Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Unidentified committee member]: And it's the same country as that, except it's smaller.

[Senator Kesha Ram Hinsdale]: Well, same artist, Terry. Same artist.

[Senator Anne Watson (Chair)]: I'll be real black. But same with this.

[Senator Scott Beck (Clerk)]: I

[Senator Terry Williams (Vice Chair)]: can I'm gonna have to leave it about ten after as you can talk.

[Senator Anne Watson (Chair)]: Oh, so

[Unidentified committee/staff speaker]: in five minutes? Yep. Okay.

[Senator Anne Watson (Chair)]: Not to worry. Just so you all are aware, I'm gonna need to leave at ten to go present something in the house.

[Unidentified committee member]: Well, we'll be here.

[Senator Anne Watson (Chair)]: Okay, so good morning. This is an Enough Resources Energy and it is, oh gosh, it is March 19.

[Unidentified committee member]: How did

[Senator Anne Watson (Chair)]: that happen? And we are starting boarding time about S-three '28, which was really, it's really an economic development bill, which is somewhere, maybe finance, we don't have it.

[Senator Kesha Ram Hinsdale]: Oh, that's right. Yeah. I would have to look to finance it's not appropriate. I think it's appropriate.

[Senator Anne Watson (Chair)]: But you enjoyed my Senator Rutland Hillsdale. Thank you.

[Senator Kesha Ram Hinsdale]: Welcome. Thank you. Always nice to be on Senate

[Senator Anne Watson (Chair)]: Natural Resources.

[Senator Kesha Ram Hinsdale]: For the record, Senator Felicia Rutlanddale. I am not the main reporter of S-three 28, our chair is, but she asked me to report, I believe the two sections that are most under consideration by your committee, and I'm happy to go through more elements of the bill, but my basic overview, and this is probably where this is related to us, 03/25 as well, is we passed the Home Act, then we passed Act 181 in back to back sessions. And I want to give Senator Bongartz a lot of credit for the original language of the Home Act. And I think every year since we've been asked, what did you mean by that? And I actually have said, on the public record in multiple towns that have debated what we meant by a wrong water and sewer. So at some point, I think I said on the public record, I need to go back and make sure we're clarifying our legislative intent because I can't speak for the entire legislature about what we meant. But we underscored in our testimony over and over again, this session before this bill came to you, that we, number one, wanna harmonize the Home Act of Act 181. So you shouldn't face one exemption to build or how many units you can construct under municipal regulation and then a totally different regulation for Act two fifty. And we're talking about the road rule while we're talking about what does it mean to be along a road that has water and sewer? So the overall goal was to try and do as much harmonizing as possible and to really recognize, and this I think was underscored in both of our committees during the drafting of these bills, that we have about 41 square miles of water and sewer infrastructure in the state. It is an incredibly precious resource and it is an incredibly precious resource that the federal government, state government and municipal taxpayers have all paid for. And so even I believe in some of the original language that's been, that gave rise to the Home Act, we contemplated allowing a, what I would call a quadplex by right when you're building a long water and sewer. So this would essentially, and we talked to our committees about the size of a barn, that we are not trying to talk about vast new opportunities for development, but we have seen water and sewer hookups used as a real inflection point to stop multifamily housing from being built. I will, like, I sometimes use the example of a car wash in my area on Route 7. I use the car wash, car wash is not an eyesore in any such way, but it was a bowling alley and it was slated to be about 19 units of housing. And there was a lot of commotion about the water use, etcetera. And what didn't need was a new Act two fifty permit to become another commercial project. So they gave up on the housing and it became a car wash, which I

[Unidentified committee member]: think uses a lot of water.

[Senator Kesha Ram Hinsdale]: So I don't think we're necessarily meeting our environmental goals by stopping housing from being able to get access to water and sewer where there is capacity, which we wrote over and over again in this room what we meant by capacity. But given the capacity, I really wanna be able to say this precious infrastructure needs to be accessed by multi family housing if you would otherwise allow a single family house to be built on the same site. They need to allow out to board. So from there, I see that you have made some changes, but I don't automatically enlarge. I

[Senator Anne Watson (Chair)]: was just saying, because we've there's I would love to tell you about the change that we're contemplating. But if you have I don't want to cut you off though if you have more to say about, like, the other changes or anything?

[Senator Kesha Ram Hinsdale]: Is the only other change? So then the other thing I think was under consideration in your committee was around manufactured housing by rights. I'm not sure if that's touched in this amendment. We can talk more about that if you'd like. And then, I mean, I was on the farm worker task force that we had last year. So I welcome certainly ensuring that we don't negatively impact and hopefully positively impact the creation of safe housing, safe, modernized housing for governments. Yes, yes.

[Senator Anne Watson (Chair)]: No, absolutely. So we're not, yeah, not touching anything with the manufactured housing in this amendment. Are you looking at the draft 2.1 of the amendment?

[Senator Kesha Ram Hinsdale]: Yes.

[Unidentified committee member]: Yeah, okay. So,

[Senator Anne Watson (Chair)]: yeah, it's, so the second instance of amendment is just, it's some addition. So yeah, it's this report and it's a couple of reports, basically. Okay. But then the, okay, so just to catch you up, and I apologize for being like low energy. It's okay, it's okay. But, he had some really great testimony yesterday, because we were trying to figure out like, okay, is 2,000 feet the right distance? Right. And it is, so what we heard from, you know, BLVT and from the fellow from St. Elvis, was it? Chips. Yes. Chips. Chips, the regular. Yeah.

[Senator Kesha Ram Hinsdale]: Yeah, just- And I them

[Unidentified committee member]: to do some

[Senator Kesha Ram Hinsdale]: work, we made it work, they came in at a much lower number of and then I thought, you know, okay, quarter mile, we know it was like 1,200 feet, like, okay. Close. More. You know, and the road rule is 800 feet or 2,000. Yeah. I never got married to the number. Yeah, okay. But I wanted, and so I saw an earlier graphic of yours where you had maybe two numbers, like a corner Right, mile, a student's

[Senator Anne Watson (Chair)]: to kind of tie it more to the interim exemptions rather than the road rule. Right. But through that conversation, it became clear that the, if we set a disc, so since the whole match, all the municipalities have gone through some kind of ordinance, rule making, they don't rule making,

[Senator Kesha Ram Hinsdale]: ordinance and bylaws Right, are, I

[Senator Anne Watson (Chair)]: and so that they all have their maps or their own distances based on the specific needs. Sure. And so we came to feel, I'm not sure if I can really speak for everybody in this moment, to this generally, suppose, that because there's two clauses, there's Romanette I and Romanette I I, and Romanette I I is where the municipality says, this is our area. Right. And if it's, if we're talking about an area served by municipal water and sewer, they should know what that area is. It's a municipality with some level of sophistication. And so, you know, the question is like, so what is RONAI doing? It's like the default, but what we heard from BLCT was that most municipalities have done this work, and if we set a new distance, then that would be a signal to municipalities that they have to go through ordinance again.

