Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Sen. Anne Watson (Chair, Washington District)]: Okay, good morning. This is SUNY Natural Resources and Energy, and it is Wednesday, January 21, and we are starting the building off by talking about portable solar and plugging solar. We are joined this morning by a number of students. Welcome. I think we're going to be hearing from a couple of you. There any? Okay. Yeah. Great. So do you, would you prefer, well actually before we start, let's go around and say, who we are so that you know who you're talking to. And then would you prefer to come up together?

[Dan Robillard (Manager, Wastewater System & Potable Water Supply Program, VT DEC)]: Do you

[Unidentified (brief interjections)]: want to

[Sen. Anne Watson (Chair, Washington District)]: go one at a time? What would you

[Unidentified (brief interjections)]: like to do?

[Sen. Anne Watson (Chair, Washington District)]: You can stay together. Okay, great. Awesome,

[Jenny (Jeni) Carter (Professor; Senior Attorney, Energy Clinic, Vermont Law & Graduate School)]: thank you. Hi everyone, I'm

[Sen. Ruth Hardy (Member, Addison District)]: Senator Ruth Hardy from the Addison District. Thanks everyone for coming up.

[Sen. Terry Williams (Vice Chair)]: Senator Terry Williams, Vice Chair of the Committee and from the Welcome District.

[Sen. Anne Watson (Chair, Washington District)]: Anne Watson from the Washington District, which is where we are.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Member, Bennington District)]: Seth Bongartz from the Bennington Center District, Scott Beck from

[Sen. Ruth Hardy (Member, Addison District)]: the Caledonia District. Super. All right.

[Sen. Anne Watson (Chair, Washington District)]: So it's Claire and Sophie. Okay, Alana.

[Sen. Ruth Hardy (Member, Addison District)]: Can you sit right again? Yeah, yeah. Right. Yeah. Hello everyone.

[Claire and Sofia (Middlebury College students; Sunday Night Environmental Group)]: I'm Claire from the Memorial. I'm Sofia Gurupo. And we're students at Middlebury College. We've got some Middlebury friends with us. We're here representing STEM. That's a Sunday night environmental group, a student led environmental and social activist group. We were founded in 2005 by students, and we have since been leaders in a number of initiatives on campus and beyond, including the formation of 350.org, an international climate organization founded alongside Phil McKibben. Her And work has included bringing Middlebury College to a commitment to divesting fossil fuels, attending protests, hosting a number of community based events and talks, collaborating with local organizations, and engaging students to further define movement and advocate for society. Our commitments to our communities, to our state, to the natural world, and to our futures are what brings us here to benefit. So as young people constantly moving around, deciding on career paths, living in temporary housing, going through the lengthy and expensive process of installing permanent solar panels isn't a feasible option. Establishing the right to plug in will allow for the purchase of a portable, renewable source of energy, electricity, which will make an impact for people living in the As of 2023, according to Efficiency Vermont, the average Vermont household spends 11% of their annual income on rent. Income saving, electricity, and transfer fee. A household spending over 6% is considered to be hourly. The energy burden that Vermont residents face must be addressed and accessible and inclusive. Additionally, electricity is the most used energy source in households accounting for about 40% of total residential sector end use energy consumption in 2020, according to the US Energy Information Administration. I want to see a future where we don't have to rely on drilling into the ground and extracting fossil fuels from foreign countries, burning gas and oil, emitting carbon dioxide and pollutants into the air for our energy. I want people to meet and to be included in this transition. Passing this bill would mean a decrease in energy costs alongside a decrease in carbon emissions. So we are here today with the perspective of young people, But it's also important that this bill is going to benefit all promoters by providing them with a reliable access to solar energy. And a very explicit way of doing so is by addressing environmental injustice. Experts have explained solar energy access as a marker of environmental injustice based on the length of influence and access as a whole. Across various states, including California, Massachusetts, New Jersey, and New York, 90% of homes with residential solar panels are belonging to households with high incomes. This study has also found that through legislation that specifically is targeting low to moderate income households, there can be an increase in the residents that have access to solar energy. And this access to solar energy correlates to other intertwined environmental and social injustices. This bill can enhance a major social injustice by providing an increased access to internet. Today, access to internet is essential for all well-being. If we're doing remote work, if we're on Zoom, etcetera. With greater access to solar, this internet access can in turn also be increased. Right now, according based on 2024, there were 40,000 Vermonters who still do not have access to reliable internet. Moreover, this is an important bill in creating momentum for future climate justice access. This bill will allow individuals to embark on a solar power journey that is typically pretty inaccessible for many Vermonters. And this can be achieved despite one's income and housing circumstances if they are renting a site. So by eliminating these hurdles from starting to use solar energy, monitors across at once age and different socioeconomic statuses can claim autonomy over where their energy is coming from. Access to portable solar provides an essential gateway for sustainable energy and that transition away from fossil fuels. Thank you so much for your time, and we would love to answer any questions you Super. Any questions? Yeah. I just want to

[Sen. Anne Watson (Chair, Washington District)]: ask a little bit more about the connection you made to broadband, to access to the internet. Is it because more people have access to lower cost electricity, they'll be able to have internet? Can you flesh that out a little bit more for me?

