Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Speaker 0]: Great. Welcome back to the House Environment Committee. We are going to be looking at H seven seventy eight, the dam safety bill that has amended, changed by the Senate.

[Michael Grady (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Hi. Good afternoon. This is Michael Grady with legislative counsel. There is a side by side on your mini website that Kat has posted, I'd like to work off of that if that's okay with you. And I'll just generally walk through each section and describe any of the changes. Before I do that, in summary, most of these changes are terminology, or, specific requests from Vermont Emergency Management to more specifically focus on what they do. And so that is generally what the changes do. Section one, clarifying the authority of the governor and emergency management to require evacuations has not changed. Section two, this is the pilot project. You can go on to page two of the side by side. And the first significant changes in subdivision A to remember that the pilot project is is being conducted for two high hazard dams, and they're creating a set of EOPs for emergency operation plans for each of those dams. Your version said that each municipality will receive an EOP, and the director of emergency management clarified that it really should be that they should each get their own set of actions that they need to implement under an EOP. Because instead of creating 10 to 15 individual EOPs, you could create effectively a foundation and then provide the EOP, the actions for each municipality underneath that foundational EOP. So that is what was changed on page two. Instead of each municipality getting their own EOP, the EOP will have individual actions for each municipality.

[Speaker 0]: President Chapin?

[Ela Chapin (Member)]: And I get a little confused about this, but aren't EAPs and EOPs set elsewhere in statute and defined elsewhere in statute? Okay. It's just in It's Right.

[Michael Grady (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: It's in this and, hopefully, the new dam safety rules will have provisions that address both, most probably more specifically, the EAP because that's what the dam owner is required to do. But I I don't think you can divorce the two of them and and can treat them completely differently. So hopefully, that will be part of the dam safety rules.

[Ela Chapin (Member)]: Okay. And so there was so much discussion amongst stakeholders early on when I was working on this about how each municipality needs their own EOP. Does this concern you?

[Michael Grady (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: I think they effectively will instead of instead of emergency management creating 10 specific individual plans, they create one overarching. It's kinda like a general permit, right? You know, one overarching plan for the whole all 10 and then specific actions that each municipality would need to like, what evacuation routes? Where where are there shelters? What vulnerable populations do they need to look to?

[Ela Chapin (Member)]: Okay. In a lot of ways, it sounds much more efficient process to me, and I was concerned when it was like every town would have a whole ERP system. Sounds good. Thanks.

[Michael Grady (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Then the next change is right there on page two. In your version, had in preparing the EOPs that the division would coordinate with a list of people. And the director of emergency management came in and said that the list of people to them is is too limiting, and you will likely miss something. Instead, they prefer to work with this FEMA concept. It's not really a list. It's not a definition. It's really a kind of a narrative summary about how to engage in emergency planning with your whole community. And so as a whole community, as a concept, whole community is a means by which residents, emergency management practitioners, organizational and community leaders, and government officials can collectively understand and assess the needs of their respective communities and and determine the best ways to organize and strengthen their assets, capacities, and interests. So it's not like, hey, you go coordinate and talk to each of these people. You have a process where you work together to determine what is necessary for your community. And so that that's what was requested to to use the whole community concept and and Senate Natural wanted a specific reference. And this is the reference when you look up FEMA emergency preparedness. This is what is referenced and that's what's cited in the plan.

[Speaker 0]: So interesting in light of the

[Ela Chapin (Member)]: other things we're talking about,

[Speaker 0]: community engagement. I think it's very interesting that they have a title of whole community and feel confident in defining that. So just so I'm clear, it's still a list of agencies or I mean, it says the same meaning is provided there.

[Michael Grady (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: I'm sorry.

[Speaker 0]: Maybe I just missed what you just read.

[Michael Grady (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: So it it it really isn't necessarily a list. It it does have categories, you know, government officials, community leaders, you know, emergency responders, but it doesn't say things like swift water rescue. You know, it's it's about engaging who your emergency responders are, who your community leaders are, and identifying your community's needs. Representative

[Speaker 0]: Chittenden.