[Senator Kesha Ram Hinsdale]: Right. And they were like,

[Senator Anne Watson (Chair)]: don't make us do that again. Right. And we were like, you know, well, I think we contemplated 300 feet. Contemplated, you know, a quarter and they, the, the feedback that we got was like, it, there is no one size fits all that's going to make sense. So, because if you have a line, it could like, even 300 feet could be straight up a cliff. It could be 300 feet into the next municipality. Right. It could be 300 feet into conservation land. So our

[Senator Kesha Ram Hinsdale]: original goal was to say, if you can't put anything there, then fine. If you can't

[Unidentified committee member]: put a single family

[Senator Kesha Ram Hinsdale]: home there, then you can't put a wildlife. What you may have heard is some of these communities were in pre litigation, expensive pre litigation, about what it meant to be along a road with

[Senator Anne Watson (Chair)]: water and sewer,

[Senator Kesha Ram Hinsdale]: and be told, you're not served by water and sewer. In fact, one of those properties had a sewer connection, but not a water connection, but the water was in the road, so what do we need? So your language still solves for that, like doesn't say that, basically doesn't say you are prohibited from getting those flip ups if other development would be able to occur on say that side of the road. Like I know the LCT members have said, well we have a scenic view on one side in our community and we allow development on the other side. So I want to leave it up to municipalities, I I really also want to make sure that, you know, I mean, you've had people say, well, there's a plot, they're subdivided for two single family homes, you're saying they can have eight units? And I'm saying yes,

[Senator Anne Watson (Chair)]: they can have eight units. Yes, well then I think,

[Senator Kesha Ram Hinsdale]: I- Instead of one large home,

[Unidentified committee member]: you know

[Unidentified committee member]: what mean?

[Senator Kesha Ram Hinsdale]: There are footprints of very large single family homes that take up way more capacity and have a larger footprint.

[Senator Anne Watson (Chair)]: So I think even if, I think what we're describing is, so on page three of the amendment is B, I could be wrong, but your question is valid, and we should talk with Ellen and see what she says. But I'm wondering, you know, one of the other Bead covers that, so

[Senator Kesha Ram Hinsdale]: it's nice. Well, would see, and I, you know, Senator Bongartz worked on this language as well over the years. What I'm wondering is a housing type otherwise allowed in this chapter includes four units because we have duplexing by right, we have manufactured housing by right in the Have you heard Ellen say this would allow a quadplex because it is a housing type in this chapter?

[Senator Anne Watson (Chair)]: We have not had that conversation, but you can ask for that. Okay. And so we'll ask, does this include, you know, other cosmetics in this chapter, does this include duplexing my rights or quadplexing? Right. The

[Senator Kesha Ram Hinsdale]: language we use that seemed to match our intent, that was celebrated widely after the Home Act was we've allowed duplexing by right everywhere in the state, and we were allowed duplexing by right along water and sewer. We just want to make that true. Yeah. That was every one of the tenants, think at some point in this committee they were, you know, Senator Rick

[Unidentified committee member]: was like, they did

[Senator Kesha Ram Hinsdale]: five units. For some units, so was like, really a fight between us. It was about what did we need and how do we achieve that, which is very hard as done all of these Indeed.

[Senator Anne Watson (Chair)]: Okay, so I'm going to, we have not, like, we have, this draft comes to us based on the conversation that we had yesterday. Yeah. So we have not had Ellen walk us through it, but we will. Right. And when she does, we can ask staff.

[Senator Kesha Ram Hinsdale]: Right, yeah. And I don't think anyone's operating under the radar in some way. The LCT understood my intent, but we do get into conversations about, yes, this is what we mean. And I wanna make sure, because we kept saying it over the member of the committee, yes, we mean that if there are five plots along the road that were envisioned for single family homes and they're along the main water sewer line, that you can have quadplexes in each of those subdivided plots. And they can still, what's the word I'm looking for, regulate for setback, for square footage requirements, for runoff, for in some cases aesthetics of a building, they just cannot say no two to four demon properties here.

[Unidentified committee member]: Yep. Yeah,

[Senator Anne Watson (Chair)]: seems good to me. So we will look further

[Unidentified committee member]: into that.

[Senator Anne Watson (Chair)]: Thank you. Thank for your to tell us about the

[Senator Kesha Ram Hinsdale]: thoughts and Thank you for your work on S-three 25 as well. The committee greatly appreciate that. If I may just have one more moment, privilege to say that both the PACS and Act 181 originated, were first voted out out of Senate Economic Development, and I would say our intention when those bills left our committee was to find areas to create more exemption from Act two fifty. And I now feel partially responsible for this feeling that people have that we were bargaining away their areas where there is more potential for Act two fifty oversight, when that was never part of our originally contemplated bill. We do believe in the tiers and my own personal ad lib is tier two, is hanging out there, ready, I believe to be used to say, hey, people already live here.

[Senator Scott Beck (Clerk)]: What do

[Senator Terry Williams (Vice Chair)]: we do?

[Senator Kesha Ram Hinsdale]: What do we do here that doesn't add new regulation? When we talked, and I remember specific phrases about to get free in the final negotiations or some level

[Unidentified committee/staff speaker]: of

[Senator Kesha Ram Hinsdale]: negotiations Last biennium, we were talking about flood plains, ledges, slopes, really specific areas where even if there has been human activity there, we now believe it is dangerous or so sensitive that for both humans and ecosystems, we do not want to build there. Just trying to underscore our intent because I see how people thought we might have made some bargain to preserve rural areas in Amber, and that was never the intent of act by May 1. So we appreciate you giving all of that more time to be considered because our real goal was those housing extensions And for more housing to be developed in all parts of the state where people can remain close to their families, age in place, families can move into rural parts of the state without struggling to access housing.

[Unidentified committee member]: Super, thank

[Senator Kesha Ram Hinsdale]: you. Thank you so much.

[Senator Anne Watson (Chair)]: Okay, well, yes.

[Senator Scott Beck (Clerk)]: PKM, no, you don't. Oh, okay. No, sorry.

[Unidentified committee staff/attendee]: PKM S-three 45.

[Senator Scott Beck (Clerk)]: Yes. I noticed it dropped off another scanner.

[Senator Anne Watson (Chair)]: Oh, yes. This is because it is in reverse. Okay. So because it has an appropriation section. Yeah.

[Senator Kesha Ram Hinsdale]: Yeah. So it's I got confused too because Usually it stays on

[Unidentified committee member]: the notice

[Senator Scott Beck (Clerk)]: counter when when it goes through the money committee.

[Senator Kesha Ram Hinsdale]: It stays on the notice counter until it's moved and then it goes off the notice counter.

[Senator Anne Watson (Chair)]: Okay, all right. I don't know.

[Unidentified committee member]: I mean,

[Senator Scott Beck (Clerk)]: it was required to approve wage notice.

[Unidentified committee member]: So, yeah,

[Senator Anne Watson (Chair)]: for what it's worth, I did request a fiscal note on 03/25. So we got three so appropriations got $3.25 yesterday. And so we're waiting to vote it out till we get to this.

[Senator Terry Williams (Vice Chair)]: Yeah. I think I'm gonna teach this in the ring next week tomorrow. Yeah. So anyway, that's Yeah.

[Senator Kesha Ram Hinsdale]: Okay. Thank you. Thank you for

[Senator Anne Watson (Chair)]: all your work continuing on. Thank you. Any other thoughts you just want to share with us? We're going to take a break until 09:30. Super duper.

[Senator Kesha Ram Hinsdale]: Thank you.

[Unidentified committee/staff speaker]: Okay. Are you gonna show this? Hello, I'm okay. Oh, you're on your phone. Can you talk to your microphone? With the speaker.

[Senator Anne Watson (Chair)]: Great. Okay, super. This All is Senate National Resource and Energy coming back for break, we adjourn. Five votes from the Public Utility Commission, welcome.