[Claire and Sofia (Middlebury College students; Sunday Night Environmental Group)]: Yeah, so that was based on a paper by Reams, which is attached in our Works Cited, which we provided to you all. And that is basically saying just overall more reliable electricity makes it so, one, there'll be lower cost so you can reallocate those funds to internet. And like you said, just with access to electricity then, there's a better goddess. Okay.

[Sen. Anne Watson (Chair, Washington District)]: And I know you guys have talked about this in your group a lot. Do you feel like people, once you graduate and move into your new places, would you buy these portable, functioning solar panels, do think there's interest with your generation? Yes. Yeah. Yeah. And you'd stick them in the back of your car when you knew you could do that.

[Claire and Sofia (Middlebury College students; Sunday Night Environmental Group)]: And with that, there's some studies that have shown that 75% of Gen Z and millennials have interest in solar, but the number that has access to that is significantly lower. I don't have the exact staff of who has access, but there has been reports that show that it is lower than the interest level.

[Sen. Anne Watson (Chair, Washington District)]: Do you have the, do you have, can you send us that, or is that in your paper, the 75% of Gen Z? It should be. Okay. I'm not looking at it. Okay, well, Thanks. Thanks.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Member, Bennington District)]: Your questions will take you. Yeah,

[Sen. Anne Watson (Chair, Washington District)]: thank you so much. Yeah,

[Claire and Sofia (Middlebury College students; Sunday Night Environmental Group)]: for sure. Okay, and I think

[Sen. Anne Watson (Chair, Washington District)]: we're then ready to do it on school. Actually before I go, Jude, you need anybody to bring your excuse me? You're good with everyone's with me. Great. Okay, so I think we're ready to move to Jane Carter from Vermont Law School. She's with us virtually. I know she had her camera on earlier.

[Jenny (Jeni) Carter (Professor; Senior Attorney, Energy Clinic, Vermont Law & Graduate School)]: Good morning.

[Sen. Anne Watson (Chair, Washington District)]: Good morning. It's good that you're joining us virtually.

[Jenny (Jeni) Carter (Professor; Senior Attorney, Energy Clinic, Vermont Law & Graduate School)]: Yeah. Well, thank you for the opportunity, and we really appreciated that you asked us for some feedback on your portable solar bill. So I'm gonna see I sent of course, just before I got on, I think I pulled a plug on something. So I ripped out my keyboard and my monitor. But I did send a request to be able to share my screen with you.

[Sen. Anne Watson (Chair, Washington District)]: Maybe they have permission now to screen?

[Jenny (Jeni) Carter (Professor; Senior Attorney, Energy Clinic, Vermont Law & Graduate School)]: It does appear that I do. So Nice. Let's see.

[Sen. Ruth Hardy (Member, Addison District)]: Irony. I'm just getting screens here.

[Jenny (Jeni) Carter (Professor; Senior Attorney, Energy Clinic, Vermont Law & Graduate School)]: Sure why it's not.

[Sen. Ruth Hardy (Member, Addison District)]: Does she see the share of it in the No.

[Sen. Anne Watson (Chair, Washington District)]: I think We're

[Jenny (Jeni) Carter (Professor; Senior Attorney, Energy Clinic, Vermont Law & Graduate School)]: behind okay. There we go somewhat. I'll confess. I'm only used to sharing on Teams. So

[Sen. Anne Watson (Chair, Washington District)]: Uh-huh.

[Jenny (Jeni) Carter (Professor; Senior Attorney, Energy Clinic, Vermont Law & Graduate School)]: I may just kind of leave it where it is, although I guess I can go to let me just go to the slideshow. Yep. It works the same way. Yay. Hey. Yay. So as you all know, I'm Jenny Carter, and I'm a professor here at the law school and senior attorney in our energy clinic, which is part of the Institute for Energy and the Environment. And I know you've heard about us from Genevieve Burn in the past, so I won't go into any detail on what the clinic does. Although I do always like sharing, like, the really prehistory of law school because I really do have a beautiful place to work. But I thought I'd get I'd start off with kind of just an overview of the things I wanted to touch on today. I listened to, you know, a fair bit of the testimony that's been given, so I don't want to be too duplicative, but, you know, maybe emphasize a couple of things that I heard as well as plugging in some holes and try to answer some of the questions that you had presented to us, senator Watson, you know, many months ago. So overview. There's so many benefits. You know, there's benefits to portable solar, you know, and companion battery storage, which I know which hasn't gotten a whole lot of discussion, but is really part of, I think, the future is this combination of the portable solar, lot of portable battery storage, and especially for renters. They have been locked out of the market. And I think this is an easy entry point. Not only is it portable, but you can buy a much smaller quantity, you know, in much PV panels in a much smaller quantity than you typically would for traditional home solar. But I also see that it has opportunities for businesses could potentially be interested in this, as well as homeowners who aren't really sure how long they're going be staying in their home, given that traditional solar does have you know, the payback period is getting even longer with the elimination of the tax credits. And the other nice thing about portable solar is because you can buy it in smaller quantities, it is slightly cheaper than conventional solar. We can expect, I bet, some of those prices to start going down as it becomes more widely available and widely accepted. So I do think it's gonna provide a nice alternative for lower and moderate income people to at least, you know, kind of have an entry point into the solar market. But there are significant limitations for solar, especially in terms of size. Are you guys hearing me okay? I'm getting a little bit of