[Ela Chapin (Member)]: So when I look this up in FEMA, it says the whole community individuals and families, including those with access and functional needs, businesses, faith based and community organizations, nonprofit groups, schools and academia, media outlets, all levels of government, including state, local, tribal, territorial, and federal partners. And when I so this is one thing that I'm concerned about in terms of the senate's changes. In particular, says on the senate's version, it says, shall coordinate with and collect input from I just think that they're, like, going in a different direction. We were talking about mostly agencies and governmental entities that are not about to be inundated themselves, but who provide support. Hi, Director Flynn, thanks for being with us. I'm just saying that the one, I'm gonna repeat myself a little bit, the director's benefit. I'm just saying the one thing that concerns me and the changes on the Senate side, and I'm looking forward to your input on this, is this piece about full community instead of the list of mostly governmental emergency response and regional RPCs, where we were thinking that the division would coordinate with and collect input from these entities, including RPCs and municipal emergency management. And particularly we were asked to include swift water rescue providers in search and rescue. The shift to the whole community that would be inundated if the dam were to fail is like a completely different category of entities. So I guess I'm like, I think we were in trying to make sure certain statewide or regional entities would be consulted, even though they're not directly per the municipalities downstream. And the Senate went in this other direction around making sure to use the full community that, and maybe this is maybe this language doesn't quite make sense anymore, the whole community that would be inundated if the dam were to fail. So I guess I'm just I think either something got lost in translation or there's just a really big I'm concerned about losing the list of entities, some of which we took testimony from and the Senate may not have.

[Speaker 0]: Happy to have you speak to that if you're prepared to do that now.

[Eric Forand (Director, Vermont Emergency Management)]: Hi, Eric Forne. I'm the director of Environmental Risk Management. So we have been making the suggestion to eliminate lists because they are progressively longer and either they are all inclusive and too long, but at the same time, forget certain entities. So if you have a list of five, it probably really should be seven. So what FEMA has done in that whole community is a FEMA definition as defined by them. It talks about the fact that it's everyone. It's not community as in the community of Bristol, but the community is the whole community, meaning that downstream inundation. So it's all the individual residents are part of that, all of the age emergency agencies that have to respond to that, fire rescue police, all of the swift water teams that have to respond to that, all the federal agencies that have to respond, they are the quote, unquote whole community. So it's it's the idea of encompassing everyone so you don't miss out on anyone. It allows you the latitude to talk to everyone and make sure that everyone has a say, including physically challenged, the deaf and hard of hearing. So there may be on a list some people that are lost. So instead FEMA has gone with the whole community idea that anyone that is affected by whatever it is that you're working on in any capacity should be involved in that plan. So it's a whole community effect.

[Ela Chapin (Member)]: And I'm definitely open to this. Maybe then the words that would be inundated if the ban were to fail need to be removed because

[Michael Grady (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: That's in your version.

[Kate Logan (Member)]: I know.

[Ela Chapin (Member)]: And it made sense when we had a list, and the last thing in the list were other relevant interested parties located in the regional area that would be inundated if the general Yeah. It's like it's like the end of the sentence got kept

[Michael Grady (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Why the context of why you're coordinating with anyone is because they're in the area that's gonna be inundated by the flooding.

[Speaker 0]: No. These emergency service providers may not they may live in another town. Right.

[Ela Chapin (Member)]: The one on our list. In specific, we were asked by somebody in Southern Vermont who's part of a statewide and regional search and rescue. He's multiple hats on, so he's part of a couple different organizations

[Speaker 0]: He's gonna be

[Ela Chapin (Member)]: are not directly in the inundated area in many cases and didn't wanna so in particular, that's where part of that came from.

[Eric Forand (Director, Vermont Emergency Management)]: Better for something like affected by or needed in the response to or will be involved in the response to.

[Ela Chapin (Member)]: Yeah. Exactly.

[Eric Forand (Director, Vermont Emergency Management)]: It's still not a list, but it defines who the whole community is. Right.

[Speaker 0]: Or just change the words that would be inundated. Representative Logan.

[Kate Logan (Member)]: Well, we we do have that would be inundated if the dam were to fail located in the regional area. So, the located in the regional area that would be inundated if the dam were to fail is referring to other relevant interested parties.