[Seth Bongartz, General Counsel, Vermont Public Utility Commission]: Good morning. Thank you, Senator Watson, Jill Watson, and the committee for having us today. My name is Seth Bongartz, I'm General Counsel of the PUC, and this is Wes Skidmore, Staff Attorney. We're here to talk about the recommended definition of plans in section 8,002 of Title 30, a product that was tasked with, we were tasked with last year. So Act 38 of 2025 required the Commission to provide a recommended amended definition of the word of plant. Participants and interested parties engage in a process that the Commission initiated in our electronic filing system. We build cases, we started an investigation case and invited developers, state agencies to participate in this process. And we were tasked with considering several different sort of statutory policy considerations in looking at the deposition clinics. One was land use benefits of co location of electric generation facilities, the ability to ensure comprehensive review of those facilities, and the potential impact on ratepayers. A little bit more about the process that we conducted. Last June, we opened that commission proceeding and invited all the participants to contribute to that proceeding. And we saw different proposed definitions of the term plans and the misuse of statutes. We put out, after that process began, a definition for comment and took several rounds of comments on that proposed definition. That was the result of our receiving that initial round of suggestions. We received two additional rounds of comments. We also held two workshops in this proceeding, and we provided an opportunity for final comment before submitting a definition to the committees of jurisdictions. And I just want to flag here that we did submit to this committee as we did to the House Committee of Jurisdiction, also a letter on a concept, decommissioning fund concept that they just wanted to put a pin in for now, but we're working on that project. We believe it makes sense that these two things are paired together. The stakeholder groups or the interest reporting groups are identical, and he consulted with both of them throughout this proceeding. And so we wanted to be able to offer language on that issue as well. So our proposed definition that was passed by the House, it includes several components. Those three high level components are a new general standard or what I consider sort of the default definition of what a plant is. Some exceptions to that definition where we would still find, where we would not find a single plant, if you will, but we would find multiple plants. And then some additional definitions that were suggested to be added to that Section 8.72 that help facilitate interpreting the standard definition plan that we proposed. Under the standard definition of the default standard, we have two components. Are the facilities on the same or contiguous parcels? And do they use the same electricity generating technology? That just means solar PV or wind or hydroelectric. Yes ma'am.

[Senator Scott Beck (Clerk)]: So with the new standard, is it both or is it and or more?

[Seth Bongartz, General Counsel, Vermont Public Utility Commission]: It's and. So if you're on a same parcel and you're both solar, both facilities are solar facilities, then you're one. And if you're contiguous, both solar, you're You're one plant. Okay. And I'll show some examples of this in

[Senator Scott Beck (Clerk)]: Okay, a thank you.

[Seth Bongartz, General Counsel, Vermont Public Utility Commission]: And then the exceptions. So these were areas where we found that using those two standards might come into conflict with some other policy considerations and that an exception is warranted. The first exception, which is little A in that definition, is individual residential metametery. That means two neighbors or a particular parcel should each be able to have a residential sized solar facility at their home. The second is multi owner individual residential methametery, and we use the definition that's found elsewhere in statutes on common interest communities to define what that means. This is so if you have a condominium unit, or you have duplex, biplex situation, we want those individual customers to be able to participate in that meeting, again, at the residential level. And then the final category is more than one renewable energy program facility located on the same site. I'm going drill down in a moment a little bit on that one because it's the most complicated, and we did refine the definition during the course of our time in the House on this issue, working with the interested parties involved. And then there are four words that we suggest defining elsewhere. That's common interest community. The word meticulous, electricity generating technologies, point of interconnection, all terms used in our definition to understand the inception or the standard. So this is drilling down a little bit on exception seed. The top part of this that's a little bit smaller just shows the introduction so that you can see where, how this exception fits in. But essentially, if you're not to co locate two facilities on the same going to co locate two facilities on the same parcel or contiguous parcels if you would exceed one of the statutory caps for a financial incentive program. So you cannot have more than 500 kW net metering on the same parcel or contiguous parcels, and you cannot have more than 2.2 megawatts of standard offer program facilities on the same parcel or contiguous parcels, and you can have both. It's one program or the other program, and it's the path for that program. Otherwise, you can have as much additional solar on those sites as is otherwise allowing for statutory criteria. So still screening for all of those natural resource impacts and citing impacts and concerns, but we no longer concern ourselves with those, once those caps are met. Now I'm going to show some examples of what this means. So under the proposed definitions, what can be cited? These are just three illustrations of what could be allowed. This is where you have 500 feet of wood map metering on a site. That could be a low. By the way, any one of these individual examples could be a low number of sites, of course. Can you add five megawatts under RES Tier two? Of course, because that is in the financial incentive program facility, but it is governed by the definition of plant in stat sheet. So we have to concern ourselves because there's a five megawatt capacity cap for the RES Tier two facilities. However, there isn't a direct financial incentive for those facilities. So as long as only 500 kW of net metering that's getting the financial benefit of that program on a site, and then we are building the statutory prerogative of that capacity cap, and we're not worried about them adding other developers or the same developer adding additional capacity in another form, not within the net metering program on that site. The second example in B shows the same scenario, but with a standard offer program facility instead of the net metering facility, again, at that capacity cap of 2.2 megawatts for standard offer. You could add on to that site, not met metering and not additional standard offer, but you could add a res tier two facility, or these are records that the blue circles could also represent a five megawatt PPA or sometimes even beyond. So power purchase agreement with utility, this is a direct bilateral agreement with utility to purchase the power from that facility. So

[Senator Scott Beck (Clerk)]: those two circles up there, is there generation

[Seth Bongartz, General Counsel, Vermont Public Utility Commission]: going on in that circle or yes that is still another generating facility it's just not under one of these two programs not made under standard offer would it could it

[Senator Terry Williams (Vice Chair)]: be but it wouldn't be solar it would be

[Senator Scott Beck (Clerk)]: could be solar okay so solar five megawatts but a purchase power agreement

[Seth Bongartz, General Counsel, Vermont Public Utility Commission]: yes a purchase power agreement facility that's often done under res tier two a bilateral agreement with utility to develop that power. Basically, developer build that facility and then the utility receives that power directly under that contract. And then in C, under the current definition, the one that exists today in statute, you're not allowed to have this arrangement where you don't have that metering for the standard offer program, but you do have two five megawatt threads to your two facilities on the same site. Under the new definition, that would also fill out. You can co locate, frankly, as many power purchase agreement facilities on a site if a site commits for the other frontier. And then what can't be cited under the new proposed definition, as I mentioned before, is you cannot have 500 net metering and 2.2 megawatt standard offer. You also Singapore obviously can't have more than 500 kW methane being on board with 2.2 megawatt standard offer because that would exceed both of those programs' for capacity pass. Questions and comments.

[Senator Anne Watson (Chair)]: Trying to write my head around this. If I was, I feel like I need to say it back to you to make sure that I understand. So, the reason for the new standards or the new rules would be because you're trying to keep the integrity of the programs themselves, right? That there's limits baked into the net metering and standard offer, and if you had, effectively, if you had two five hundred kilowatt systems next to each other, you're really kind of getting around the limit. Is that a fair way to frame that? That's absolutely accurate. Okay. And, but if it was power purchase agreement, you need it because of the renewable energy standard or whatever, then that's a different thing, so it's perfectly fine to have those. And what if you have that box there around, so imagine, does that box represent, well, what I'm imagining that represents is it could be one parcel or it could be two parcels that abut each other. Is that accurate?

[Seth Bongartz, General Counsel, Vermont Public Utility Commission]: It can represent both under the desk as long as they're all above us. Okay,

[Senator Anne Watson (Chair)]: well and so, this out a little bit, but if you had three or four parsimals that were ultimately all abutting each other,

[Unidentified committee member]: I feel like you could

[Senator Anne Watson (Chair)]: end up with some interesting like it's probably not worth, you know, trying to play the life game and

[Senator Scott Beck (Clerk)]: But that would be one rectangle, right? If you had three or four budding parcels, that

[Senator Terry Williams (Vice Chair)]: would be one grant table.