[Sen. Anne Watson (Chair, Washington District)]: Yes. Unless

[Brian Redmond (Director, Drinking Water & Groundwater Protection Division, VT DEC)]: anyone can not hear Okay.

[Sen. Anne Watson (Chair, Washington District)]: I think we're I think we're okay. So

[Jenny (Jeni) Carter (Professor; Senior Attorney, Energy Clinic, Vermont Law & Graduate School)]: Okay. We're good. And feel and feel free to interrupt me at any time because I'm gonna pretty much do a lot with just the overview slide and then move on. I've got a few other slides that'll just go into a little more detail on a few of the points. But I'll give you kind of the broad strokes first. So there are significant limitations, though, as you guys

[Sen. Terry Williams (Vice Chair)]: are are

[Jenny (Jeni) Carter (Professor; Senior Attorney, Energy Clinic, Vermont Law & Graduate School)]: fully aware of portable solar just in terms of size, in terms of how much you can accomplish with it. So it's definitely not going to get you to the place where you're going to have a backup system for your whole house or be offsetting your electric bill in a major way. But once again, it is an entry point and I think it does have a lot of possibilities. And especially we're seeing with some of the companies, they're coming out with pretty significantly sized portable solar arrays and systems that are much larger than what's being discussed in this bill. What you have heard though, and we'll just reiterate, the biggest concerns with portable solar are safety, I think, and consumer education and protections. So I think you know, so on the on the score of safety, I'm not quite sure. I've heard some people say how UL is coming out with a standard, but they really have although they don't call it a standard, they do have a testing and certification process that came out. It was published in December, but it wasn't released until about two weeks ago. So I I don't know if you all were aware that that has actually come out. And I'll discuss that a little bit. And I've got a slide or two on that. So, they have come out with comprehensive labeling and they've come out with comprehensive testing program and certification program. So I know that was an issue that came up, do you want to use the term certification or

[Sen. Anne Watson (Chair, Washington District)]: do you

[Jenny (Jeni) Carter (Professor; Senior Attorney, Energy Clinic, Vermont Law & Graduate School)]: want to use the term listing? And that listing has traditionally applied to a whole system where certification has applied to just individual components. I will say in UL 3,700, they refer to the whole system testing as certification, which kind of surprised me. So, it may be not such an important point in terms of the drafting and two zero two, whether you're calling it certification or listing,

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Member, Bennington District)]: which

[Jenny (Jeni) Carter (Professor; Senior Attorney, Energy Clinic, Vermont Law & Graduate School)]: makes me maybe I'll just say right now, I think one of the things you all might want to consider if you feel that you have time is actually asking somebody from UL to come testify because I think they could probably answer your questions certainly better than a lawyer can in terms of safety. And I know you've heard from a number of lawyers. And so, I'm going to touch on some safety issues, but I'm going to be right up front. That's, you know, I I don't wanna get too far out over my skis on that one. But so UL 3,700, it does address safety concerns, and it does have one of the things I was before I realized that it was out there, you know, I started coming up with a whole list of new things that you would want to have in terms of information for consumers regarding portable solar and UO 3,700. It is quite comprehensive on all the information, all the safety information that needs to be given to consumers and how to go about installing them and the list of laundry things that you shouldn't do, including, you know, don't put your finger in the socket, you know, down to the things that, you know, we hope we're having a sense. But so in I'll go I think I'll I'll wait to to I do have a slide sort of on on the three main safety issues that I've heard about that you guys have heard a little bit about and how you all 3,700 addresses those. Another thing that I would like to raise, and I'm not quite sure, you know, sort of what your approach was, but was to point out that s two zero two applies only to part of the market. You know, it's only applying to I'm take a look at the the language. You would only apply to devices that have a maximum power output to electric grid of not more than 1,200 watts. And which is which I would say is the is the main line. There are systems out there that are larger than that. And while I understand, I think the impetus for this bill might have been just to not require these small systems to go through the $2.48 process and get us to put a public good. But I think probably as you learn through this and as we've learned oh, can you guys can you guys wanna hear me?

[Sen. Anne Watson (Chair, Washington District)]: I'm just getting Yeah.

