Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Speaker 0]: Okay, we are back in Senate institutions. It's Tuesday, February 24, and we are now going to be speaking with folks from Department of Fish and Wildlife and looking at section nine of the capital bill. And we'll all, let's actually go around the room. So the folks on the community first and then everybody in the room and then people. So Wendy Harrison, I'm in the Windham District. Represent the Windham District.

[Senator Joseph "Joe" Major (Member)]: Joe Major, Windham District. Professional ice fisherman.

[Senator Russ Ingalls (Member)]: Yes. Sergeant Russ Ingalls, Essex District. John Benson, Orange District.

[Speaker 0]: Great. Do you want to start with you, Hola?

[Eric Palmer, Director of Fisheries, Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department]: Sure. I'm Eric Palmer, Director of Goodreads with Vermont Fish and Wildlife. Nice to see you again.

[Dylan Sickles, Fish Culture Operations Manager, Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department]: I'm Dylan Sickles. I'm the Fish Culture Operations Manager for the

[Mike McCroskey, Access Area Program Manager, Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department]: State of Vermont. Mike McCroskey, manage the access area

[Kevin Kelsey (public/former Fish & Wildlife staff)]: program. Thank you. Kevin Kelsey, used to do a fish and wildlife, but I'm

[Speaker 0]: just I'm just listening. Alright. Do you still care?

[Covey, Executive Director, Vermont Traditions Coalition]: I'm here. Covey, executive director of Vermont Traditions Coalition.

[Speaker 0]: Great. Thank you.

[Eric Palmer, Director of Fisheries, Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department]: Okay. How soon is that?

[Andrea Shortsleeve, Chief of Operations, Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department]: You got alumni coming to you.

[Eric Palmer, Director of Fisheries, Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department]: Yeah. I've been in our Grand Isle fish hatchery for

[Kevin Kelsey (public/former Fish & Wildlife staff)]: twenty eight years. Good

[Eric Palmer, Director of Fisheries, Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department]: for you.

[Senator Russ Ingalls (Member)]: The walleye program, which is

[Kevin Kelsey (public/former Fish & Wildlife staff)]: a set aside, I got all the permits for that project. We've had weed and Jim Richardson. Sure. I know Jim very well and had put in steelhead fish with him often in the past.

[Speaker 0]: Okay, so great.

[Andrea Shortsleeve, Chief of Operations, Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department]: Well, my name's Andrea Shortzleave and I am the Chief of Operations for the Department of Fish and Wildlife. So, we sent in a couple documents ahead of this testimony yesterday just to show where capital budget, where all of the money is obligated from '25 and '26, and then also our planned projects for '27. So, I'm happy to walk through the projects, or I can just answer questions that you may have.

[Speaker 0]: Yeah, that would be helpful. So there's two documents.

[Andrea Shortsleeve, Chief of Operations, Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department]: Are they

[Speaker 0]: one replace the other? No,

[Andrea Shortsleeve, Chief of Operations, Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department]: the one one that says with the logo on it, Vermont Fish and Wildlife Capital Budget Section nine. So those are the projects that we have obligated and contracted from FY '25 to '26. And then the second page is just our planned projects, our proposed projects for '27.

[Mike McCroskey, Access Area Program Manager, Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department]: Okay. Let's go through both of them. Okay. Great. So I'll start

[Andrea Shortsleeve, Chief of Operations, Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department]: with the 2526 document. We have a number of projects that are gonna be happening at our Green Mountain Conservation Camps. So that's Kehoe in and then Buckleek. And those are all gonna be completed by the time that camp season starts with the exception of fixing some bathroom moisture mitigation and Oh, I'm sorry. Excuse me,

[Speaker 0]: Sorry to interrupt. Can we get those up on the?

[Andrea Shortsleeve, Chief of Operations, Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department]: Unless you want to share your screen whichever way you want to do it. Yeah, didn't bring. Oh, do

[Eric Palmer, Director of Fisheries, Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department]: you wanna?

[Senator Russ Ingalls (Member)]: We could, if I, I can check it while run it up. Okay.

[Andrea Shortsleeve, Chief of Operations, Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department]: Let's put the pressure on that.

[Senator Russ Ingalls (Member)]: I'll check-in that here. This is the one with the first one's the one with a lower one.

[Mike McCroskey, Access Area Program Manager, Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department]: Yeah.

[Andrea Shortsleeve, Chief of Operations, Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department]: Yeah.

[Speaker 0]: Thanks everybody for your patience.

[Andrea Shortsleeve, Chief of Operations, Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department]: Perfect. So, yeah, that first section of projects are all at our conservation camps. A lot of it's just general maintenance, And the big thing to know would be the chlorination system that's gonna need to go in down the Kehoe Camp outside of Gasoline. Is that something new? It is something new. We're we're just experiencing, cal calflower calflora outbreaks. Calflora, yep. In the water system, and, so we needed to upgrade the system in order to make the drinking water, safe for the campers. Yeah. Super. Then moving down, we'll just have a couple projects at our residences and offices associated with our fish culture stations. And those are all just kind of regular maintenance upkeep. And the timing is based on the transition of tenants in and out of the buildings.

[Speaker 0]: And those are people you're talking about?