[Seth Bongartz, General Counsel, Vermont Public Utility Commission]: So as long as you have to sort of start from the parcel where one facility is and then ask are the other persons contiguous to that one and sort of do the analysis that way. I will say this might be helpful, I hope it is helpful. The status quo is far,

[Unidentified committee member]: far more common. So under

[Seth Bongartz, General Counsel, Vermont Public Utility Commission]: the status quo's definition, we have to evaluate the following: whether the facility is the same project, which asks, is it proximate? No definition of that word. Is it Are there continuity in the time of construction, which according to the Supreme Court means not just shovels in the ground, but all project planning and building from inception to completion, and same ownership, also not defined. Then we have to ask, also, is there shared equipment infrastructure? There are examples in the statute and as interpreted by the Supreme Court, but again, not defined terms. So this analysis causes a lot of ambiguity and a lot, therefore, of litigation. This issue is one of the highest appeal issues we've had in the last five to seven years at the Supreme Court, because every case where this is implicated, we have to ask all of these legal questions and answer them based on case law at the commission and the Supreme Court to interpret. And this is a saga that is dated back till the early 2010s, when the statute went through multiple changes at that point in order to deal with kind of the building on of a definition that was actually originally conceived of for wind projects. So the examples in the statute had to do with wind projects rather than solar, but it's been adapted to solar. And so it's not a great fit. So we were trying to maximize the administrative efficiency screening process, ratepayer impact consequences of those two financial incentive programs, meaning the standard offer program and that metering program give a financial benefit to the facility, but that is borne by the ratepayers. And so we have to balance that with use of land and also the integrity of these programs, right? They are distributed generation based programs. So we've been with all the interested party engagement where we landed balances those different considerations and gives us a workable definition that, yes, there are certainly fat patterns that will inevitably challenge this definition, but hopefully due to the other definitions and the clarity and simplicity of this. I know it seems complicated, comparatively, it's quite simple. We will minimize, if not eliminate, a lot of the litigation that we see.

[Senator Anne Watson (Chair)]: Feel free to say, can't answer my question. I'm wondering if, because, well, is there ongoing litigation about this right now?

[Senator Terry Williams (Vice Chair)]: Yes.

[Senator Anne Watson (Chair)]: And if we make this change, will that affect the case that is in process? So,

[Unidentified committee member]: if you don't want to

[Senator Anne Watson (Chair)]: comment on this, okay, because I'm with litigation, I understand, but-

[Seth Bongartz, General Counsel, Vermont Public Utility Commission]: I can comment at a high level, certainly. Okay. Cases that are pending before the commission take the laws they find it when they file with us. So changing the definition now, does it automatically apply retroactively? Most laws are only prospective in nature unless they explicitly indicate that. Some of the litigation, that doesn't mean folks can't withdraw petitions, they'll be filing them with us if that is appropriate or warranted from their perspective. Some of the federal litigation might be impacted on a briefing, right? If the legislature makes a change, they

[Senator Anne Watson (Chair)]: may use that information as part of

[Unidentified committee member]: that litigation or review in favor of

[Seth Bongartz, General Counsel, Vermont Public Utility Commission]: certain outcomes. So I would say that's the effect that could have in this context. There may be one or two pieces of the Supreme Court as well where that seems sort of logic.

[Senator Anne Watson (Chair)]: Well, that's helpful.

[Senator Scott Beck (Clerk)]: So in all of these constructs, matters not, according to the rules you guys are posting, whether that generation or the RECs heading out of state or in state

[Senator Terry Williams (Vice Chair)]: making a difference?

[Seth Bongartz, General Counsel, Vermont Public Utility Commission]: This definition does not implicate any uses of statute of that issue. The way that the word plan is used as a screening tool is more for whether the facilities are permitted and leaving a cap of some sort in most contexts. I will say that for the res tier two projects, in order to qualify for the res, it has to meet certain requirements, including leaving that path. So that's where it fits in, in terms of the res and rec qualification as a res peer to project. Okay.

[Senator Anne Watson (Chair)]: Any other questions at this point? Okay, super. Thank you so much. Thank you very much. And you'll be willing to Mr. Searle, welcome.

[Peter Sterling (Renewable Energy Vermont)]: It's nice to ask your intern. Hi, Peter Sterling, Thank you so much for taking the time to discuss this, to cut to the need. We support the, we support the proposal by the we support what UC did to come up with this There we go, sounds about it. Great. Okay, so thank you guys so much for taking this up. Here on this opening slide you can see some land that would be opened up on an own gravel pit by this new definition only keys are developed by this new definition. As you've heard before you find the legislature asks if you see a change of definition of plan, We support the PUCs fuel board on single plant because it helps avoid unnecessary costs associated with bringing source of solar online, preserves open spaces by encouraging solar development on forty twelve sites, avoids unnecessary construction, conserving out the resources on the sites that we developed, stream sites the application process, removes costly legal uncertainty that hinders investigating colloquial renewables and because towns have responded to the state's energy planning requirements, private clubs are sold over, this makes it a little easier for towns to manage that development. Just a couple examples of why we think this will help. Well first, CDC's definition again applies to projects under five megawatts that's about 25 acres or less. This is the bill that's ESA Finance now passed the house $183,000 and we do believe ultimately this will help lower costs when a developer does a PPA, then they present to the utility all the costs of the project. So if there's one less road vehicle doesn't mean that solar developer makes more money necessarily, it's a way to bring down the cost of the PPA. Here's one example, these are four folks who wanted to go solar at home. Previously this would have been a single plant. Under this definition it becomes a lot simpler and clearer to manage these projects and we really appreciate that. Another example here, I think this is a pretty salient one. On the lower left, there's an existing solar right now in Bennington, it's a 1.6 megawatt project. In the upper right, there's a new proposal under the old ruling, we're trying to build that giant red road, 1,500 feet costs tens of thousands of dollars under this rules, single plant law, you can just build a little road extension right there in green and that reduces road surface area $50,000 less road costs. Then importantly, just you spend about $10,000 over 800 feet of new mines, so we have to build new holes and wires fewer you save a lot of money for in The UK. To me, this is a great way to save money and I think it can slow faster. Then my last slide, Yeah, well, I think those are all lessons. So anyway, the bottom line is this law will make it easier, faster, more affordable to serve math and research by cluster helping to incentivize I think it's a great thing. So I really appreciate how much work you did to bring forward to complete most people. Questions? It is Well, I just wanna answer one other question for the rationale why this the problem. The public utility commission, when they made these civil pendulums, they would see clustering of two like 500 ks of a meter grades. If you're using that old infrastructure, which ratepayers have kind of helped incentivize for a new project, can see the same as still setting. If we got all that uncertainty out of it with this one ruling, so it really will be incredibly helpful for moving forward in pushing solar on quickly within really need, honestly, this Trump administration because the tax credits are expired. The more things we can do faster without compromising environmental protection, being our energy goals, constitutional goals, better off will be the case. Sure, thanks so much.

[Senator Anne Watson (Chair)]: Right, any other questions at this point? Okay. Yes.

[Senator Scott Beck (Clerk)]: I think it's three for the. Is there is the team in Vermont, PUC, or anywhere else, have we established a maximum amount of solar that is prudent to locate in this state? I mean, is there a is there I mean, I don't know how many megawatts are being produced right now by solar. But is there a maximum where the EUC or anybody else says we got plenty?

[Senator Terry Williams (Vice Chair)]: You mean statewide?