[Jenny (Jeni) Carter (Professor; Senior Attorney, Energy Clinic, Vermont Law & Graduate School)]: I'm getting a note. I'm getting, like, all these little screeching noises, but okay. So I think the impetus came from trying to give it a simpler process and not having to go through two forty eight. But I think what maybe we've all learned in the process is that in addition to making wanting to make it easier, we wanna make these systems safe. And so I'm just gonna flag the issue that the safety features that are all gonna be required for these smaller systems as written and as Utah did it aren't going to apply to the larger systems. So I'm just gonna flag that as to whether or not that is potentially something you wanna address. The other thing is that I wanna point out that two forty eight, currently, whether you wanna consider maybe tightening it up a bit because the two forty eight CPG requirement right now arguably doesn't apply to plug and play systems, even the larger ones, as the trigger for having to submit and secure CPG is you can't do site preparation or construction until you have secured your CPG. So I wanted to flag that whether or not that is something in two forty eight you might wanna tighten up and make a little clearer. The other issue is what to do about multiple devices. Do you want to you know, as it's written now, it defines total solar energy generation device, and it limits that device to a maximum output of not more than 1,200 watts. Do you want to put any limitations on the number of devices a household or business can have? And I'll just kind of throw out there that Germany doesn't regulate the number of devices you have, but it does regulate the total output of your devices. And as you've probably heard, they limit it to 800 watts. So getting towards the end of kind of my list is that and just like the Utah bill, s two zero two puts the burden on consumers to determine if their product complies rather than the manufacturer. And I'll raise the question, should manufacturers be or retailers be allowed to sell noncompliant products in the state? And one maybe potentially maybe one argument for regulating things on the sales side in the state is that it might be easier to enforce against sellers that are part of a who have to register with the Secretary of State's office and are more visible than consumers. Because enforcement, I think, is really a question mark for compliance with this law. And not only because consumers may not want to comply, but consumers might have no idea that this law exists. Right? I mean, and there are a lot of products already out on the market that consumers can go online and buy. And, you know, I've seen them that they say, we're permitted in all 50 states. Or they'll say, no utility interconnection agreement required. And I think your typical consumer, without a big educational effort on behalf of the state, may not even know that these requirements exist if they're put into place. And the last thing on kind of my laundry list of things to think about is should the attorney general's office be given an explicit directive to develop some marketing restrictions or regulations. I won't say for sure, but I'm pretty confident that they already have the authority to do so under the Broad Consumer Protection Act. But, you know, it might not be a bad idea to put some guardrails around, you know, what kind of claims sellers can make about, you know, cost savings and how much electricity is gonna be generated, etcetera. So that's that's my kind of the the laundry list I brought to you today. And then I thought I would just do a little bit deeper dive. And you tell me if I'm running out of time. Yeah, we

[Sen. Anne Watson (Chair, Washington District)]: have just probably like three minutes or so.

[Jenny (Jeni) Carter (Professor; Senior Attorney, Energy Clinic, Vermont Law & Graduate School)]: Okay. So taking just a step back because I didn't hear this, you might have gotten it in your other testimony, but I didn't hear it in the testimony is just to get a sense of what the scale of these are. So, you know, the bill has a limit of 1,200 watts. And I will tell you, I put on this slide the one KWH battery capacity power, because that is in the UL standard UL 3,700. They are limiting their definition of what they're considering to if it's if it's solar paired with battery, the battery has a maximum capacity of one one kilowatt hour. So here's just a couple of examples. You know, a refrigerator. These are just kind of typical. Like, a refrigerator can really vary from, like, 200 to 800 watts. But 300 watts is considered a, you know, fairly standard energy efficient refrigerator. That takes 300 watts out of your kind of 1,200 watts caps. And if you've got a battery that's associated with your solar, you could run your battery for a little over three hours. A cell phone, you could you know, it only takes 20 watts that you could charge for fifty hours. I put in a sump pump because that's why I want to have a generator and I wanna have backup power in my house is because my house floods and I

[Sen. Anne Watson (Chair, Washington District)]: always have to have a sump

[Jenny (Jeni) Carter (Professor; Senior Attorney, Energy Clinic, Vermont Law & Graduate School)]: pump. I always have to make sure it's running. That takes a lot more energy, and that isn't something that would really be feasible under the constraints of this bill or under the UL listing because, even though 800 watts technically comes under that, there are surge issues. But that just gives you a few examples of how you can compare, like, what are the things you can do? But if you compare that next let's just say let's see if I can get to the next one.

[Unidentified (brief interjections)]: Oh,

[Jenny (Jeni) Carter (Professor; Senior Attorney, Energy Clinic, Vermont Law & Graduate School)]: how about no. Oh, I'm going all in the wrong direction.

