Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Unidentified Committee Member]: Okay,

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Chair)]: welcome. This is Senate Institutions. Today is 03/10/2026. And today we'll be speaking with Molly Flanagan of the Green Mountain Club. And then we'll also be discussing S-one 100 '93 and we might talk about H-fifty also. So we'll introduce ourselves to you, so Wendy Harrison and I represent the Windham District.

[Sen. Robert Plunkett (Vice Chair)]: And I'm Rob Plunkett, Peninsula District. Joe Major, Windsor District.

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Chair)]: Just in time.

[Sen. Russ Ingalls (Member)]: Russ Ingalls, Essex District. John Benson, Orange District.

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Chair)]: Great, nice Thank you for being here and let us know what you think we should know about the Nutrigue Manager. Thank you. Great, thank you. Thanks so much for having me. I am Molly Flanagan, the Director of Land Proactivation at Dream Mountain Club.

[Molly Flanagan (Green Mountain Club, Director of Land Protection)]: Thank you so much Chair Heisman and all the members of the community for undiagnostic coming this afternoon. I'll just share my brief slide deck, you have something else to look at. So, let's see. Okay, that'll do it for now. Great, well, Green Mountain Club submitted our annual report on the status of the Long Child Protection Campaign back in January. I brought hard copies, if you'd like to see that for the break end. It's time to round. Thank you so much. So, a summary is included in that written report, but I appreciate the opportunity to come in today, of course to answer any questions that you have, and to give you an opportunity to hear about the historical context behind this work, why we come to every year to talk about long tail protection, recent long tail protection successes, and how GMC is approaching this effort going forward. So 2026 marks the fortieth year that we've been working on this partnership together. It's quite a milestone. The Vermont General Assembly and Green Mountain Club undertook this long ago protection campaign, a bold vision as it was summarized by the general assembly, a unique historic and irreplaceable resource whose protection is of a great benefit to the people of the state of Vermont. That was a joint revolution in 1985 that stated that the General Assembly supports the efforts of the Green Mountain Club to protect the long trail system. So when we started this effort, only 66% of the long trail was on protected land. The rest was on private land where private land owners could manage their land if they will. So that was about 90 miles of the long trail. And here is a map. The map on the left shows Northern Vermont, so Camel's Hump is in the bottom portion of the map, and the green is this conserved land at that point in 1986. All of the gray land was privately held property, so the long trail is the red dashed line in the middle. Most of the trail in Northern Vermont was across private land. The map on the right hand side is the current status in 2025, where the yellow particles are the conserved lands that together the Long Trail Protection Campaign had brought under protection. The green parcels are other conserved lands that have been protected through other efforts. So in the last forty years, we have worked together with private landowners, the Vermont Department of Forest, Parks and Recreation, and other conservation organizations to legally protect over 80 miles of the Long Trail system, conserve more than 25,000 acres of land, add over 16,000 into the Vermont State Forest system, all through over a 100 different real estate transactions. Most of this work has happened in Northern Vermont. Some of it has happened South of Campbell's Hump, but it's just too hard to show on a map, so I edited it just to show Northern Vermont where the per congress the work has been. The General Assembly has been key in making all of this work possible over the last forty years by contributing over $3,500,000 in appropriation funding through the state's capital bill over the years. Lots can and has changed in forty years, but the value that the Longshore system brings to the state still holds true, and so does the importance of protecting that landscape to make it a world class making destination. So thank you for continuing to choose to support this initiative. So where do we stand today? There are four and a half miles of long trails still on private property with no legal protective. So that's spread across about 14 different parcels. So it's 300 feet there, 1,000 feet there. I think our largest chunk is just under a mile and a half. And that spread through the northernmost part of the state, south to the southernmost part of the street. It's literally statewide effort. The long trail is now 98% legally protected, so that's up from 66% protected when we started this effort four years ago. So our work together has been tremendously successful. But the thing about a long distance hiking trail is that every foot matters to make the system work. And so until all two seventy two miles of long trail are legally secured, there will remain a risk to the character, continuity and the public access of the zero system. In addition to the long trail proper, GMC manages 173 miles of side trails. So those are hiking trails that in general run from the valley up to the bridge line, and they offer a diversity of day and loop hiking opportunities towards the state. Of those 173 miles of side trails, just over 12 miles are on private land, and that's spread across about 26 different private parcels, also scattered across the whole state. Now most of the hikers that are on the Green Mountains in any given weekend are out there as day hikers, to enjoy the splendor of the mountains for a few hours rather than overnight. And so these side trails make all those day hikes possible and are of tremendous value to the state. And so GMC is committed to also seeking legal protection for those side trails. Finally, the club is looking into protecting the full trail corridor, which we define as 500 feet on either side of the trail, to protect the remote and natural character of the trail, keep it a place where people want to recreate. So there's about 85 miles of side of the long trail. There's 85 miles of long trail where we don't have that full 500 foot buffer for the trail. So we're seeking to cultivate the land protection projects where possible, and those are spread over 300 plus properties. And we're reaching out to those landowners, being interested in cultivating a land protection project with us. So in the last year, GMC has successfully wrapped up the Deer Camp Tracks project, which is in Johnson. This map shows the location of the property that is now fully wrapped up and added to the Long Trail State Forest. It's just South of Plot Road in Johnson. If you know the trail, it's just North of Round Pop Shelter. So this year we did the last step of the project, was incorporating it into the Long Trail State Forest with a GMC and Vermont Housing and Conservation Board retained conservation easement for the Long Trail on the property. This project was financed through a unique opportunity, one that we were lucky to take advantage of, but probably won't happen again. There were long trail protection funds available because in 2023, two properties down in the Killington Chittenden area that were part of the Coolidge State Forest were transferred into the Green Mountain National Forest and $85,000 became available because of that transfer. The project was also supported by a grant from the Vermont Outstanding Constitution of Orange. So GMC purchased the property in 2024 from a private buyer and we held it for a year to keep it off the real estate market until the state was ready to take ownership of it. It's a small but mighty property. It's only 12 acres. But as I said earlier, every foot matters. And so 300 feet of the Long Trail property, it fills in a gap in the Long Trail State Forest because the State Forest is to the south and east of the Deer Camp project. It provides additional road access and management opportunity for the state road system and it adds that forested buffer of 500 feet for the Long Trail. Another project that is in development this year is the Mad River Corporation land in Stasten. You've probably heard about this in the news. The corporation's land is outlined in blue on this map, and in 2025, a private buyer put in an offer on the property, and that gave Mad River's Glen's ski cooperative an opportunity to consider exercising their right of first refusal on the property. And they decided to go for it. And so very quickly within about five or six months, they raised the funds needed to buy that property and just closed on it late last month. It was huge effort of that community and creates an opportunity to bring it under conservation. The ski area has committed to placing a conservation easement on the property, which is very exciting because it's a beloved skiing resource, the Paddle Mount Trails process, eastern portion of it down near the road, and the long trail process, the western portion of it up by the ridge line. It's 1,100 acres and the Green Mountain Club has been coordinating closely with Bad River Glen to help educate them about what conservation looks like and offer ourselves the resource, and we are working with them for their future plan, hopefully an aggravation piece went on it, will protect the 300 feet of the long trail that are on that property. So looking ahead, the Green Mountain Club is devoting a renewed focus to long trail system protection, thanks to a strategic conservation plan GMC adopted in 2023. There's a little web address link on your handout if you're curious to learn more. There's some cool maps and stuff to explore on that. It's also just on our website, but it's our vision of how to carry long trail protection work forward. Protecting long trail is a top priority for the Green Mountain Club, however, we must work at the pace of willing private landowners. So, each property that hosts the trail has unique circumstances that require time to curate and develop the right land acquisition opportunity. GMC is continuing to aim for full conservation of the properties by purchasing the land outright, and where appropriate, adding it to the state court system, which is how we've largely done this work to date. However, some properties are more appropriate for a conservation easement or a trail right of way easement, where the landowner can retain ownership, but the trail can be legally protected. And so, in short, we're using every tool in our toolbox to design scale protection projects that are right for the hiking trail and for the landowner to achieve our long term goal of protecting the trail systems. And we're working statewide within each community. This is a map that shows basically the same properties as the table on the back of your handout, which just summarizes kind of the number of properties in different counties that we're doing. It's very hard