[Senator Scott Beck (Clerk)]: Yeah. First yeah. Because I mean, I'm thinking of you've got I mean, we're, I don't know, 5% of the electrical needs in in New England and if we're making all that we need for what we need to do, are we good and then we just let's stop leveling fields so Connecticut and you know is there a maximum of development right now or so?

[Seth Bongartz, General Counsel, Vermont Public Utility Commission]: There isn't an official sort of statutory or a base maximum but I will say there's plenty of constraints on use of Vermont land development. So I would say they come from multiple sources. One is land use constraints, natural resource constraints. Many sites in Vermont due to topography metatural resources are not available for development beyond a certain size. Like you can't put a solar project in a wetland. You can't put a solar project in certain terrain due to soil erosion, to water impacts, etc. Then there's system based constraints. So certain power in certain places doesn't make sense for constraints and economics for the utilities. There's constraints in terms of the economics of certain projects, whether the utilities in different areas burning that South or renewable energy standard requirements influences where utilities are going to engage in contracts with both. Utilities have their own obligation and they're not going to far exceed that or exceed that obligation because economically that doesn't make sense for the utility. So there are saturation points in all of these areas that mean it's not infinite and certainly not available in all areas to an extent that would, it cannot implicate any of those things because those are all statutory criteria that we must consider when determining whether projects should be given a specific date of public vote. And one more part that would

[Unidentified committee staff/attendee]: be supporting Senator is UC Oakland has to rule out all these projects are in the public goods for Vermont. So in the case of Shaft Burning, they wanted to do the data analysis of

[Unidentified committee member]: how much power that thing is going

[Unidentified committee staff/attendee]: to crank out that 20 megawatt, they've got to suppress prices enough for Vermont ratepayers and its benefit. That won't always be the case as more and more solar comes on there, but there's a lot of checks on the growth of solar in Vermont and renewals.

[Senator Scott Beck (Clerk)]: I would just hate to see every available location in Vermont filled up with solar, so then Connecticut or some other state

[Senator Terry Williams (Vice Chair)]: could

[Senator Scott Beck (Clerk)]: say brag about their renewable energy portfolios.

[Senator Anne Watson (Chair)]: Yeah, your question makes me think about like the duck curve and you know the saddle of the duck, like continuing to get lower and lower as we add more solar, but then we need more base. And so really that implicates, you know, that we need more storage and that those things could go together. And it also makes me think, your question makes me think about the pressure that we're putting on the solar industry right now in terms of carrying the water for renewables and how we are not doing anything more with wind. We're not doing anything more with hydro. There's other renewables that exist that are for various reasons, you know, not being developed. I think that is a question that I would like to explore.

[Senator Scott Beck (Clerk)]: What are we gonna share in the plane?

[Senator Anne Watson (Chair)]: Let's talk more about it. Year, another year, but anyway, team may continue. So yes.

[Senator Terry Williams (Vice Chair)]: I heard, I heard you say that, I think you said something about using less land or borrowing more broadly. What's that? I heard you say that the proposal would end up producing less land and be borrowing more broadly. Yeah. Think I do a little part. Yeah. They're just, I, I was not there at the house, not the resources. Also are we gonna end up with does this lead to does this make it easier to build really like a large scale large solar arrays? No. Or okay.

[Unidentified committee staff/attendee]: So this provision will only affect projects that are under five megawatts, so roughly under 25 acres. That's already different. For five yeah I mean.

[Senator Terry Williams (Vice Chair)]: I'm thinking about the fact that we're building a for

[Unidentified committee staff/attendee]: the doctor. Well that's That's society.

[Senator Terry Williams (Vice Chair)]: That's the war society. Okay. That's that's a good bar for me.

[Unidentified committee staff/attendee]: And they're only, you know, one other one of those same. Okay.

[Senator Terry Williams (Vice Chair)]: They're not that common. I'm just trying

[Unidentified committee staff/attendee]: to say that, but known for this is distributed generation, it's roughly the same definition for five nipple oxymates that allow those to be pushed into more places for the children to develop. Would also add volunteer, center watching your spot on about the technologies. Once off the wind starts coming online, which eventually you build and stop off New England, that will really be like running one of those blood blisters on your fingernail, pressure, you guys stole one power, each one of those turbines, one revolution, power's in house for a day. They have massive amounts of power out there when they start global Vermont, which we eventually will guess a chunk of that there will be significantly less pressures we build in Vermont when it's the last time.

[Unidentified committee member]: Oh, sorry. Just kind of to Senator Beck's point is, you know, technology improves, we get more efficient panels. Yeah. Is is zero? You know, obviously, we have to upgrade the grid to accept more. Yeah. So, we come up with more storage. So I have

[Unidentified committee member]: to go. I apologize for you.

[Senator Anne Watson (Chair)]: So otherwise once we're done here we

[Unidentified committee member]: take a break because

[Senator Anne Watson (Chair)]: our next everything isn't until 10:20. So thank you.

[Unidentified committee member]: Is there a point at which the public utility commission would say know, we've got all this new and booth technology to change the panels that are rotating now, is there any plan you can do that?

[Unidentified committee staff/attendee]: Well, know, I think the levers of capitalism will do that. Once you have these old five megawatt arrays and two fifty watt panel now, so they're 500 and they're on both sides, that's like don't lend your money without having to get another permit. And so you're going to see these things being repurposed all over the place. I also personally believe, well, we don't have data to prove it. Most of these sites would eventually they come offline. I don't think they'll be decommissioned. I think they're go right back in there on these same sites and repurpose. We're not gonna keep going to find new ones. Once their twenty year lifespan is over, they'll go right back to the self, sort of permitting, requiring all that.

[Unidentified committee member]: No, we gotta figure out what to do with the old solar panels.

[Unidentified committee staff/attendee]: Oh we know they're 90% glass and we let folks know

[Senator Terry Williams (Vice Chair)]: what to do thank you

[Unidentified committee/staff speaker]: all right

[Unidentified committee member]: we're done same variety twenty minutes

[Senator Anne Watson (Chair)]: Good

[Unidentified committee member]: morning,

[Peter Gill (Executive Director, Land Use Review Board)]: Good morning. I'm Keith Dale, the executive director with the Land Use Review Board and our prime show here we've got up on the screen Alex Weintagen, board member for land use review board.

[Senator Terry Williams (Vice Chair)]: Good morning.

[Peter Gill (Executive Director, Land Use Review Board)]: Yeah, comments on three twenty eight study fair hearing. And there, I'll let you take it, Alex.

[Alex Weinhagen (Board Member, Land Use Review Board)]: Excellent. Hello, everyone. This is Alex Weinhagen, board member for the Land Use Review Board. And yes, we were asked to come in and speak with you about a possible amendment to S-three 28, particularly the desire to see a report on removing barriers to farmworker housing. Yeah, so while farm worker housing is something that I think does deserve some attention, the principal regulatory barrier to that sort of housing is not Act two fifty, which is what our board manages. It's actually at the municipal level and also at the state level with regard to water and wastewater permitting. So

[Senator Anne Watson (Chair)]: there are a

[Alex Weinhagen (Board Member, Land Use Review Board)]: bunch of municipalities that have shown some leadership on this over the last couple decades, particularly in communities with orchards and other large seasonal agricultural operations writing into their zoning regulations, special allowances for farm worker dormitories and other sorts of farm worker housing. That innovation at the municipal level is not consistent. And so it really depends for a farmer and a farm worker as to what municipality they're in as to whether there's an opportunity to create farm worker housing. So both the expertise for how to best address that issue and the principal regulatory barrier for that type of housing is really at a municipal level. And so I would encourage you if you're interested in seeing a report on regulatory barriers for this sort of farm worker housing, that the Land Use Review Board may be advised but not lead on that report. Perhaps it would be better placed with a collaboration between the Department of Housing and Community Development and the Agency of Agriculture. There may be other entities. See that the amendment discusses a needs assessment from Vermont Housing Conservation Board as well. That may be another entity that could help lead on the report. Also, I would just, some of from a self preservation note, tell you that the landings review board is is very occupied at the moment with act one eighty one implementation. And particularly in the review and approval of all 11 regional plans across Vermont this calendar year. And so our capacity to do a good job on such a farm worker housing report in this calendar year is limited. So again, I think it's worth thinking about, but I don't think we're the right agency to take the lead on it. Certainly not at this time.