[Sen. Ruth Hardy (Member, Addison District)]: No. For

[Jenny (Jeni) Carter (Professor; Senior Attorney, Energy Clinic, Vermont Law & Graduate School)]: comparison, a Tesla Powerwall has a 13.5 kilowatt hour capacity, and that's a single Powerwall. And so if you're in the, you know, GMP program, you get two of those. So that's really what it's gonna take to, you know, kind of power your house if you are using battery capacity. I just thought I would show you here's a here's the UL 3700. Here's the entry, kind of the the gateway into UL 3700. It is online, and you can access it for free if you open an account. So if you're so inclined, you can go take a look at UL 3700 for yourself. But it is pretty comprehensive. They don't call it a standard. They call it an outline of investigation. But nonetheless, it reads pretty much like a standard, and they can use this for testing and certification. So there are three main one of the considerations that that you might wanna think about is in both the you in The U UL, they did a white paper that identified safety risks, like prior to adopting the equivalent of standards, their outline. And so as you probably heard, they identified three main safety issues. And my point isn't to pretend that I'm an expert in any of that other than to say they do require to address these safety issues. For at least two out of three, it's going to require new technology to be certified UL in order to comply with their standards. And so if you think by passing this bill, companies are going to be able to there there is a company out there that said that it complies with with UL standards, but that's not even possible at this point. I can't possibly have gotten certified. And so and, yes, dude, I can post that. I can send

[Unidentified (brief interjections)]: it to you.

[Sen. Anne Watson (Chair, Washington District)]: And so

[Jenny (Jeni) Carter (Professor; Senior Attorney, Energy Clinic, Vermont Law & Graduate School)]: I just wanna point that out because especially with the GFCI compatibility, from what I've read, you know, that may be a while before that particular requirement is going to be able to be met.

[Sen. Anne Watson (Chair, Washington District)]: So Jenny, unfortunately, I have to interrupt because we're going to move on because it looks like I have one more slide. So if you wanna briefly talk about that, that would be great.

[Jenny (Jeni) Carter (Professor; Senior Attorney, Energy Clinic, Vermont Law & Graduate School)]: So okay. And what I will say let's see. Is what about so I had already mentioned this. What about the safety of larger systems? There are larger systems out there. But the other thing I did wanna point out, the last thing I wanted to point out is in the bill, it says in the definition of portable solar energy generation device, and it has to include a feature that prevents the system from energizing the building's electrical system during a power outage. And I am wondering if I I clearly, that's intended to, you know, say that, you know, it's an anti islanding clause. But is it intended to preclude there are now systems, and they're fairly new. They go by different terms, like zero export or what's maybe zero export, I think, is the more pot popular with the term terms, but the there are systems that now can trigger the anti islanding, so they disconnect from the grid. And these are these are combination solar and battery systems. Although it actually can apply just to the solar systems as well. But that they will island, but then after they have disconnected from the grid, they will then reenergize the home, but only locally within the home. And I don't know if your language is meant to preclude those or not. And you all actually deals with those types of systems as well in their certification and testing protocols.

[Sen. Anne Watson (Chair, Washington District)]: Thank you. You've raised some interesting points and things worth chatting about. Unfortunately, we have to move because our next witness, are they in the room? Yes. So unfortunately, have to move on because our next witness has a very tight hand line, but thank you so much.

[Jenny (Jeni) Carter (Professor; Senior Attorney, Energy Clinic, Vermont Law & Graduate School)]: Oh, sure. And if I can answer any questions in the future, I am happy to, and I will send this to Judith.

[Sen. Anne Watson (Chair, Washington District)]: Okay. Super. Really appreciate it. Thanks for Thank your time on

[Jenny (Jeni) Carter (Professor; Senior Attorney, Energy Clinic, Vermont Law & Graduate School)]: you. Take care.

[Sen. Anne Watson (Chair, Washington District)]: Yeah. You too. Okay. So we are gonna move to Mr. Blair, who is the chair of the Electricity Licensing Board and also with the Department of Public Safety. Mr. Blair, welcome.

[Mr. Blair (Chair, Electricians’ Licensing Board; Dept. of Public Safety – Division of Fire Safety)]: Thank you. I'll start by saying Jenny did a wonderful job of laying out the groundwork for me. So our stance from the Division of Fire Safety and my position is we focused on the UL standard 3,700 as an outline, and it's still in its incipient stages of development. And we would like to see some closure on their end in addressing issues like overcurrent, backfeeding, branch circuits, possibly even having to create a dedicated circuit and a specific receptacle type to address those issues. And there are other NRTLs, nationally recognized testing laboratories, other than UL that may jump in the game or manufacturers may utilize for building and developing a safety standard for. Some of our larger concerns are the overcurrent and backfeeding of existing home wiring that will come in various ages around the state of Vermont. We have a lot of older homes and by increasing the amount of output or input on an existing branch circuit should be taken into consideration. And we feel that UL will address those issues when they come out with their standard. And that'll probably be in the form of a dedicated circuit and possibly even a dedicated receptacle type for anything that's interactive with utility and backfeeding.

[Unidentified (brief interjections)]: I

[Mr. Blair (Chair, Electricians’ Licensing Board; Dept. of Public Safety – Division of Fire Safety)]: also feel that with the draft document, we really should be specific in our language and it should include that UL 3,700 standard for now as at least a starting point. And UL calls this a plug in photovoltaic system indicating that it is interactive with the utility and home wiring. The way the language is now with just a portable solar emergency generation device could cover a couple of different types of systems, one that is not interactive. So our primary focus would be on the ones that are interactive.

