinking but not really suitable for drinking? Just kind of if you have a sense of what that picture looks like.

[Sille Larsen (ANR Engineering & Water Resources Program Manager)]: So, across Vermont, as I mentioned, we do actually see wells, especially shallow wells. So those that are dug wells or springs, they're more shallow, they're not drilled into the bedrock. So it means an easier connection between infiltration from roads into that primary groundwater table. Those we see typically having a higher concentration of chloride than the deeper bedrock wells, because the travel time, you know, groundwater in bedrock wells can decades old, and so they might not be as impacted at this point in time as those more shallow sources. And we do see private wells across the state having chloride contamination above the secondary MCL, so that like aesthetic level of two fifty milligrams per liter. I can't throw out any numbers. Would have to go back to that study and look at it. But it is a thing homeowners are dealing with with chloride as a contamination that they have to find a way to either treat or bring in bottled water. So definitely existing in Vermont. There is also through that study a correlation between proximity to roadways. So it's not because fog could also come out of your septic system and it could come from agriculture, but the statistical significance is between roadway proximity and wells, especially in those shallow wells. Did that address question?

[Unidentified Committee Member (possibly Rep. Larry Satcowitz, Ranking Member)]: No. That's really helpful. I was also struck by your comment about the chloride that gets into the deeper aquifers that it's you're saying it's more or less a permanent increase in concentration of chloride in those water systems. So is that something that we are like, how much of a concern is that right now? I know those are the deeper ones. Takes you just said it takes a long time for the for the salt to get down into those deeper those deeper reaches. But are we looking at, like, something that we're gonna be thinking about in the in the next few years, few decades, or is it probably highly variable around the state? But I'm just just trying to get a sense of the scale of of of that as an emerging problem.

[Sille Larsen (ANR Engineering & Water Resources Program Manager)]: Yeah. It's definitely gonna be variable because similar to isolation just it depends on soil and bedrock, soil and geology type, and then the source of contamination. So there are certain areas of Vermont where you have more rural waste, and they will be more impacted than more rural areas. See that. Is it emerging? Yes, I would say so. We're probably, you know, I was recently in Killington, talking to a consultant that was doing the new well for the Killington town system and he was conductivity looking which is bright. And he has been measuring it. He's been around for a while and he said that he's just since the eighties seen the number go up and up and up and up. That graph he showed me was pretty significant in-

[Unidentified Committee Member (possibly Rep. Larry Satcowitz, Ranking Member)]: That's a pretty deep aquifer, like you were discussing before.

[Sille Larsen (ANR Engineering & Water Resources Program Manager)]: That source is a gravel source, but it is impacted. It is drawing water from That's old. It's not days old, it's not weeks old, decades old. I'm

[Rep. Amy Sheldon (Chair)]: sorry, I missed where you're talking about. Where's the location?

[Sille Larsen (ANR Engineering & Water Resources Program Manager)]: This is down in Killington. This was he was measuring it in the river that's very close to the source. So the source itself is not impacted by chloride, but the stream is fed by groundwater. And so if you're measuring it in the stream, he could measure it even when there was no snow melt. So that means that it's the groundwater that's feeding the stream and then resulting in the chloride concentrations. It's something that all states are talking about. New Hampshire have put in best management practices around salt applications to try to curb the problem because, you know, it's not going to go away. It's just going to end up at a level where all of a sudden people will have to treat.

[Unidentified Committee Member (possibly Rep. Larry Satcowitz, Ranking Member)]: I guess this is making me think, are we at a point now in our history where we could be taking steps now to minimize the amount of chloride in our environment so that fifty years from now, we don't we're not in a situation where people look back and they're saying, well, we have deep aquifers all over the state now have water that we can't drink because it's too salty, and we could have done something about it a long time ago and we didn't, but because the problem wasn't urgent back then, now, and it's also very slowly getting worse. Yes. I would say yes to that. I mean, it

[Sille Larsen (ANR Engineering & Water Resources Program Manager)]: is a it is a problem that will get bigger and bigger and bigger. So if we do something now about it, then we will help the future generations.