[Andrea Shortsleeve, Chief of Operations, Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department]: Yes. Not the fish. And then the next section, I'll hand over to Dylan. It's the section that addresses the capital projects that are fish culvert stations.

[Dylan Sickles, Fish Culture Operations Manager, Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department]: Yeah, I got a list here just like we see there on the screen. Our hatchery electrical work and our recirculation equipment at our Bald Hill facility is going introduce some upgrades there to maintain for both Walla Eye and other production systems there on-site. Different buildings we have on-site to make sure the power is where it needs to be. We also have some driveway and asphalt repairs and minor repairs on-site for the roads coming into the facility and all. Headbox drains listed for our Bennington facility, one of our larger projects we have on our list. It's about $730,000 what we estimated on that. It's actually to do some work on some of our ponds down there and maintain the side, just rebuild the ponds if you will. It's going involve a fair amount of concrete. This project, I'll highlight this one. We actually put it out to bid several times just two years ago. We had it out in the bid and it was listed for we assumed the cost would be even, of course, with part of funds and COVID costs and everything else that changed significantly. The initial bid we got back was $1,200,000 to the project. So we declined that bid, held out for a year, worked on some numbers with our staffing team, put it back out for bid again and it just came in under $660,000 or so. So we actually had a significant change in that by waiting a year to the numbers that come back into check if you will. So that's been beneficial. We will also be hiring an individual clerk of the works on that project. Large enough to want to make sure we have that project done complete and right. So we're going to have staff there to take care of that for us as well. So that's one of the bigger ones we have. The Bennington facility is also looking to epoxy coat some of their fish raceways. Over the years they start to get pitted and all from concrete and also sputum coating out of those tanks to make sure things stay clean. Biosecurity is recall for our facilities to make sure the fish are in their best condition going out the door. So we have that going on. Let's see here. Our roof there on one of our filter buildings needs to be replaced.

[Eric Palmer, Director of Fisheries, Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department]: So we're gonna take care

[Kevin Kelsey (public/former Fish & Wildlife staff)]: of that.

[Dylan Sickles, Fish Culture Operations Manager, Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department]: We got some larger trees that are on-site that we wanna take care of. Some time to be taking them down, know, the various critters that come through and feed our trees these days, we to make sure we take care of that. A new well-being put in place there as well to improve for water needs there along with some of our ideas stuff that may be coming down the line or trying to prepare for these kinds of discussions and points. Pump house electrical work at our headweed facility, our pole bar in there, our headweed facility. We've rebuilt the facility on-site there, Quonset Hut, if you will, to allow us to quarantine fish coming in from other spots. We want make sure we're safe as we can be there for bio security needs as well. So the staff there have been working almost day and night. It seems like for the last eight months to get that done. We're off against a critical window coming up that Kevin and Shirley are go in more detail on with a walleye around the hit here soon. And our staff want to make sure we're ready to go for that about less than a month or so for sure. So that's been a big problem for our staff there on-site. Wastewater treatment plant repair again we consider an interview facility we have an individual on-site there who I can speak for quite some time about who does our engineering stuff on-site. He can save the state hundreds of thousands of dollars by working on the projects we have there. I'm sorry, this waste treatment, wastewater treatment repair is one of those significant. So your flooring replacement at the Edweed facility, we had some work done on our visitor center area there, believe as well for that. We did a carriage barn move and repair of a foundation at a Roxbury facility, our oldest fish hatchery in the state. And that was actually moved off his foundation and repaired and went through our state historic preservation requirements and all that has been put back in place and put it back together at this point. We're going to do some work on a well line there and improve our water supply with the delivery well on-site there too. I'm gonna come back to the feasibility study in a second, but we're gonna have our well house have some repair at Salisbury, our lighthouse at Salisbury where we have our brood stock in house, the fish that we're gonna spawn, if you will, to make new fish, the fingerlings and baby fish come out the door. We have a light control building there that needs some repairs as well for that. So we've got some lights being replaced there and a new alarm system as well. We also had a list of items for some heavy equipment for a need of a trailer, a UTV at one of our properties. So we're trying to make sure we get those in place as well for our needs on-site. The one I skipped to come back to is our feasibility study in Salisbury, which you guys are well aware. We had our report come through last December talking about our facility needs there, our hatcheries and all, and the concerns about salary being able to get a permit. We are working directly with the EC these days a lot more closely to make that come together. We are hopeful that we'll come back and we'll get it from it and our current permits expires at the December. So we're working with them currently as we speak to make sure we have a permit in place for 2028. So we are looking to make sure Salisbury stays going in that process. We've also hired an outside independent consultant, a company called McMillan outside Idaho, who's coming to do a fish culture study with us or what we're calling our fish culture modernization plan to review all of our facilities and make sure we're doing the best we can with our projects on-site and all of our efficiencies that were put into place at those facilities as well. So that's currently in place as we speak. The study's gone going to be with them biweekly at this point and we should have our intention is to have the final report from our consultant by the June twenty sixth this year so we can have that to provide and share with you all as well.

[Speaker 0]: That's great. So are you confident? It sounds like you're confident that you'll get the permit.

[Unknown speaker (likely committee member or staff)]: I mean, obviously my end, I've done the wood around the room

[Dylan Sickles, Fish Culture Operations Manager, Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department]: here between the staff and Andrea and Eric, our director and all the other staff that are being involved in this, feel very confident we should be in a place to have them know.