[Senator Terry Williams (Vice Chair)]: She maybe, then they said they, we had to be consulted with. Sure. But probably doesn't make sense to leave it. So bear with me. Okay. So, and that might take us back to the house in the conservation.

[Senator Anne Watson (Chair)]: Well, we're gonna hear from them on Friday, today's Thursday. And

[Peter Gill (Executive Director, Land Use Review Board)]: maybe to just add a finer point to that, our jurisdiction would not trigger on residential construction of units unless there was 10 or more over a five year period. So that's fair little limited in terms of

[Unidentified committee staff/attendee]: car scope for new items.

[Unidentified committee member]: Yeah, very interesting. Okay.

[Alex Weinhagen (Board Member, Land Use Review Board)]: I worked for the town of Heinzburg for a good long time, probably fifteen years or so ago, we did work with our agricultural community in town and put a farmworker housing provision into regulations and tried to make it as flexible as possible. And that farmer did eventually take advantage of that. But the number of units that were created, again, as Pete just mentioned, wouldn't have triggered an Act two fifty review in the first place. A lot of farms have an accessory dwelling unit on the site where farm workers live and might be interested in building another one or a dormitory style facility. And again, I think the principal regulatory barrier at that point is not going to be Act two fifty because jurisdiction won't trigger, but rather state water wastewater rules and the municipal zoning structure.

[Senator Anne Watson (Chair)]: The water and wastewater rules as well. That's a good call. Okay. Thank you. Appreciate that. Any other questions?

[Senator Terry Williams (Vice Chair)]: Thank

[Peter Gill (Executive Director, Land Use Review Board)]: you for that consideration.

[Senator Anne Watson (Chair)]: Yes, for sure. I will just say I'm considering just removing this. That's fine.

[Unidentified committee member]: Yeah. Okay.

[Senator Anne Watson (Chair)]: And let's, because we have Liz here with us, welcome. Rural Water District. So

[Liz Weier (Executive Director, Vermont Rural Water Association)]: I'm Liz Weier. I'm the Executive Director of the Vermont Rural Water Association. I'm here today to speak about S-three 28, specifically the definition of certified municipal water and sewer infrastructure in that note. So Chair Watson and members of the committee, you for having me here today. Vermont World Water represents drinking water and wastewater systems that protect public health and allow for economic development in our towns and communities. We have several concerns and comments regarding the proposed definition of service area in S-three 28. Less than onefour of the 400 plus public community drinking water systems in Vermont are owned by a town, city, or village. 78% of the water systems and infrastructure in Vermont are owned by water districts, fire districts, homeowner and condo associations, housing non profits, water cooperatives, and water corporations. On the wastewater side, there are 10 fire districts that provide sewer service to communities around the state. The EE suggests drinking winter municipal in reference to sewer and water infrastructure and in reference to water and wastewater systems. Think there's a common misconception that public water systems means publicly owned, but that's certainly not the case. The vast majority are not publicly owned in terms of a traditional municipality. Fire districts are municipalities, but I think when people say municipality, they're not talking about a town government structure. In the case of a fire district, they have a convention committee that governs the fire district. And they also have, in some cases, not a relationship with the town office. Some of the larger fire districts use the town offices to do billing, but in some cases they have no relationship or even an absence of a relationship in town. So I'll make that clear. In addition, we suggest adding the term utility when there's a reference to municipally adopted service and capacity agreements to capture those non municipal systems. So we typically use the term system. Utility is more of a generally understood term. So that's a legal definition that I don't know what the best option is, but just so everyone understands that we're going to go beyond municipal systems and include all of the public community drinking water and wastewater disposal system. While we support the concept of directing development to areas of existing infrastructure, the public drinking water and wastewater systems throughout our state are not one size fits all. Every community and every water and wastewater system tracks and manages their own capacities and their own allocations differently. Treatment capacities can vary seasonally for both drinking water and wastewater systems. There aren't hydraulic capacity determinations for most drinking water distribution systems in the state. Regulatory and permit requirements change frequently for wastewater treatment facilities and for water as well. The question of water or sewer capacity cannot be boiled down to if a pipe runs down a road, or if it's within a certain distance of a proposed development. Systems need adequate pressures to provide water for firefighting and to prevent contamination due to backflows during line breaks. Capacities of water and wastewater treatment plants and distribution and collection system infrastructure are multifaceted and constantly evolving. New unknown hazards are facing our industry on a yearly basis, whether it be floods, pandemics, cybersecurity threats, or drought, all of these have impacted operations and capacities in recent years in Vermont. We suggest replacing a proposed distance with language such as adjacent to water and wastewater systems. In addition, we suggest strengthening the word identified in regard to capacity constraints. I did include a draft, including all my language comments here at the bottom. It's a little confusing to do one thing at a time. I think, you know, So, service area is also a little misleading in itself, that a That doesn't mean that every property within the service area is actually connected to the water or sewer system. For old systems and systems, it depends on the system, whether they have language in the town to require connection for new properties. A lot of properties are grandfathered and not connected. In some cases, there may be new industries that aren't able to connect to water for various reasons. So I think the capacity constraints are many. And like I said, there's so many different types of systems, water wastewater systems in the state, and they all look at allocations and they all look at their capacities in different ways. Finally, would like to remind you of our resource. As you consider the many challenges facing our industry, specifically in Vermont, we put together a webpage to inform local and state officials regarding water wastewater systems and residential development. There's a lot of facts and figures in different topics, especially related to capacity we have from housing and development on that website, so I encourage you to take a look, and I'll find a link in my testimony. So we believe this resource can inform many discussions here at the State House, including conversations on water and sewer service areas and system capacities. Thank you for your efforts towards improving public health and protecting the environment as we all work together as for Vermont's future.

[Unidentified committee staff/attendee]: Do

[Senator Scott Beck (Clerk)]: we have any water systems or sewage systems in

[Senator Terry Williams (Vice Chair)]: the state of Vermont that are not owned by the public? But they're actually some business? Yes, there are

[Liz Weier (Executive Director, Vermont Rural Water Association)]: water corporations that are, they call it water, private water companies that are regulated by the community. I believe there's about 20 of those and 12 of those are also a public community drinking water system. Generally, ski areas, there's a couple of private corporations that are active elements that we work with around the state. So there's a few, but the vast majority. The vast majority of people. Yeah. So some sort of nonprofit cooperative. Socialization. Yeah.

[Senator Anne Watson (Chair)]: But just to be clear, even those 20, as long as they're serving 25 or more people, would be called public. Yes. Because it's who they serve, not, a reflection of service, not the ownership.

[Liz Weier (Executive Director, Vermont Rural Water Association)]: So

[Senator Anne Watson (Chair)]: when you say 78% of public water systems are non municipal, you're talking that includes this 25? Yes.