[Ben Montross (ANR Drinking Water Program Manager)]: And one thing, I apologize if you've already discussed this or you're aware of this, in terms of the health perspective from road salt, it itself may not create an issue, but if you have heavily salted water in metal pipes, saltwater and lead solder, we have old housing stock in Vermont, and lead was a high concentration component of solder until the mid-80s. So there's a lot of lead solder out there. There are some lead service lines. Saltwater plus metal equals for chemical reaction. That's much more immediate of a health risk. And that does actively happen where we see public water systems that monitor for lead and copper see that corrosion, see that saltwater influence in their drinking water.

[Sille Larsen (ANR Engineering & Water Resources Program Manager)]: Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. We've talked about septic systems and leach fields, bacteria, viruses, persoans, but obviously we also have pathogens resulting from sewer lines, combined sewer overflows into our surface waters, animal waste from farms, pastures, stormwater runoff, wildlife, all of those can result in a source of pathogens that can be a concern for drinking water. And the way for those pathogens to enter into our drinking water sources, either groundwater surface water's runoff directly into streams and reservoirs during rain events or shallow infiltration into the groundwater, also as it rains. And then, of course, risk will increase with the shallow wells and springs. And especially also if the source is poorly constructed, the well casing is cracked, now you can allow those sort of more sufficient waters to enter into your source of water. Not grouting can allow water flowing down in that annular space between the soil and the well casing. Another source of contamination that we're concerned about is nitrate, again, primarily from agriculture, manure management, septic systems as well, and then lawn fertilizers can be sources of nitrate. Nitrate, similar to chloride, is highly soluble and it's conservative. It's there. Disappear It very readily in our groundwaters. Surface water can carry nitrate into our streams and lakes, and again, infiltration can cause it to end up in our groundwaters. This here is an illustration of how organic waste, human waste, is converted from organic nitrogen to ammonia and then from ammonia to nitrate through nitrification. That is sort of the biological process of your septic system. In nature, the opposite happens as well denitrification. But if the anthropogenic inputs are so big, they might exceed that natural rate of denitrification. In drinking water, we do have a primary MCL or maximum contamination level of 10 milligrams per liter. And that's primarily said due to the risk of blue baby syndrome in infants. So, if infants drink water with nitrate above 10 per liter, their blood loses the ability to carry oxygen and they turn blue and they suffocate. And that's why it's called blue baby syndrome. Then we have the industrial and chemical contaminants, volatile organic compounds from storage tanks underground and above ground. Here we have the fuel oils, think benzene, toluene, MTB. We have dry cleaners. Here it's more the tetrachloroethylene, degreasing, and otherwise spills an improper disposal of waste. How do how do these chemicals end up in our groundwaters? Well, the fuel oils, they are considered light non Aquarius face liquids, elm napples. The density of them is less than water, so they float on top of water, and they will move with a water table and migrate down gradient and slowly release VOCs into the water. The PC and TCE from dry cleaning, they're considered D NAPL, so they're denser than water, they float to the bottom, and they can create some very deep and persistent contamination plumes. And then, of course, vapor intrusion into buildings from these types of plumes can be another pathway of contamination besides drinking water. And then, of course, we have PFAS, chemicals everyone is talking about these days. What are some of the sources of PFAS? We have the AFFF, the firefighting foam we see in airports or military bases, industrial manufacturing, you know, aerial deposition and through the wastewater can cause contamination. Consumer products, as long as we have PFAS in our consumer products, we will never get rid of PFAS in our groundwaters. We will eat and drink things, we will touch our jackets, we'll use the cookware and we will ingest it and we will release it into our wastewater and into the septic systems. PFAS, they are highly mobile in brown water, and they are extremely persistent, which is why we call them the forever chemicals. Ben, do you want to talk a little bit to the So, PFAS and