[Sen. Anne Watson (Chair, Washington District)]: Before we move on, can you say that one more time that UL refers to them as what now, an interactive?

[Mr. Blair (Chair, Electricians’ Licensing Board; Dept. of Public Safety – Division of Fire Safety)]: As an interactive generation device, but it's called specifically a plug in photovoltaic system.

[Sen. Anne Watson (Chair, Washington District)]: Okay. Thank you.

[Mr. Blair (Chair, Electricians’ Licensing Board; Dept. of Public Safety – Division of Fire Safety)]: I'm assuming that everybody got a look at that white sheet from UL prior to the meeting. So I won't go over too much of that. If you've got a specific question about an area that you might need clarification, I'd be happy to do my best to clarify.

[Sen. Anne Watson (Chair, Washington District)]: Yes, actually have a question. So it sounds like you're mostly concerned with whether, if the devices feed electricity back to the grid, and if it's a closed system and it's not feeding back to the grid, then there are fewer concerns. Is that correct or am I misunderstanding?

[Mr. Blair (Chair, Electricians’ Licensing Board; Dept. of Public Safety – Division of Fire Safety)]: So just for clarity purposes, if you're plugged into the house wiring, there is that potential to back feed into the system. If this is a solar array that is just connected to a battery pack that you're plugged directly into, and it's not connected to the house wiring or the utility in any way, I really don't have much concern with those systems. There's already a number of those on the market with UL listings.

[Sen. Anne Watson (Chair, Washington District)]: Yeah, but I'm talking about one that you plug in, but does not back feed to the grid. I think that that's an option. And as my understanding is that that's an option. So it plugs into a house's electrical system and it doesn't feed power back to the grid if there's an excess amount of power?

[Mr. Blair (Chair, Electricians’ Licensing Board; Dept. of Public Safety – Division of Fire Safety)]: There may be a system that only charges a, say, stationary battery or energy storage device that doesn't back feed. But I thought the whole purpose of the system that we're discussing today is to also backfeed the utility.

[Sen. Anne Watson (Chair, Washington District)]: Yeah, I guess I'm not being clear. Maybe there are three things. There's one that plugs in and any excess energy that's produced, that say people are not home and their solar panel is producing electricity, but they're not home to use it. So anything access would go out, feed back to the larger grid. Then I think there's a system where if people are not home to use it, and they either use it, it either has to go to a battery storage or just is sort of wasted energy, that it doesn't feed back into the grid. And then there's a system that feeds into a battery storage. But all of them are plugged into the house's electrical system. Think you're the electrician, not me. So I'm way over my skis here, but I'm trying to understand where your concerns are, which of the, which it's the first one that I mentioned that if it feeds into the grid, right?

[Mr. Blair (Chair, Electricians’ Licensing Board; Dept. of Public Safety – Division of Fire Safety)]: That's our larger concern with this. The latter two you indicated sound very similar in nature to me.

[Sen. Anne Watson (Chair, Washington District)]: Oh, okay.

[Mr. Blair (Chair, Electricians’ Licensing Board; Dept. of Public Safety – Division of Fire Safety)]: Being that they're what we would call islanding or standalone systems that would not be interactive with a grid or back feed.

[Sen. Anne Watson (Chair, Washington District)]: And if they're the ones that are interactive, if there's a shutoff device or that's what I think the UL is recommending is some kind of, if there's an issue, there's a shutoff device. Do you feel like that is sufficient or is that not sufficient?

[Mr. Blair (Chair, Electricians’ Licensing Board; Dept. of Public Safety – Division of Fire Safety)]: I'd like to see what UL comes up with for a standard. So I really don't want to speak to that.

[Sen. Anne Watson (Chair, Washington District)]: Got it. Okay. Yes.

[Sen. Terry Williams (Vice Chair)]: Go ahead. Just real quick, I apologize because I wasn't paying full attention, but you said something about concerned about the wiring only houses. Can rephrase that or say that again for me?

[Mr. Blair (Chair, Electricians’ Licensing Board; Dept. of Public Safety – Division of Fire Safety)]: Sure, Vermont has a lot of older housing stock as we all know and a lot of those circuits are 15 amp circuits. Some of them could be even the old knob and tube, everybody's familiar with that term, or older generation branch circuit wiring. So when we start back feeding a certain amount of power into a branch circuit that's also feeding other circuits, the cumulative load on that can exceed the impacity of the wire. So that becomes a larger concern with the older homes and possibly even some newer homes.

[Sen. Anne Watson (Chair, Washington District)]: So, I mean, based on some of the slides that Jenny was just showing, or so Ms. Carter was just showing us, and that we've seen before, there are appliances that use as much energy as what would be produced by one of these. So if there's a home that doesn't have, that has old wiring, knob and tube, my first house in Vermont had knob and tube wiring. It was a little scary. Are your concerns about this device the same as your concerns would be about plugging in sump pump or a generator that has the same, or refrigerator that has the same kind of usage, or is it specific to this?