[Liz Weier (Executive Director, Vermont Rural Water Association)]: Okay. But it's different. There's about 72 fire districts. Yeah. And those are kind of, that's really the ones that I'm most concerned about, especially in this situation. So

[Senator Anne Watson (Chair)]: just to clarify, so the Home Act, when it's, as it says, you know, that you can quadplex in an area that's, in an area served by municipal water and sewer, that is specifically leaving out three quarters, more than three quarters of the public water systems in Yes. Will say that is a thing that is of interest to me to fix. However, that feels like a big change and I want to take, I want to like to take a little bit more testimony. So I, unless there's overwhelming, you know, we should do that right now. My inclination is to not change that yet, but I think that would be a great change, essentially for next year.

[Liz Weier (Executive Director, Vermont Rural Water Association)]: Yes, and I want to mention also, in terms of water districts and fire districts, that's generally the primary water provider in town. Brandon Fire District, number one serves all of Downtown Brandon. Yeah. That's the story of the residents.

[Senator Anne Watson (Chair)]: You know? Ouch, do we make the change?

[Senator Terry Williams (Vice Chair)]: I mean, I don't What do you think? It's a pretty

[Senator Scott Beck (Clerk)]: you know, to have something that doesn't describe 78% of

[Liz Weier (Executive Director, Vermont Rural Water Association)]: I I know. This yeah. This is something So three twenty eight a thing.

[Unidentified committee/staff speaker]: It's

[Liz Weier (Executive Director, Vermont Rural Water Association)]: just I don't wanna say that's against the ball.

[Senator Anne Watson (Chair)]: Right. And it's it's not What were

[Senator Scott Beck (Clerk)]: you saying? Sorry. Noticed calendar today. 03/28.

[Unidentified committee/staff speaker]: Oh, gosh.

[Senator Anne Watson (Chair)]: Well General,

[Senator Scott Beck (Clerk)]: what's that? 03/28? Yeah. Okay. It's on the notice calendar today.

[Liz Weier (Executive Director, Vermont Rural Water Association)]: We have it in appropriations and haven't voted it out yet. So the earliest will be on the notice calendar or

[Senator Anne Watson (Chair)]: It'll be on us again on

[Senator Scott Beck (Clerk)]: If it's on Thursday, the upper action is Tuesday.

[Senator Anne Watson (Chair)]: Oh, Tuesday, right? Tuesday, Tuesday, Friday.

[Senator Terry Williams (Vice Chair)]: Yeah, yeah.

[Senator Anne Watson (Chair)]: Well, I am hoping to take a straw poll on this amendment tomorrow so that we can, I would still hear if we have time to go to economic development on Tuesday morning to say, This is the event that we're bringing? Yeah. And ask them to take a straw poll on it.

[Senator Scott Beck (Clerk)]: Or a secondary.

[Senator Anne Watson (Chair)]: So just to catch you up, some progress on what we were just talking about. One of the suggestions that's coming from the rural water district is because it says in areas served by municipal water and sewer, it actually leaves out 78% of the public water system. So people just assume that public water is municipal water, and do we change that to public? I started out by saying, I'm interested in that. It feels like we should take more testimony because that would be kind of a 78%. That would be kind of a big change. And yet, maybe people are just conflating this. For the examples, you know, the whole town of Brin is served by a public water system, but not a municipal water system. Is that accurate? Right. Well, so the problem is

[Liz Weier (Executive Director, Vermont Rural Water Association)]: a fire district is a municipality, but when we look at legal definitions of municipal, it often does not include fire districts and water districts.

[Senator Terry Williams (Vice Chair)]: James, did get a bite for the ratings? Yeah. Thanks.

[Unidentified committee staff/attendee]: What do you

[Senator Anne Watson (Chair)]: think some of these?

[Senator Terry Williams (Vice Chair)]: Well, I was thinking that after yesterday, after the test of the.

[Senator Anne Watson (Chair)]: Well, and that is what is in so you see see the latest amendment. It takes out the all Romanian eye, which is where everybody tried to fit in a distance, so that it drops the need for any further description of distance. But then, if we're gonna draw up the definition of a distance, that's sort of a separate issue from do we wanna include public water systems?

[Senator Terry Williams (Vice Chair)]: And to Well, what purpose? This is not that I have a problem with, but this discussion It's a this is like an opportunity to add something onto the building. Right. Right. Yeah. Okay. And so what are we what

[Unidentified committee member]: are we doing? What are

[Senator Terry Williams (Vice Chair)]: we getting by doing that at this point?

[Senator Anne Watson (Chair)]: So I think it would allow duplexing by right and quad flexing. Well, no, I guess it's really just the quad flexing

[Senator Terry Williams (Vice Chair)]: because that's what- Where it where it will exist otherwise under the whole management. Right. Yeah. Okay.

[Senator Anne Watson (Chair)]: Yeah. So for, for example, the town of Brandon, who are effectively cut out. Yeah,

[Liz Weier (Executive Director, Vermont Rural Water Association)]: I mean, there's 72 communities, well, plus the 12 that are water districts. So Tri Town is a water district serving the towns in Addison County, there's no other municipal water system there, right? It's only the water district.

[Senator Terry Williams (Vice Chair)]: Sounds like it's consistent with that amount.

[Senator Anne Watson (Chair)]: That is how I feel as well. And it seems almost like just an oversight that we use the word municipal instead of public.

[Senator Terry Williams (Vice Chair)]: And

[Senator Anne Watson (Chair)]: well actually one question that I do have about that is because later in what was Roman II, This would fly to an area established by municipality, by ordinance, or by law, where residential connections are available to municipal water and direct to the direct to service. All this to say that municipalities, we've heard from the LCT that most municipalities have been through an ordinance change to define their areas certified municipal water and sewer. A public water system isn't going to have a bylaws.

[Liz Weier (Executive Director, Vermont Rural Water Association)]: A site trip could.

[Senator Anne Watson (Chair)]: Okay. Yes. So Okay. But, I mean, when I think of this is, I realize a sliver of an example. When I think of like public water systems, I also think about like manufactured home parks. And it might be very small. That's still a public water system. So, you know, for one possibility that we change it to public, another possibility we just change it to fire districts, municipal water and sewer.

[Senator Terry Williams (Vice Chair)]: Maybe, I guess one other question is, is this issue acute enough to deal with it? Do you think it is? I've

[Liz Weier (Executive Director, Vermont Rural Water Association)]: seen this mistake happen previously in other state government. And so it's just kind of a historical So

[Senator Anne Watson (Chair)]: one potentially easy solution here, because the thing that I'm worried about is like, for a very small public water district, if we change it to public, then it leaves ambiguous what is the area that's served? And is it reasonable to say that either the organizing entity has to identify an area or it doesn't apply? Maybe that's not right.

[Liz Weier (Executive Director, Vermont Rural Water Association)]: Didn't So, know if you had watched the VLTP testimony, but I have talked to them before about this issue and they typically hear from the larger towns. They typically work with the smaller towns, right? They have a percent town clerk and that's it. But they still have a public community municipal water system, right? Bloomfield, Vermont, they have 17 connections. It is a municipal water system. The Regional Planning Commission didn't even realize that was considered a public community water system. So I think in terms of having the boundaries of their service area mapped, I wouldn't say the vast majority of municipalities have that. They have They know where their distribution system is located. It just may not be pinpointed exactly enough. And that's why we were opposed to kind of the distance of 300 feet or 2,000 feet or whatever, because they don't, they might find out the exact location of the site.

[Senator Anne Watson (Chair)]: So do you think that they could come up with a map of their surface area?

[Liz Weier (Executive Director, Vermont Rural Water Association)]: Eventually, yes, with one day. Okay. I mean, that's something that remote rural area helps small systems with all the time. Okay.