[Speaker 0]: That's great, that was your

[Senator Russ Ingalls (Member)]: Complications have subsided as far as what the anxiety was before? Yeah, there

[Dylan Sickles, Fish Culture Operations Manager, Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department]: were some discussion about some wild biota as well, some bugs if you will in the creek. It is Kevin here in Pacific Island, we're a couple of that as well. Yes, we've gone through some of those processes to make sure we've had this conversation in DC and tried to move that forward if you will. So we get through that.

[Senator Russ Ingalls (Member)]: That's great.

[Speaker 0]: That's your rootstock place still, right? And you're happy with that? Mean you were happy with that, you're still happy

[Dylan Sickles, Fish Culture Operations Manager, Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department]: with that? Yes, that facility has the best water of all our facilities out there for ground marking. We definitely want to keep Salad River on our rain forest for a long time down the line.

[Speaker 0]: Yeah, and they're also, you've probably done this already, but there's a special thing about the fish too, how uncontaminated as fish they are. I know I'm not using

[Dylan Sickles, Fish Culture Operations Manager, Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department]: the right word. Sure, biosecurity is a huge part for our processes to make sure they're as clean as they can be, you know, the best fish coming out the door, we so do some disinfection requirements as we spawn it all in well, make sure we provide the best fish for our constituents across

[Eric Palmer, Director of Fisheries, Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department]: the state. Yes. Yeah. South Prairie is entirely well water. Right.

[Speaker 0]: So it's very water source. And water doesn't come from other places. Yeah.

[Eric Palmer, Director of Fisheries, Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department]: Because with the rootstock, they produce the eggs that go to all the other bad trees, they go everywhere in the state. And so we wanna make extra sure that those fish have a clean bill of health. So having that well water is a huge asset at the Salisbury facility.

[Speaker 0]: And the well is in good shape? Yes. And that's a different permit than the other permit, right? The well might not even need a

[Dylan Sickles, Fish Culture Operations Manager, Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department]: permit.

[Eric Palmer, Director of Fisheries, Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department]: No, we don't have a pumping permit of any sort for for using groundwater. We we need to rehabilitate the wells every couple years. We we you know, there there is more development in the watershed, so we're we're seeing some influences on groundwater, it's still really high quality water, good temperature parasite, pathogen free. Wonderful. So it's good. Just be your discharge permit, right? Right. The discharge permit was was the issue. And and again, working with our our sister department, DEC, we we seem to have a good path forward for moving the point at which the aquatic biota are assessed. A number of others say they've really been working well with us to come up with solutions. And yeah, I think we've got a great path forward. We're getting a new NPDES, National Pollution Discharge Elimination System permit. That's the key permit that we need to keep ourselves very, and all of our facilities open.

[Senator Russ Ingalls (Member)]: Yes, yes. And we're doing well with that. I mean, we're producing and we're putting out good product, obviously. I hear great things about it, but we're on a good path. I mean, we're looking to expand or at least keep up what we've been asked to do in the past if

[Dylan Sickles, Fish Culture Operations Manager, Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department]: it all went well. Yes. And one of the things we were looking at was the phosphorus concerns, so pushing this around. Our facility there, we're allowed within this, the shaven requirements and all as well for water quality needs 152 pounds a year if you will for phosphorus in our district we're down about 100 pounds so we'll need to look at that as we put into comparison we've seen this that's about equivalent with three Caliform should we call it. So our facilities at Greek California are out there for our facility for what we put out for discharge.

[Speaker 0]: Too bad you probably can't sell those pounds.

[Dylan Sickles, Fish Culture Operations Manager, Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department]: Yeah, happy to. You're out of the year, get, the year round goes off to another farmer's farm.

[Speaker 0]: Right, well I mean, get allocated.

[Dylan Sickles, Fish Culture Operations Manager, Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department]: Yeah. Okay. Great,

[Andrea Shortsleeve, Chief of Operations, Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department]: we can move down to our WMA improvement section. So, we with our capital request, we have a large just kinda pot of money for our WMA infrastructure just and we sold that out statewide. And we use all of that money to leverage federal funds so everything's matched with Pit and Rounds and dollars become free cold.

[Speaker 0]: Let me just start with it. Sure. So it's water management area, right? Wildlife management. Wildlife. Yeah, the

[Andrea Shortsleeve, Chief of Operations, Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department]: other side of our Makes more sense. Yep. And so this year we just finished some major roadwork and we completed a workshop down at the Dead Creek Wildlife Management Area in Addison. And that was a very large project and happy to have that completed. Looks great. And then, the next year we'll be focusing on road work in the West Mountain WMA and focusing a lot on dam infrastructure, dam maintenance, with our new dam safety rules. The next item is the contract with Weyerhaeuser. This is an agency wide contract and so this just reflects our fish and wildlife portion and that's for just annual road upkeep that we do every year, Rob Lee used to do every year.

[Speaker 0]: For that property?

[Andrea Shortsleeve, Chief of Operations, Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department]: Yeah, and it's a large kind of conglomeration of properties throughout the Northeast Kingdom. It's not all just one continuous property. And just, I wanted to flag that contract's being renegotiated in the next year and so there's gonna be new terms and I believe we're gonna have to be asking for a higher, for more from the capital bill just reflect the increase in cost for next year.