[Speaker 0]: But I do think It's on separate category, Harvey. It's just making sure that people affected by the flood would also be included.

[Kate Logan (Member)]: That's what I just said, actually, is that that phrase only refers to other relevant interested parties located in the regional area. Right. That would be an inundated if the dam were to fail. But I think what we're hearing from Michael is that the whole community doesn't refer just to entities that would be responding entities that are physically located in the area. It would actually refer to regional and municipal emergency management, municipal officials, emergency responders, regional planning commission, state and regional search and rescue partners. It seems to me like

[Ela Chapin (Member)]: it includes all of those entities.

[Eric Forand (Director, Vermont Emergency Management)]: Point is that you have to have some nexus. It's the whole community as relates to what? In this case, it's the dam failure.

[Kate Logan (Member)]: Right.

[Eric Forand (Director, Vermont Emergency Management)]: If you just said, collectively, whole community, is that all emergency response in the state of Vermont? Is that all communities in the state of Vermont? No. Specifically, whole community as it relates to that specific

[Kate Logan (Member)]: So maybe it shouldn't say All emergency responders who So would

[Speaker 0]: it shouldn't say that would be inundated. It should say that would be affected. If the dam would work, yeah. Yes.

[Ela Chapin (Member)]: Thank you. Yeah, I'm just reading the whole community definition on from this page. There's definitely some expansive language in there including the list.

[Eric Forand (Director, Vermont Emergency Management)]: There's a little tape doc that tries to explain their this whole community, and it's a definition that they use a lot. Use it in the way that we're trying to use it, so we're not trying to try something different.

[Ela Chapin (Member)]: Okay. One other thought is sometimes we say including, the way of unity that would be affected if the dam were to fail, including, which in statute means obviously Sorry, also means not limited to. And then we could list a few entities that we wanna make sure don't get missed, which was our intention here. What I'm hearing from you is you really like the whole community's concept and would really prefer not to have a list.

[Eric Forand (Director, Vermont Emergency Management)]: I do, that's the way we interpret it. Just anybody that's involved in any way, shape, or form, would do those in the planning process. So I could see it going both ways, but for clarity, we like the whole community I'm

[Ela Chapin (Member)]: I'm open to that. I would just change the wording because I I think it's

[Speaker 0]: yep. You got that change.

[Michael Grady (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Right. It would say the whole community that would be affected if the dam were Yes. K.

[Speaker 0]: Alright. Mhmm. Do you have a question on this? Go ahead.

[Ela Chapin (Member)]: It includes schools.

[Sarah "Sarita" Austin (Clerk)]: What? It includes schools, specifically. Yeah. No. Just in other states that have had disasters, has this worked, this whole community's approach where they were trained ahead of time? They were they more the term

[Eric Forand (Director, Vermont Emergency Management)]: whole community or the idea of using whole community?

[Sarah "Sarita" Austin (Clerk)]: Oh, the using whole community.

[Eric Forand (Director, Vermont Emergency Management)]: Oh, absolutely.

[Sarah "Sarita" Austin (Clerk)]: It has.

[Eric Forand (Director, Vermont Emergency Management)]: FEMA's been pushing it for a long time, and we honestly, we already do this. Right? Whatever the event is, we don't just go and talk to x town. We talk to x town. Oh, by the way, the rescue is from a different town that covers them. Oh, fire comes in from a different spot. FEMA Oh,

[Ela Chapin (Member)]: so when you

[Sarah "Sarita" Austin (Clerk)]: use community, you're talking about the rescue community. Okay.

[Eric Forand (Director, Vermont Emergency Management)]: We make sure that when we go into municipalities, especially when we talk about local emergency management plans, because they need to think bigger picture. Right? Who's gonna be involved to do especially if it's a flood where the local fire department that covers you might actually be deployed somewhere else. They may not be able to come for you. So always looking at it a bigger picture, whole whole community idea. But, yeah, it works.