[Senator Anne Watson (Chair)]: But it's- I don't believe it's understanding too that there are municipalities who have not yet gone through the process either. Right. So if we still leave it to the public water districts to determine their service area. Many of

[Liz Weier (Executive Director, Vermont Rural Water Association)]: them do have to determine, especially the larger ones. Brandon, they know

[Unidentified committee/staff speaker]: quite well, we just replace all their water And pipes, some public water systems are quite empty, right? Yes.

[Senator Terry Williams (Vice Chair)]: So even though they're public, they're private. Right.

[Unidentified committee member]: Yeah. They're looking to include

[Liz Weier (Executive Director, Vermont Rural Water Association)]: private. Well, are So Westminster Aquaguard Society is, again, the public wives is conserving the town privately owned. Woodstock just voted to have the town take over, but they were, for a century of private meal loans, but operating as the drinking water system for the town. So there's a lot of kind of weird cases like that, cooperatives, that kind of thing. So,

[Senator Anne Watson (Chair)]: potential path forward, just because especially for these very small systems, it might take some more work and be like open to having that conversation. But one possibility is that we could clarify that area served by municipal water and sewer includes fire districts. And that would open it up somewhat. I would also

[Liz Weier (Executive Director, Vermont Rural Water Association)]: say water districts for sure. But like Ben, I just mentioned the corporations and cooperatives, there's a lot of housing nonprofits that might wanna, serve a community that might want to be included. I just don't want any area of nuance you left out because you get them in the definition.

[Senator Anne Watson (Chair)]: Is a water district going to include these very small manufactured home

[Liz Weier (Executive Director, Vermont Rural Water Association)]: No, those are generally either cooperatives, or they just, it depends if they're owned by residents or if they're part of a larger housing, some of them are part of housing nonprofits, some of them are part of, but they are their own public and community water systems if they have more than 15 next year, sir.

[Senator Terry Williams (Vice Chair)]: So we're not agreeing. So this whole discussion's about water not There just existing

[Liz Weier (Executive Director, Vermont Rural Water Association)]: are 10 fire districts that are big public community, or I'm sorry, that are wastewater sent to community wastewater. Oh,

[Senator Anne Watson (Chair)]: because this is served by water and sewer.

[Liz Weier (Executive Director, Vermont Rural Water Association)]: Right, is it is and? Keyword. I guess that was one of my questions.

[Senator Anne Watson (Chair)]: I believe so. I think it is And meaningful, I so one question is, Do the 10 that also provide wastewater, are those all fire districts?

[Liz Weier (Executive Director, Vermont Rural Water Association)]: Yes, the 10 of fire districts, I believe seven provide water and wastewater, but three only do wastewater. Like Sherburne is the Killington wastewater system. Sherburne Fire District. Water comes from the Denver. Yes. Wow, that's great. So there's, wait, if you, so there's nine, okay, and direct discharge wastewater system, there are 92 in the state. So 82 are municipally owned, 10 are fire districts. Public community, so this is residential drinking water systems, there are four eighty. Okay. So yes, there's overlap, but there's also quite a bit that don't overlap. So I think- I do think we

[Senator Anne Watson (Chair)]: need to thank you. This is very helpful. Am very thankful. I apologize for making it more complicated. No, no, this is helping us get the intent of what I think we're trying to do. And I don't think we're at a place where we're ready to say it's water or sewer, it's water and sewer, because changing it to an ore would be a much bigger deal. But I'm liking the idea of adding, including fire districts. I realize it might just add seven, but it's I think if you because what I'm envisioning is on this draft amendment, it's just on line 19 saying, in an area established by the municipality, which includes fire districts, because they are technically municipalities, just to make it really clear that that's what we're talking about. Because I especially like that fire districts can have bylaws, so they would still be following the same process to set out their area, that's clean. And then we can deal with the more complicated situations.

[Liz Weier (Executive Director, Vermont Rural Water Association)]: Yeah, that's big point. Right, and my other concern might be even for somewhere like, I'm sure you know, it's usually owned, it's the same operator for water and wastewater, but the collection system and the distribution system don't match up. So there's maybe parcels served by one, but not the other.

[Senator Anne Watson (Chair)]: I think as long as both of them are municipally operated, I mean we could clarify that they don't have to be operated by the same entity, one could be, you know, sewer can be one and the water can be the other, but the point is that there's, that both of them do exist.

[Senator Terry Williams (Vice Chair)]: We probably only have time for a similar fence.

[Senator Anne Watson (Chair)]: I agree, I agree. So, thank you for putting this on the radar. How are you all feeling about the idea of just at least including fire districts? Great ones. So I think that would be fabulous to expand it to make sure that they're good. Are you under the current law, are they feeling excluded from the way it's currently written? Okay. Yes. Yes. Right. But I'll be about to get it. It's out of rent

[Unidentified committee member]: for example. Okay. Yes? One more question. It sounds

[Unidentified committee member]: like this could become a big driver. You know, I've got a municipality that's that's fire district, but that has a public water system that's in the village. There's a village in town, and the the village water system is on land right now. At least. So Mhmm. More than one like that.

[Senator Terry Williams (Vice Chair)]: I know.

[Unidentified committee member]: I mean, it'd nice if as long as we're building this thing, maybe we can build it so that when you protect it in this power and water system, it's. Mhmm. Mhmm.

[Senator Terry Williams (Vice Chair)]: So so we come back to it. I'm like Yeah. Just to set up for it.

[Unidentified committee member]: Yeah. They tried to merge the village and town another time.

[Senator Anne Watson (Chair)]: Oh, really?

[Unidentified committee member]: And the main reason they can't do it is because of the water district. Oh. Because the people at the town were saying, oh, they're paying for separate district. Just people that are on here could pay the they issue the water tax. Mhmm.

[Unidentified committee member]: The law is not It's insane. Interesting. Okay.

[Senator Anne Watson (Chair)]: Thank you so much. I really appreciate it. I think we're otherwise done for the day. I'm going to ask Ellen to make one more amendment of this. And just so you know, I did check-in with BHTV. We're going to hear from them tomorrow. They had some recommended language. So they're open to doing an update, but they had an update on their farm worker housing needs assessment. So that was very encouraging. So my thought at this moment is to, in the next draft, have their recommended language, scrap the LERB report, and change it, have one further change to this first language to make sure that we're including fire districts in this language. Okay, super. And then the plan is to drop hold on this tomorrow, and then hopefully I'll get to tell Economic Development Office on Tuesday and then I think it might be up for action on Tuesday. So we shall see. Or if

[Senator Terry Williams (Vice Chair)]: we could do a straw poll Tonight? By by if it's so that you could go tomorrow. So I've just been through trying to get my lemon ready. This morning, I made cake to get it so Yeah. More of that.

[Unidentified committee member]: You'd be happier. It'd be great. I mean, assuming

[Senator Anne Watson (Chair)]: that we adopt BHCb's language and it's what they want and they're happy. Yeah, if that all works for you, I realize, I know Senator Hardy mostly prefers to like see the light if before she, you know, votes on something.

[Unidentified committee member]: She'd say it.

[Senator Anne Watson (Chair)]: Yes. So, that's true because we can have it drafted.

[Senator Terry Williams (Vice Chair)]: You would see that term.

[Senator Anne Watson (Chair)]: Yeah. Well, and if I could, and I know Senator Clarkson is way still, but

[Unidentified committee member]: I wonder if you

[Senator Anne Watson (Chair)]: can coordinate, I can at least reach out to them and be like, I have this amendment, can

[Unidentified committee/staff speaker]: I continue make meetings tomorrow?

[Senator Anne Watson (Chair)]: Okay. Any other thoughts before we adjourn? Okay. Great. Then we are adjourned.

[Unidentified committee/staff speaker]: Someone has a speaker.