[Unidentified Committee Member]: to show a

[Molly Flanagan (Green Mountain Club, Director of Land Protection)]: map of the long trail on a statewide system, so I always struggle and I apologize, it's But not we have priorities statewide that we're trying to pursue. At this time, unfortunately none of them are actionable, none of them are on various approaches and failure agreements, and so I can't speak about any of them specifically, and we have no funding requests, no project support to ask for with this legislative session, but we really appreciate the opportunity to do an update and I look forward to coming to you in future years when we do have actionable projects for your consideration. That's wonderful. I'd be delighted to answer any questions, but really appreciate your time. Thank you.

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Chair)]: Thank you. And we've heard about how just access to nature and trails is economic development as well as something good for our residents and good for the environment. Yeah, there's multiple reasons. Yeah. So, thank you for your work. Does anyone have questions?

[Unidentified Committee Member]: No, just have a comment. Thank you for not asking for money.

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Chair)]: I know, that's crazy. This was very, very challenging. I know. There's virtue. I'm not at your list. Others. Just hear it.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: Just to hear it. Yeah. She's not acting so she's a good doer. Yes.

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Chair)]: Yes. But you're also here, so we won't forget about you next year. Yeah, yeah. Very good plan. You know, we've had a long partnership and, you know, we understand things can change over forty years, we hope that we can continue partnering to bring this long term goal. You know, we're all carrying a torch handed to us from other people. Right. It's a good way to look good.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: What is the 40 miles? You said 40 miles that isn't projected?

[Molly Flanagan (Green Mountain Club, Director of Land Protection)]: 4.5. 4.5, sorry.

[Unidentified Committee Member (ID 2)]: What is the status of

[Unidentified Committee Member (ID 3)]: a lot of that? Is they saying, Just use it, I don't want it to be out of my control? What's open

[Molly Flanagan (Green Mountain Club, Director of Land Protection)]: Yeah, it really varies by the property. They all have their unique needs in them. Some of them are institutions and they aren't willing to give up any kind of role, but their mission is very aligned with public access. Some of them are they have a family that's been on their land for generations and they wanna continue to give their future generations every opportunity manage the property as they see fit. So, they just don't like the idea of restricting future opportunities. So, it really varies. But we're taking a relationship based creative approach and so we're looking to use any tool that we can throw at it.

[Unidentified Committee Member (ID 4)]: Doesn't sound like any of it's at risk.

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Chair)]: We don't think any of it is critical. It's all important to you, but none of it keeps me up at night worrying that some property will get posted.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: Yeah. When my son's picked the whole thing, finished Oh, the last

[Molly Flanagan (Green Mountain Club, Director of Land Protection)]: nice. Last summer was tough because it was so dry. People were running out of water in, like, the August, so was

[Unidentified Committee Member]: Good weather.

[Molly Flanagan (Green Mountain Club, Director of Land Protection)]: Some people manage to hike the whole long trail without any rain. Just a huge experience. Gotta get pumped right That's on people experience. Yeah. Well, thank you so much.

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Chair)]: Thank you. We appreciate it. Thanks to see everyone. I think we need this meeting. All right, so we're gonna take a just ten minute break until 01:30 when we have the next folks.