[Mr. Blair (Chair, Electricians’ Licensing Board; Dept. of Public Safety – Division of Fire Safety)]: Oh, I think that can be applied to any appliance.

[Sen. Anne Watson (Chair, Washington District)]: Yeah, okay. It's just generally old wiring is a problem if you're gonna try to plug in something big.

[Unidentified (brief interjections)]: Right. Okay.

[Sen. Anne Watson (Chair, Washington District)]: That's what I wanted to understand that it's not specific necessarily to these. It's a general concern with the old wiring in houses in Vermont.

[Mr. Blair (Chair, Electricians’ Licensing Board; Dept. of Public Safety – Division of Fire Safety)]: Right. They're Back to my screen.

[Sen. Anne Watson (Chair, Washington District)]: And we let people buy bridges without telling them they can't, so.

[Mr. Blair (Chair, Electricians’ Licensing Board; Dept. of Public Safety – Division of Fire Safety)]: Right, we're not the appliance police.

[Sen. Anne Watson (Chair, Washington District)]: Exactly, yeah. Right. So I've got a couple of questions and really appreciating your suggestions so far, like referencing UL 3,700 specifically, and then I'm also appreciating that maybe we should call these what they are referenced as in UL's language. One of the other, so just to confirm, so if we reference other nationally recognized testing laboratories, Vermont does not have one of its own, right? Like some, what I'm hearing from other people is that some states have their own nationally recognized testing laboratory. We don't have one, am I correct about that?

[Mr. Blair (Chair, Electricians’ Licensing Board; Dept. of Public Safety – Division of Fire Safety)]: You're correct.

[Sen. Anne Watson (Chair, Washington District)]: Okay, and then other states, some other states, as I understand it, have their own electrical code. Do you govern Vermont's electrical code or how does, are we, do we need to adhere to some other electric code or who enforces that?

[Mr. Blair (Chair, Electricians’ Licensing Board; Dept. of Public Safety – Division of Fire Safety)]: So I am the chief electrical inspector. I also chair the licensing board, which charged with adopting new code and we adopt and recognize the national electrical code, which with this particular system, I think I counted six or seven articles that would directly apply to plug in photovoltaic systems. We adopt the national electrical code through our Vermont Electrical Safety Rules, and that's done about every three years, we hope. And in that, we can make specific changes to the national electrical code.

[Unidentified (brief interjections)]: Okay.

[Sen. Anne Watson (Chair, Washington District)]: Yes. Given that, could you send us a link to that and would that, to the safety rule, and would that, is there a role to update that to, so if there are new systems going in, to make sure that electricians are wiring to accommodate these systems?

[Mr. Blair (Chair, Electricians’ Licensing Board; Dept. of Public Safety – Division of Fire Safety)]: So we just adopted the 2023 in November.

[Sen. Anne Watson (Chair, Washington District)]: Oh, wow. Okay.

[Mr. Blair (Chair, Electricians’ Licensing Board; Dept. of Public Safety – Division of Fire Safety)]: The '26 is just released. So we are looking at that and there is a possibility to look at altering some code articles to maybe accommodate a system like that. I again would like to see what the standard is going to come out with. If I had to write a rule, would say any plug in photovoltaic should be on its own dedicated circuit and have its own dedicated plug type that would protect against electrocution or touch safe hazards. Just talking out loud on that one.

[Sen. Anne Watson (Chair, Washington District)]: Got it. Yeah. Okay. Thanks. Question? Okay. And then I think we do have to move on to our next witness here, but I guess I also just wanted to mention, so I have a number of, I guess I would call them relatively technical questions, which I would love to send to you and or to UL Solutions, or to folks at BrightSaver to find out some answers. Things like, so when these devices fail, do they fail open or do they fail closed? The kinds of things that And I'm interested in the automatic shutoff device, from a physics perspective, how does that work? How can you be both exporting power and detecting current in the grid. And those are things that I know just enough to be dangerous with those kinds of questions. So I may put those in writing, and as people have expertise to answer them, that's great. And I realized that maybe that's for people who are experts in these specific devices. But anyway, just wanted to put that out there that I, there's some physics questions that I'm interested in.

[Mr. Blair (Chair, Electricians’ Licensing Board; Dept. of Public Safety – Division of Fire Safety)]: Yeah, those are great questions. And on just a closing note, by not being specific with our terminology or trying to hold to a standard, I'm also concerned with the of somebody with just enough knowledge to be dangerous, to come in to build their own system, right? Buying a number of components and calling it a portal solar unit and potentially backfeeding a utility grid and creating that hazard.

[Sen. Anne Watson (Chair, Washington District)]: I think that's hard to count. I think people are, we can't. Doing that. There are lots of people out there you know, try to MacGyver systems.

[Mr. Blair (Chair, Electricians’ Licensing Board; Dept. of Public Safety – Division of Fire Safety)]: MacGyver was the word I wrote down this morning when

[Sen. Anne Watson (Chair, Washington District)]: I was thinking about that. That was great shows. Anyway, thank you. Appreciate, your, your time and, for me to chat with us about this. I really appreciate your testimony. So thank you so much.