[Speaker 0]: Are those increases here or? No, no, this is

[Andrea Shortsleeve, Chief of Operations, Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department]: all projects that we've already obligated, yeah. But for the next time around, it'll be probably upwards of 100,000. We've also, we're replacing three roofs at the Sandbar Wildlife Management Area. We have an office and storage areas there that need to get replaced against the type of crutch. We're gonna have them done, but we just need to make sure we do them before the bats come back out of hibernation. So that'll be done this spring. The Slavic Wildlife Management Area, we had a FEMA match that we needed to pay, and the project's average is waiting on invoices from FEMA, and so that'll be zeroed out. And then the final item in this section is statewide dam repairs and maintenance, and the majority of this will be earmarked for Fairfield Swamp Wildlife Management Area. There's a dam there that's currently failing, and so we need to invest a little money in there to maintain it while we are using engineers to redesign an alternative of design. And so, engineers are expensive and just making sure that we maintain that dam while we come up with a new design. And then finally on the list are two boats that we asked for last year. One is an electro fishing vessel and currently right now our fisheries biologist, one of our biologist Sean Good, is actively working with BGS to get three bids and kind of put together the package of

[Speaker 0]: the boat that he wants. What is an electrofishing vessel?

[Andrea Shortsleeve, Chief of Operations, Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department]: I'll let Eric explain it. It could be you can do it a little more technically than I should. Sure.

[Eric Palmer, Director of Fisheries, Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department]: So first off, electric fishing is is a technique of of capturing fish alive and then being able to release them by putting an electric current through the water. Oh. And for a reason no one completely understands, if you put a current in the water that's a DC current, it's got a positive pole and a negative pole, and the fish gets stung, they actually swim towards the positive. So you you electrify the water, you know, 500 volts, low amperage. Fish swim towards the anode, and as they get closer, they get stunned, and you're able to net them up.

[Senator Russ Ingalls (Member)]: And in of my house. I'll wake my promenade last year Yep. And it was kinda cool.

[Eric Palmer, Director of Fisheries, Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department]: It gets really cool. And then once they're out of the field, they revive, and you can put it in a live well, measure them, weigh them, get, you know, scale samples off them to determine age, those sort of things. And then release them alive, and they they swim away. And so we do it in streams by using backpack shockers and little wands, and we do it in lakes with these big boats with the big generator mounted in them, and, the anodes are hanging off the front of the boat in the

[Senator Russ Ingalls (Member)]: Got a bright light on it

[Eric Palmer, Director of Fisheries, Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department]: as well. Bright lights. A lot of the fish, it's easier to catch them at night because they're more in the shallows, and we can see into the water better. But it's just a a technique for going out and sampling fish. And it it works really well.

[Speaker 0]: Can anybody buy one of those, or do you have to have a leg of those? That just seems

[Eric Palmer, Director of Fisheries, Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department]: It's illegal means of take. Okay. Or Yeah. So it

[Speaker 0]: Like, it wouldn't be

[Eric Palmer, Director of Fisheries, Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department]: expensive. You know? It's it's a 100,000

[Andrea Shortsleeve, Chief of Operations, Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department]: Yeah.

[Eric Palmer, Director of Fisheries, Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department]: For for one boat, but they last are are, you know, the last thirty years.

[Speaker 0]: So you have one now?

[Eric Palmer, Director of Fisheries, Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department]: We've got three of them. The oldest one is becoming unreliable, and frankly, it's cost prohibitive to try and bring that one back up to standards. So we're looking to replace one.

[Speaker 0]: So you're going to replace one with this, and that'll be your three stones?

[Eric Palmer, Director of Fisheries, Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department]: Yeah. Keep keep it at three, and and there's smaller models that are good for smaller ponds and large rivers, so we likely will be coming back in the next round with another request for electric fishing boats. Interesting.

[Speaker 0]: Do you do any work in the Connecticut River?

[Eric Palmer, Director of Fisheries, Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department]: Yeah. Yeah. You know, Connecticut's it's shared with New Hampshire. They own almost the entire

[Kevin Kelsey (public/former Fish & Wildlife staff)]: Right.

[Eric Palmer, Director of Fisheries, Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department]: River up.

[Dylan Sickles, Fish Culture Operations Manager, Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department]: It's a low water

[Eric Palmer, Director of Fisheries, Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department]: mark in the Vermont side. We work cooperative cooperatively with them, and there's some setbacks that are considered Vermont waters. And, yeah, we we elect to fish the the Connecticut River and and do a a lot of other cooperative work with the natural fishing game. And our wardens were and and New Hampshire has been very generous in allowing reciprocal fishing licenses for Vermont residents to fish the the Connecticut River, with a Vermont license. Okay. Doesn't apply to nonresidents, residents, Vermonters can fish the entire Connecticut River with the Vermont fishing.

[Andrea Shortsleeve, Chief of Operations, Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department]: That's good to know.

[Eric Palmer, Director of Fisheries, Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department]: Yeah. New Hampshire has been a great partner.

[Speaker 0]: And do we let New Hampshire I mean, I know they own the river, but

[Mike McCroskey, Access Area Program Manager, Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department]: Yeah.