[Michael Grady (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: This document does have examples. For example, it discusses a Northeast Ohio emergency preparedness plan and how that area of the country, unbeknownst to me until I read this, was, like, one of the largest Somali populations in the country and that they had to engage with them in a way to bring them into the whole community, to plan for them and to plan for their cultural and language and other issues that needed to be tailored for them because they were part of the whole community. Should I move on?

[Ela Chapin (Member)]: Yes.

[Michael Grady (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: On page three. This is more of a both including the whole community concept, but also a wording issue that the one particular senator had an issue with. And it says in your version, engage facilities at house vulnerable populations. The senator said you don't engage facilities. You get engage the managers and administrators of facilities. When instead of saying school shelters unhoused, it's the vulnerable populations within the whole community. Should I move on?

[Sarah "Sarita" Austin (Clerk)]: Representative Bennington, is there a definition for vulnerable? Because I don't think of schools as vulnerable. I mean, I think of elderly senior citizens or handicapped facilities as vulnerable. I just wanna make sure schools are included in that definition.

[Michael Grady (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Schools are included in the whole concept of whole community.

[Ela Chapin (Member)]: There

[Michael Grady (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: is no definition of vulnerable population in the bill.

[Kate Logan (Member)]: Senator Logan. Yeah. I just wanna I don't know if everybody's looking at the side by side instead of just the bill. Anyway okay. Good. Because that's really helpful.

[Speaker 0]: We started with the side by

[Kate Logan (Member)]: side before you got in. Gotcha. But I would The whole community's document is linked in our committee. Oh, no. I looked it up, actually. It might be helpful for the whole committee to have access to that document. It is, 28 pages long. And so by incorporating that document, a reference to this document, then it incorporates all 28 pages of that guidance on the whole community concept. And I've just been scrolling through it, and it's great, in my Is

[Speaker 0]: that the whole 28 pages, Michael, that you have there?

[Kate Logan (Member)]: There are some pages intentionally left blank. Right.

[Speaker 0]: On. Well, do folks have Sarita's question about schools not being vulnerable?

[Ela Chapin (Member)]: It sounds like it probably is

[Sarah "Sarita" Austin (Clerk)]: in that 28 pages. Okay.

[Speaker 0]: It's definitely his search for school, qualifying vulnerable populations. Anyway, are you Seth? Representative Austin?

[Sarah "Sarita" Austin (Clerk)]: Yes, thank you. Representative Chapin, did you have more on that?

[Ela Chapin (Member)]: I was just going to make sure Sarita knows that school, in the definition online that I'm looking at, on one page, schools are called out as part of a whole community. So I guess I just wanted to let you know that schools are prominently called out in that whole community stage.

[Speaker 0]: I will say, though, the way that's written, it is talking about specifically vulnerable populations within the whole community. Not all populations managed within the whole Not all the managers. Here we are. Moving on.

[Michael Grady (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Page four. This is another list that's being it's being rewritten. So instead of a summary of how the division or the division contractor coordinated with those lists of people, just a summary of who in the area of potential inundation for each dam that the division or contractor coordinate coordinated within the development of the EOP.

[Speaker 0]: Any questions on that? Moving

[Michael Grady (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: on to page five, there are several changes that are the same. The director made a point that EOPs aren't for the dams. They are for the municipalities downstream of the dam. And so in your version, it said that the EOP for a dam or the EOP related to a dam. It's it's really the EOP for the municipalities downstream of all dams. And that change was made throughout.

[Speaker 0]: It's an important clarifying point that I kept stumbling over what we were doing.

[Michael Grady (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Then moving on to page six. In your version, had a recommendation of potential funding sources that the division or individual municipalities could access. So the the division is was uncomfortable in providing recommended funding sources. They I believe the testimony was they don't engage in that kind of work often and don't feel themselves expert enough to be able to provide those recommendations, but they could refer to organizations that do that work and are expert in that work. And so that is the change that was made. Instead of recommending the potential funding sources, recommending organizations that may assist municipalities in accessing potential funding sources to assist in the completion of or compliance with an EOP. And then moving down right below that on page six in subdivision four, in your version, you have that they would recommend how to best educate municipalities, regional planning commissions, emergency service providers about the need for an importance of EOPs. The vision requested that regional planning commissions be removed because they don't actually implement the EOP, and they didn't want to expend those resources when the RPCs aren't actually implementing the EOP. And similarly, subdivision six on recommending how to do practice emergency response. The division recommended that it should say how often exercises should be conducted to validate the EOPs required under the section and ultimately for all EOPs for dams, instead of listing how often RPCs or municipalities, it's because when you're trying to validate the EOP, it's gonna involve all of them potentially instead of them individually. So that change was made. And that is the last change.