[Ben Montross (ANR Drinking Water Program Manager)]: as Sheila said a lot, with the two year time of travel, that's bacteria. That's not PFAS. We have no idea what the two year time of travel would be for PFAS or what the isolation distance would need to be. But the likelihood is it'd be very difficult to install wells and septic if that's what we were worried about. So we have regulations now. We're on top of that from a public drinking water standpoint. In 2018, we did a pilot of 10 schools that had on-site water and wastewater to see if mop buckets and floor wax and industrial chemicals and all that were being used, which they were going down the drain, going into the septic, going into the well and repeating. And we've seen that. So at the time we had two schools, the Warren School and Grafton Elementary School that exceeded the health advisory and much more have had it. Basically, 36 schools or child care systems have had at least one detection. There have been seven schools that have exceeded our standard, and we're expecting about seven more. PFAS is certainly a problem, and this is the communication of the on-site water and wastewater based on the PFAS. Happy to come back and talk to PFAS anytime for hours if you want it, but I I think I'll leave that there.

[Rep. Amy Sheldon (Chair)]: Just just to help maybe a hanging curiosity here. And so then those systems are getting filtration installed? Okay. Just to make sure if we were

[Ben Montross (ANR Drinking Water Program Manager)]: So these systems that exceeded the health advisory or subsequently the MCL, most of them already have treatment in. The ones that are about to work have treatment in the works. Okay,

[Sille Larsen (ANR Engineering & Water Resources Program Manager)]: so key takeaways from some of these other types of contaminants. Not all contaminants behave the same in the environment. Some are highly soluble, some are less soluble, some will be there permanently and don't break down, others will break down. And you kind of have to treat them all a little bit differently. So, I know that we're running a little bit late. I do want to touch upon source protection, but then otherwise skip through here. What is it and why are we doing it? Source protection is a proactive land management strategy. It is basically to protect that recharge area, so that you make sure that none of the water reaching your well has been contaminated. It's part of a multi barrier approach, so think of the three legged stool to public health protection. You do source water protection, make sure there's no contaminant that actually reaches your drinking water. Then if you have it, treatment is your second barrier, making sure that people don't drink contaminated water. And then the third leg on that stool is the distribution system integrity. Asset management, make sure that you update your distribution system, that you don't have leaks and pressure reductions that can cause contamination to travel into your distribution system and then serving the public. Why are we doing prevention? Well, because prevention beats treatment. It is cheaper and it is much, much less energy intensive. And so, source protection is key to public health protection. These slides here will be for you to look at this is just showing that there's a slightly different approach to source protection for community water systems. So rather than isolation distances, we have zone one and zone two and zone three, where zone one offers extensive protection because the water system is required to own and control the land. So they can prevent activities from occurring. They don't have to rely on all of those other land use regulations to prevent it from happening. And we can enforce against the water system if they do allow some of these activities to happen in Zone 1. Zone two and Zone three are just best management practices to protect your waters. Similar for surface waters. It's just a slightly different way to delineate these zones. And here is a list of all of the prohibited activities and all of the permitted activities in Zone 1. That's a long list, I'm not going to go through that anyways.

[Ben Montross (ANR Drinking Water Program Manager)]: The last bit is just a case study. Won't read this. You can look at this in your leisure. There was an oil spill from a a heating tank in Wells River. The spill was right about here. The well was right about there. We were very worried about what would happen. There's some dialogue about what did happen and then what the cost would be to address that. And just like Silo said, it's a lot cheaper and easier to not have this stuff get into the system than pay 1,200,000.0 for treatment or 4,000,000 to connect to a nearby system. So, this situation, we would not permit right now. This predates our permitting, which is why it exists. So if they came into us, we would say no. Go somewhere else because of everything we just talked about. We're don't wanna keep you from where you need to be. There's some key takeaways in the materials. If you have any questions, please reach out. We're happy to engage further. We're happy to come back. We're happy to answer questions.

[Rep. Amy Sheldon (Chair)]: This was great. This is great. And I I Thank you. May take you up on that. Thank you so much

[Unidentified Committee Member (possibly Rep. Larry Satcowitz, Ranking Member)]: for coming in and sharing your work with us today. You for having us.

[Sille Larsen (ANR Engineering & Water Resources Program Manager)]: Yeah. Thank you for having us.

[Rep. Amy Sheldon (Chair)]: Alright. With that members, we are supposed to be on the floor.