[Eric Palmer, Director of Fisheries, Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department]: It's reserve on the Vermont side up to the first roadway crossing.

[Kevin Kelsey (public/former Fish & Wildlife staff)]: Yeah. Alright.

[Andrea Shortsleeve, Chief of Operations, Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department]: Thanks. Yeah. And just quickly, the last item on the list is a patrol vote for our gate wardens. So this is 50% of the cost. The other 50% is coming from the coast guard from the recreational boating safety grant. And so that's what we secured. Major Reed is just putting together she she did a lot of work upfront to get an accurate bid. So she's just putting the final touches on on that and should be ordered shortly.

[Speaker 0]: Great, and is that a replacement book?

[Andrea Shortsleeve, Chief of Operations, Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department]: Oh, that's a good question. I believe it is. But I would double check to make sure.

[Dylan Sickles, Fish Culture Operations Manager, Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department]: Pretty sure that

[Eric Palmer, Director of Fisheries, Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department]: the final idea you can get started. Yeah. Alright.

[Andrea Shortsleeve, Chief of Operations, Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department]: So that's our '25 to 20 '6 capital bill requests, just where all the projects are. Any questions on those? Well, can move on to the other document. These are our proposed projects for '27, and the majority, again, are within the fish culture program. Dylan, you want to go through them, that'd be helpful.

[Dylan Sickles, Fish Culture Operations Manager, Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department]: So we have our STAR facility run there. I noticed I was going keep them all together, unfortunately they're all over the place. I'll just jump back and forth. Our Edwidge facility is 30 years plus old at this point. It's built in '91, so needs some resurfacing going on there. And these are actually it's little interesting. It's in between our indoor raceways and our building. So we have asphalt in between there between the races that we need to review. So it's a very unique and tricky process there. We have to have somebody in there to help us out with that. That's coming up over the years. Our rock grid facility, we're looking at our new tanks there that we have in our pavilions, trying to epoxy both the concrete floors and the size of the tanks. That's the most recent facility that was built back in 2021, '19 or 2019, 2021 time frame. So we're gonna make sure we maintain the integrity of that building and

[Mike McCroskey, Access Area Program Manager, Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department]: the

[Dylan Sickles, Fish Culture Operations Manager, Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department]: tanks going in good condition moving forward. As well as Sierra Bald Hill, have some roof repair to us, some smaller sized buildings, different locations need to do that. We'll also painting on those as well. Let's see here. New facility, again, we've got our pump house, needs a roof repaired or replaced on attic and what they find on that process. Our Wall Hill facility, we're noticing there talks about plumbing lines in from the Beambrook to the ponds with our MPDS conversations at this point in time. Fallwood Hill is one of our facilities that does not have an MPDS permit at this point. We anticipate more discussion with VUCN and more likely we'll probably be looking to, they'll probably be looking to have us have a rent there. So we're gonna try some different options there to try to improve our water quality as we go as that's part of what that project is. Our AWD facility again after thirty years the visitor center and staff you know bathrooms there looks like needs some repairs and improvements. That project actually we had asked for more in that line, but you'll notice in the next slide there it says walleye program needs. This is part of that conversation that's going on back with all of us with the Lake Champlain Walleye Association. And there was $25,000 that was swit out to them in the past that would come out. It's going be within our capital request going forward. That's what that's

[Speaker 0]: And that was what we decided last year. Maybe the year before.

[Dylan Sickles, Fish Culture Operations Manager, Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department]: So that's what that is. We make sure we make that actually a line item and show that in there. For that 25,000, we are actually working on our walleye system to make sure we have the best process going forward there. See our rock grid facility looking at reusing some of the water between some of the outside tanks and improve water quality there for some of the needs. Our facilities are involved, are in need of storage and removal of chemicals we have on-site. Some of the things are out, excuse me, old and outdated and need to be taken off-site. Unfortunately, that costs a decent amount these days for hazmat requirements, everything else that goes with that. So we're able to improve our facilities there with that. And that automatic door, excuse me, for one of our doors on our new facility, again, in the age of just repairing that repairs through a shop chimney in our Bennington facility and estimates of that. Again, our Rossbury facility has another extended and lower reuse line in the effluent building or inflow building they're going. And basically what they're saying is that when they open up this line, it's not used all the time. There's build up in that we'd like to make sure we do the best to clean that water coming into our process before it comes back into our system so so it'll be an extension of that line to do so requires excavation underneath a little bit to make that happen. The next line down is one that's pretty important we have our a vessel to make triploid fish eggs. And so we are able to make fish sterile when they go out the door for various needs for our management program. Although it does require a specialized vessel that can withstand high pressures of up over 10,000 pounds per square inch. So it's very specific technique that's used by our staff and he's a vessel that can handle that requirement. We are looking at an updated version of the system we have on-site there. In this case vessel doesn't mean like

[Eric Palmer, Director of Fisheries, Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department]: a boat.

[Dylan Sickles, Fish Culture Operations Manager, Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department]: Right. No. It means a small

[Speaker 0]: Yeah.

[Senator Russ Ingalls (Member)]: Like a

[Speaker 0]: tank. I was imagining, like, this

[Senator Russ Ingalls (Member)]: A

[Dylan Sickles, Fish Culture Operations Manager, Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department]: pressure chamber. Yeah.