[Speaker 0]: Representative Chittenden.

[Ela Chapin (Member)]: I think there's some good clarifications in here. It's always interesting to see what happens on the Senate side not being there. I haven't been listening to their testimony or anything. Big thanks to Director Thornd and all the work and spending all the time in the building on this bill. Really appreciate it. And I think that it's really common for the legislature to make lists of entities that we want to make sure don't get missed or things like schools and vulnerable populations. I'm hearing that it would be preferred to stick to traditional FEMA definitions. I'm willing to go there here. I guess I'd just say, that means we're really hoping you would get to meet the testimony. We're going keep those things in mind that came up in testimony as important and not to get lost. So, for being here.

[Speaker 0]: Michael, what happens if the FEMA document gets rescinded? It's a 2011 thing. What happens if that goes away and we've referenced it? I guess, mean, the date maybe keeps it.

[Michael Grady (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Yeah. It's session law. It's been cited. According to statutory interpretation, you basically said that this is what you want as the resource for the development of this pilot project. This isn't like, say, a Clean Air Act program where the the requirements change over time and and, you know, effectively restrict what or allow something to happen. You're telling them use this whole community as defined in this document, and that's what they need to do.

[Speaker 0]: This, is a proposal of amendment from the Senate, so we actually and it's up for action tomorrow, so we do need to take a straw poll on it because it's not in our possession. Do Do members have any questions or further questions or concerns about it?

[Eric Forand (Director, Vermont Emergency Management)]: Representative Norton? Just logistically, do we deal with that small change that we wanted to make at H2?

[Speaker 0]: Yeah, we can do a further proposal of amendment.

[Rob North (Member)]: I think So the straw poll that we're taking or would take here soon includes or does not include that?

[Speaker 0]: I think it would include it unless someone has objection to it. So, it would just be a straw poll as amended by the Senate and further amended by Representative Chapin.

[Ela Chapin (Member)]: Okay.

[Speaker 0]: Then you'll draft the amendment. Great, and you'll report it. Okay. All those anyway, it's historical. So, everyone understand that what we're voting on, which is the bill is amended by the Senate with the change of one word on page three.

[Ela Chapin (Member)]: Two. Of those side by side.

[Speaker 0]: That would be affected if the damn word fail. Inundated change to affected. All those in favor, raise your hand. That is everyone present, which is nine people and two who are absent in the distraught, but we'll check-in. Thank you, Michael and Eric for joining us.

[Michael Grady (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Okay. I will try to do that right now and get it to you. So if you wanna put it in the, calendar, you can.

[Speaker 0]: Okay. Are there members any Representative Austin?

[Sarah "Sarita" Austin (Clerk)]: Yeah, I was wondering if anybody you put over on PBS this morning, there was a special program or Birmingham, I can't remember where it was. It was a private dam, and it was being recommended to be found because it was a hazardous dam, and it hadn't been inspected in, like, twelve years. In Vermont. Yeah.

[Speaker 0]: That's why we have been paying attention to dams lately.

[Sarah "Sarita" Austin (Clerk)]: Yeah. Who is supposed to do their inspection?

[Speaker 0]: Depends on the it's privately owned? Right. Yeah. Well, I should have asked Michael. Dam safety.

[Ela Chapin (Member)]: Should be the dam safety, but they're, I think, on the hazard level, some of them, it's very long cycle or they Oh, it's a

[Sarah "Sarita" Austin (Clerk)]: high hazard. I'm just saying, it was just concerning to me to hear that it happened. And it's a high answer, considered a high answer.

[Speaker 0]: Alright, with that, we will adjourn for the afternoon.