Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Speaker 0]: I really found interesting and illuminating for me, especially having heard the debate about housing for many, many years now in the state house, where the discussions about capacity, which you've heard a lot about. So I just want to, I just excerpted two paragraphs from the report that really, that I really focused on. These are recommendations from the committee that I think are reflected in the bill as it's going forward. But, but I think kind of frame sort of the, the, the, the overarching issues, especially with capacity. So one recommendation from the, in the report is modernize the modernizing the rules around sewer connections. The report says, DEC's wastewater rules are largely written for on-site systems and are difficult to navigate through municipal connections. The group strongly supports clear municipal specific standards and a design manual. So the manual is in the bill. Even without statutory change, rule modernization would meaningfully improve predictability and usability. So you have the manual in the bill, which is a really good step, I think, towards creating that clarity. I was really surprised to learn that we didn't have separate rules for connections as opposed to on-site systems. My understanding is having been on that committee, they're all kind of smooshed together. So I think it is an obvious thing. So the manual will go in that direction. And I think ultimately there could be some rule changes. And as the report recognized, A and R has that authority. So that was one thing. And I think that just kind of goes to how we're taking a fresh look at how these rules work. Fact that we had these rules together, connections are obviously very different than getting a permit for an on-site system. And you would want a completely set of different standards and make that clear. Then with regard to capacity, as you've heard, but this is what the report says, says most importantly, is the real housing constraint. Many communities simply lack water or wastewater capacity regardless of how quickly permits are issued. That reality is a big part of why the new CHIP program is so important. Capacity is also hard to solve than permitting. It is inconsistently defined, not tracked statewide, and expensive and time consuming to expand. DEC does not track treatment or supply capacity for growth. That responsibility rests with utilities while DC enforces capacity limits through treatment plants permits. In the Senate, we had this discussion. There wasn't specific language in the original bill about defining capacity in the manual and ANR recommending, so how we define capacity and then who tracks it. And I want to be clear, having listened to the conversation on YouTube, as A and R said, like if somebody wants to connect, municipal public treatment works operators will say whether they have capacity or not. And they understand whether they have the capacity to take on the new connection in the wastewater and treat it. But it's not being tracked in a systematic way. Obviously needs to be. And so there is a gap there and there is a lack of clarity. There's a history that Brian could explain better than me about the agency used to track capacity in a more detailed way and that stopped a number of years ago. So I think it's really important to find capacity. I don't know to Representative North's comments, and it was really interesting because I have looked at the Vergens plant along with a bunch of other plants because of the combined sewer overflow problem that they have. You know, VNR City has for a while now we have raised concerns about we're not doing a good enough job in the state dealing with combined sewer overflows because it's so expensive. You see that in Regens, right? You have a bond vote, to raise the money and then you'll implement a program. You'll reduce the combined sewer overflows. Rutland is in the same bucket. There's about like nine or 10 plants in the state that are in that situation. So there's that sort of capacity issue, but I couldn't tell, it was interesting representative of North, how much actual, like putting the CSO issue aside, like how much capacity just for treatment in non wet weather events. It seemed like there are, the permits are being issued. It seemed like it was expensive. Like, Virginia, it seemed a little high for me, looking at what they were charging per gallon per day. And maybe that's to limit the capacity that people are using. I think a lot of the facilities around the state have treatment capacity. There are these CSO issues, and there are some facilities that do have some treatment capacity limits. I think just knowing, getting a handle on all of that and doing a better job with CSOs and getting towards eliminating them everywhere in the state. This is an issue that's been decades long and we have not We made some progress we have, like Vergensa is making and Rutland has made some progress. But there's I think there's only been one facility with a CSO that's actually eliminated the CSO, you know, over the history of the Clean Water Act. I do think, you know, we do support even with that issue, like during dry weather when there's capacity in the plants to let people connect, you know, and especially for housing. But I just wanted to flag, that was my sort of take on the capacity discussion and really do support at least having this manual and begin to address this issue. So the only other comment I have is about the Burlington language on pretreatment, which makes sense for a city like Burlington to able to implement a pretreatment program. I think, as Brian said, they're closest to Actually, he didn't talk about this, but I won't say this because it was a private conversation that we had. I think that they're well suited to deal with that. But I do think the language that Burlington proposed was a little, is abroad. I think their language was something like, and it wasn't just for Burlington, which it shouldn't be, but it was like, if a publicly owned treatment works, plant wanted to implement a pretreatment standard, they can enter an agreement with ANR and that's all it said. So it's nothing like what

[Speaker 1]: We've already had a Yeah.

[Speaker 0]: And Representative Logan told me that, but I just wanted to go on record that I think this makes sense, but the language was way too broad and not specific enough. But that could be fixed, I think, and we'd love to take a look at the language that is developed.

[Speaker 1]: I think we're going see it on Tuesday.

[Speaker 0]: Yeah. So, yeah. So that's really, you know, we support S-two 12. We did work with ANR and other people who have testified in the Senate to get some of that language change, especially around capacity and the manual. And so we support the bill.

[Speaker 1]: Can you speak to the second enabling language around the broader general permit concept for in this bill that we talked about? In particular, Thomas Weiss brought some concerns to us.

[Speaker 0]: Mean, Mr. Weiss, expanding it to nonmunicipal? No, I listened to that. I hadn't thought about that, honestly. I would need to think about it some more. I mean, I kind of see what he's saying. I mean, they are potentially I don't see global foundries like they're not going to They treat their own wastewater, you know. They don't You know, they're not connecting any I don't know if they're not connecting anybody. It's just them. I mean, they're not looking to be like a utility, you know, connecting other people. But there may be some examples of that. So I'd have to look at it more, really.

[Speaker 1]: Interesting question maybe for you, Brian. If someone I don't know how many other examples there are.

[Speaker 0]: I just said, I

[Speaker 1]: don't know. Picking on the one that we're but if there is a large, say, private industrial and independent facility and they did want to sell some of their capacity, would they then become a utility and be regulated differently? Or what would happen in that case? How would you all deal with that? I know you said it's actually not your area of jurisdiction, but

[Speaker 2]: In the wastewater context. Yeah. Not drinking water.

[Speaker 1]: Well, guess neither, but I think it came up in this wastewater context.

[Speaker 2]: In the drinking water context, I can say that the connection would be viewed as a connection if there's a different ownership structure or if there's additional treatment and infrastructure associated with it, there would be a process to go through to understand who's responsible and going to manage that additional infrastructure. We do have things called consecutive water systems that are regulated under their own permits as individual entities. Generally, we want to try to encourage consolidation to the extent possible from a management perspective and encompass it under a parent permit, but it doesn't always happen that way. Wastewater, I probably shouldn't comment. I'm a little less familiar on how that would be handled, but I presume if Global was to do a connection to their wastewater treatment facility on their campus, it would be housed under that apartment itself.

[Speaker 1]: But if they were gonna sell that capacity, does that change it? Anyway, we can it's just an interesting I'm just thinking about how that language might

[Speaker 0]: be Yeah, I just haven't thought about it enough. But I'm sure the wastewater people at ANR could easily identify how many facilities are like that and how they operate.

[Speaker 2]: Very few. The vast majority of treatment plants are. Yeah.

[Speaker 1]: Do members have questions?

[Speaker 2]: It's the end. Alright, great. Joining us.

[Speaker 0]: Friday. We're all tired. It's been a long week.

[Speaker 1]: It's the first our work for the week week. That's fine. So I hope everyone has good