[Speaker 0]: So

[Dylan Sickles, Fish Culture Operations Manager, Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department]: it'd be a cylinder within the cylinder, and then basically we put all the baby fish eggs there, you know, then we spawn out for this process. We're trying to make AAA, we and put them in this chamber and then pressurize that chamber which then creates the triploid process. Very,

[Eric Palmer, Director of Fisheries, Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department]: very specific time as the embryo is developed and changes the genetics.

[Speaker 0]: Are they?

[Eric Palmer, Director of Fisheries, Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department]: They look the same.

[Dylan Sickles, Fish Culture Operations Manager, Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department]: They grow everything the same.

[Unknown speaker]: They just are not part of

[Speaker 0]: it. Wow.

[Eric Palmer, Director of Fisheries, Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department]: And yeah. That's interesting. It's to protect the wild fish in Vermont. Right. Mean, it's not happy fish. They won't interbreed. Yeah.

[Dylan Sickles, Fish Culture Operations Manager, Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department]: So it's pretty important to our needs there so we make sure we have that as well. Let's see if I have more there. Again, epoxying some of our starter troughs under Bennington facility. So the last project we did some work to improve the concrete on some of the tanks. Now we have some other tanks we have to work on. So a couple of projects we may go up about the same tire between the two year knees we have there. Looking at our Roxbury facility, found that some of the drain lines on our upper building here, we have two different buildings there with tanks and all. The upper buildings don't have as large a drain. Unfortunately, it was not spec ed in as large as we've realized now that we need it, so we're going go back and try to improve that to improve fish quality and help on those tanks and water quality as well. That's what that project will be there for Roxbury. We have some repairs needed for ADA requirements and needs there as well as facility doors to improve that as well. And then our facilities across the board, again, we've been working to get a trailer and a UTV, if you will, for our properties. And we'll have some short distance needs where it'd be better to save on gasoline and other things there, long trips used to pickup truck and a smaller UTV would work better on-site for those needs as well. I think this, oh, the last one is replacing galvanized bolts so that over time it started to rust out so we need to repair our building there on-site as well.

[Andrea Shortsleeve, Chief of Operations, Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department]: Great, thanks Dawn. So the next item, don't know Mike, if you want to say anything about creating access areas for ADA compliance? Sure, two

[Mike McCroskey, Access Area Program Manager, Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department]: or three years ago, we wrote a plan to basically create a roadmap of taking our two zero five access areas and creating accessible features, parking, accessible routes to docks or fishing platforms. And so we, our goal is to have 50% of our access areas be ADA compliant, I think by 2028 or '29. So we utilize these funds to replace or upgrade docks, put in transition plates, maybe do some small paved parking lots or parking spaces, should say. So we spread this money around the state just to upgrade and replace kind of deteriorating infrastructure. A good example is we've got a beautiful fishing platform down in Cavendish on the Nabrook WMA, and it's an old, probably 30 year old paved walkway that gets you down to fishing platform and it's just, it's deteriorating. So we actually went out there last summer and met with a woman who is out there almost on a daily basis. She's wheelchair bound and we just had a great conversation about how we can improve that site and just repaving and creating better park paving and that sort of thing. So we have several sites identified and then occasionally when they have interactions like this, we always take that opportunity to upgrade a facility to ensure that it is accessible and meets the needs of our anglers and riders.

[Speaker 0]: I have a couple questions on that. How many places do you have?

[Mike McCroskey, Access Area Program Manager, Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department]: We have two zero five fishing access areas. They could be anything from small kind of roadside pull off where it's almost just kind of road shoulder parking to our Mallets Bay access in Colchester, you

[Senator Russ Ingalls (Member)]: can

[Mike McCroskey, Access Area Program Manager, Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department]: fit 150 to 175 units of trailers.

[Speaker 0]: Yeah, Mallets Bay is pretty So

[Mike McCroskey, Access Area Program Manager, Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department]: it's huge.

[Senator Russ Ingalls (Member)]: Yeah.

[Mike McCroskey, Access Area Program Manager, Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department]: That's not really the norm. Yeah. We probably average 10 to 15 parking spaces on average at our access areas, 11 are lot smaller.

[Speaker 0]: Yeah, I've been just really surprised at the variety between the spaces. I moved here from Florida eleven years ago. Went to Windham County. I went to the Connecticut River sites and I thought, oh, I guess we just don't have good sites in Vermont. It was just what I assumed. We actually do have a lot of voting in Vermont. I'm on the bottom more here than I was in Florida. But then I went to Paramount Reservoir and I was like, oh my gosh, this is what we need. I mean, that is a beautiful facility. It has all kinds of parking. It has the dock that goes out and it's just much much higher level of service.

[Mike McCroskey, Access Area Program Manager, Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department]: So that's not ours. Hermann And Somerset Reservoir, those are owned and operated by utility companies. We don't have anything to do with those. On your way home, you get off Exit 5 in Springfield, where you just about cross over the Connecticut into New Hampshire, Mallets Bay, or sorry, our Points Landing access area. It's our biggest access in the southern half of the state. It's right off the interstate, probably a quarter mile. We've got a fishing platform, we've got two ramps, a dock. It's really accessible to ensure fishing and loading. That's a really popular site. We do have a lot of others along the Connecticut. Some are a lot smaller, most are a lot smaller than that.

[Speaker 0]: And pretty rad, honestly. Like the asphalt just ends and then there's a big drop and it doesn't feel safe.

[Mike McCroskey, Access Area Program Manager, Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department]: I suspect those are not ours.

[Speaker 0]: Oh, well the one for sure is in Brarborough. It has your sign on it.

[Mike McCroskey, Access Area Program Manager, Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department]: Okay.

[Speaker 0]: But I don't want to get into detail, but I just, I'm glad that we have something better than what I've seen. I will check that out.

[Mike McCroskey, Access Area Program Manager, Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department]: Yeah, we've done some new improvements in the Putney area. There's two Putney and Demerston Landing are two access areas that are kind of, you get to one and then you kind of go past a cornfield to another and they're both new ramps that are less than, I

[Senator Russ Ingalls (Member)]: think, five years old, both of them.

[Andrea Shortsleeve, Chief of Operations, Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department]: Okay.

[Mike McCroskey, Access Area Program Manager, Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department]: So there there are some good spots. Yeah. But I'm not

[Speaker 0]: Okay.

[Mike McCroskey, Access Area Program Manager, Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department]: Naive to think that every one of our spots is is ideal and perfect.

[Eric Palmer, Director of Fisheries, Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department]: No. Just just to put a a plug in, Vermont is is in a really good place in that the the department went out in the nineteen fifties and sixties and and bought access sites at just about every public water body in the state. Okay. So there's only a few lakes in Vermont where the access is not owned by Fish and Wildlife Department or, you know, sometimes there's there's private access here as well and large water bodies. But, really, it's just like Little April, Gaskin Lake. There's only a couple water bodies where we we have bought property. We don't have that guaranteed public access to public water. So the department really got out of bed. Most states don't have that.

[Senator Russ Ingalls (Member)]: Most states So I tell people that all the time, and then we're all skating. Want you know? Yeah. We we have access.

[Eric Palmer, Director of Fisheries, Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department]: Right. Most states, you you're going over private property. You're paying a fee. Mhmm. You know? It's or you just can't get on the thing because it's it's entirely locked up in private ownership. So one is in a great position with our our access program. And while there's places where we'd like to improve, buying lakefront property Yeah. It's not only super expensive, it's it's it's really hard to find. Right. The the last large access area we we built on on Lake Champlain cost us over a million dollars just to to acquire the property. Yeah. So so, yeah, it it's we we'd like to have nicer access areas in some places, but what we've got is really pretty good.

[Speaker 0]: Well, is really good to know, and I don't mean to be negative, but I just wanted to let you know what I had seen, so

[Unknown speaker (likely committee member or staff)]: We always wanna know because,

[Kevin Kelsey (public/former Fish & Wildlife staff)]: you know, we go out

[Mike McCroskey, Access Area Program Manager, Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department]: and we inspect our sites every spring and every fall, and there are times when, you know, it's more of an inner shield kind of get out, look around a little bit. I'm always welcome to hear from boaters and anglers because they're the ones that know these sites best. Yeah. They're the ones that are in the water and are experiencing things that you might not be able to see easily unless you're physically in the water. Yeah.

[Eric Palmer, Director of Fisheries, Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department]: Especially if you feel like a a place has something that's unsafe. You know? Like, sometimes you get what we call the prop wash hole. Yeah. People are using their their boat motor to push their boat back up on the trailer, and it digs out a hole right at the end of the ramp. And we we go out, you know, we we get those filled in. Those those can be a hazard for boaters who back up a little too far in their trailer.

[Speaker 0]: Right.

[Eric Palmer, Director of Fisheries, Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department]: Wheels drop in there. So if if you ever feel that if there's something unsafe at a site, please call us up. Alright.

[Andrea Shortsleeve, Chief of Operations, Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department]: Will do. Right on. Thank you. And just to put a final touch on the the ADA accessibility, got a really nice email last year from a family in New Hampshire that had a paraplegic daughter, and they would come to Vermont to some of our sites, it was the only place within a reasonable distance that they could get their daughter on a boat. Just happy to be providing that kind of access to the That's great. Then the last items, the last four items on the list, I've spoken a little bit about the chlorination system at Kehoe, so in the previous bill that was for the design for that chlorination system and this would be for installing it. And then for the stuff with the wildlife division would be just, again, the routine infrastructure maintenance on our wildlife management areas. So, continuing the road work, and then on the Weyerhaeuser agreement, and then working again statewide to complete our assessments for the dam safety rules

[Kevin Kelsey (public/former Fish & Wildlife staff)]: to keep it to effect. Yes. One question. I know it's not your facility, and I haven't been there in a number of years, but the federal hatchery, the last time I was there, it was underutilized. They didn't know what's going on there, whether there's any opportunity to use some of that facility for your purposes and where that sits.

[Eric Palmer, Director of Fisheries, Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department]: I'll defer. Well, yeah. So so the US Fish and Wildlife Service actually owns two federal fish statues, what they call National Fish and Wildlife. Yeah. One in that called, you know, called the White River Facility, and then there's there's one called the Eisenhower Facility that's over in, kind of Chitneyland, I believe. It's we call it the Pittsburgh facility, but it's not actually Pittsburgh. Provide a wet one. And, yeah, the the White River facility, it was constructed for the Atlantic River Salmon Respiration Program. Senator Leahy and his, you know, largess kind of said, here's here's the money you need to build this. And when the the program ended from, you know, lack of successful returns of adult salmon, the the service plan to to repurpose that facility. It was concurrent with tropical storm Irene coming and flooding the facilities, so they had to rebuild it. And they they found a few things that they're they're doing there. They're they're doing some salmon research for Lake Champlain, trying to to raise a strain of salmon that are able to eat alewives, which are an invasive species that's now in the lake, if salmon eat too many alewives, not to get too complicated, the alewives have an enzyme that breaks down thiamine, vitamin B1. If the salmon eat enough alewives, they end up with a thiamine deficiency and they can't reproduce. They still spawn, but the eggs don't, they die. They hatch out and they just land the bottom and die. So they've been doing research with thiamine resistant strain of salmon. They were raising lake trout for in the Great Lakes. But, yeah, it's a large facility. It's a really expensive facility. Again, pump driven. Costs a lot of money. At one point, they offered it to us, and and we said no because of how expensive it is to run and because they offered it to us on, like, a five year lease. We're like, we can't build a program around. You know, maybe they'll get I was just curious because

[Kevin Kelsey (public/former Fish & Wildlife staff)]: I knew that it wasn't being fully utilized anymore. But

[Eric Palmer, Director of Fisheries, Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department]: Right. They're they're still looking for opportunities to use that, and they're also considering shutting it down. And so I think it's an ongoing discussion, but yeah, it's original purpose was for the Salmon Residation Program.

[Dylan Sickles, Fish Culture Operations Manager, Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department]: The hatchery, federal hatchery program overall is looking at a review as well for the facilities. Of course, everything else went out to the federal government right now, in Boston, everything else, that's just a special one here. Yeah.

[Eric Palmer, Director of Fisheries, Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department]: They've they've been again, they've been great partners. The Eisenhower facility raises some some light truck for us to stock in some of our smaller inland waters. They're they're great. They've been really good to work with.

[Andrea Shortsleeve, Chief of Operations, Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department]: If there's ever

[Speaker 0]: an opportunity to purchase some federal something that they're getting rid of, do you have that ability?

[Eric Palmer, Director of Fisheries, Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department]: If if they would give us the Eisenhower facility, the small one over on front that probably might be interested. The White River, it's it's too big. It's too expensive. It doesn't

[Senator Russ Ingalls (Member)]: It's not like federal government.

[Eric Palmer, Director of Fisheries, Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department]: Yeah. So, you know, they again, they've been good partners. They're holding this the same line of leg trout rootstock, you know, the fish that we get eggs from that we used to have at Salisbury. And so we've been able to eliminate that line at Salisbury because we can get the eggs from the US Fish and Wildlife Service, which helps us meet discharge permits. Know, there's there's lots of ways we work closely with them, but we we don't want that facility. Okay. It's

[Speaker 0]: Alright. I just want you to be ready if there is an opportunity.

[Senator Russ Ingalls (Member)]: So

[Eric Palmer, Director of Fisheries, Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department]: Oh, yeah. Yeah. We we can do Okay. All the They they come to our tissue culture meetings. The the federal employees, we're we're in close communications with them. Can I ask you

[Senator Russ Ingalls (Member)]: a question about last year's appropriations for the walleye? Do you guys know if that's been extended yet?

[Dylan Sickles, Fish Culture Operations Manager, Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department]: We were actually having a conversation with Chad Lambert, the walleye champlain association, individual there, president. There's been a discussion back forth about the invoice. So we're at the point I signed it today. So I'm really sorry. He and I'm talking back and forth and it's just internal figuring out where to get it to and all that. There'll be equipment hopefully showing up at our Edwee facility and our Boyle Hill facility, which is where that funds sort of in the back end. We all work together in tandem with that. But, yes, it's in the process.

[Senator Russ Ingalls (Member)]: I thank you for that program. I I thank you guys for all the people who are a big fisher wildlife advocate. But, know, up in the Northeast Kingdoms, we have seen a lot of different people coming up into that area, fishing for walleye that we've never seen before. So it makes a difference.

[Dylan Sickles, Fish Culture Operations Manager, Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department]: It really does. And I

[Senator Russ Ingalls (Member)]: I think that's the credit that you guys don't get is and I don't know that it really is ever really probably associated for what you folks bring into the state as far as for other travelers and, you know, coming here to fish our fisheries and hunt our hunt our game and be able to see them all the time. I do appreciate what you

[Kevin Kelsey (public/former Fish & Wildlife staff)]: do. Do

[Speaker 0]: we have anything else? Are we good? No, that's all. Alright, and so we'll have you back when we get to capital though. Okay. This is very helpful to start.

[Andrea Shortsleeve, Chief of Operations, Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department]: It. It's gorgeous.

[Kevin Kelsey (public/former Fish & Wildlife staff)]: Yes.

[Eric Palmer, Director of Fisheries, Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department]: Okay, thank you.

[Speaker 0]: Alright, thank you. Okay. And what will it say?

[Kevin Kelsey (public/former Fish & Wildlife staff)]: And the

[Speaker 0]: speaker won't go off.