[Mr. Blair (Chair, Electricians’ Licensing Board; Dept. of Public Safety – Division of Fire Safety)]: Okay, you're welcome.

[Sen. Anne Watson (Chair, Washington District)]: Super. So thank you everybody for being safe. We are going to switch topics and we are so, going to have a reset of our thinking, because we're going to move on to S212, which was about the permitting process for water and wastewater systems when connecting to a municipal water sewer system. So with that, we have Chris Humphrey from ACCD. Welcome.

[Sen. Ruth Hardy (Member, Addison District)]: Can you close the door please?

[Sen. Anne Watson (Chair, Washington District)]: Morning. Morning.

[Unidentified (brief interjections)]: We love short weeks. We can do,

[Dan Robillard (Manager, Wastewater System & Potable Water Supply Program, VT DEC)]: you know,

[Unidentified (brief interjections)]: five days of work in four days, but I am here for you.

[Sen. Anne Watson (Chair, Washington District)]: Thank you. You're so good.

[Chris Cochran (Director, Community Planning & Revitalization, ACCD/DHCD)]: I apologize. I'm a little scripted this morning. Just my friend from DC don't want me to go off the rails.

[Dan Robillard (Manager, Wastewater System & Potable Water Supply Program, VT DEC)]: It's probably a little bit more than

[Chris Cochran (Director, Community Planning & Revitalization, ACCD/DHCD)]: I normally do, but thank you for having us here. Nice to meet some of the other members. Know Ruth very well. To meet you. Chris Loughlin, I'm director of community planning but can't revitalization and

[Sen. Terry Williams (Vice Chair)]: I work with the Department of

[Chris Cochran (Director, Community Planning & Revitalization, ACCD/DHCD)]: Housing and Community Health it's nice of you too. A little commercial about what we do you know I work with know apologies program innovators and we administer about $40,000,000 in financing programs and what we do is we provide technical guidance in sensitive speech and we're also really building creative partnerships to help municipalities charge to solve the ever growing complexity problems that they face. Our work has been recognized nationally and internationally, province of urbanism, the international development councils recognize their work, and most recently our work on a project called Homes for All that was written up by Harvard one of their housing journalists. More to come on that, but I'd love the opportunity to come back to you and talk about Homes for All and kind just more broadly because some of the work can be done to kind of align our regulatory system, our funding system. I'm looking forward

[Sen. Anne Watson (Chair, Washington District)]: to having you back in my good half. And

[Chris Cochran (Director, Community Planning & Revitalization, ACCD/DHCD)]: of course, we want to make strong downtowns and villages, but a lot of this work for each underground system alignment is focused on housing, and creating housing and life applications. Thank you for that before coming back to talk to Jean Marc. Switching to the subject matter and I'm just gonna give you a little extreme like what are we doing today? Because I think many members, I mean Seth knows, but Senator Bongartz says we're not, but maybe the rest of you don't. So I served on the I-forty seven community, that's a stakeholder group of people who know a lot more about the subject matter than I do. But before I

[Dan Robillard (Manager, Wastewater System & Potable Water Supply Program, VT DEC)]: get into violence I wanted to just kind

[Chris Cochran (Director, Community Planning & Revitalization, ACCD/DHCD)]: of step back and say how I came to this issue because it helped explain what this report does and why we're here. The issue predates me and my work for the state and the DHCB but I became involved in a bill called S101 which is 2021. At the time we were working on a report on the government the new ministry called Fire and Housing Projects and we were asked to go talk to developers and understand what actually really does. Depending on who you ask you got to hear an answer. Being a developer says no, it's the stupidity for a water wastewater process that you looked at. It's crazy. It's not the fee, it's not the engineering, it's the fact that we have the missile permit, we have the higher engine, we've got the wrong steps, and then the state is not being timely into Google's and we can't get our actual 50 permits until we have our full suite of the state permits ready to go. So that was a pinch point that they were very frustrated about and this again this was five years ago, now this is a long time ago. I understand since and Brian Bedrooms here from BC, they linked that problem, currents are really vast and speedy now. So I think that one's been resolved. I guess the more, the other one I think you can talk to homeowners and small scale developers so the people who trying to help support any bill they had a bit of a different story you know they had this dream of building an accessory well meaning they're creating a duplex in their house because they had more room than they needed. They said, you know, it's a great idea but then in reality you talk to your local zoning commission and say, oh yeah, you're going to have to get a state permit, you're going to have to hire an engineer, you're going to have to go pay us twice, pay the municipality in the state for what is largely a technical review of the same things. It didn't make up for a lot of sense and for many of them that first bit of information was to sit down or like yeah moving on my dad better go through this process so it was just a little speed bump that kind of stopped me with wanting to take the next steps. Given the legislature asked us to kind of identify kind of what the barriers were for housing, we talked with the Senate and I think the Senate unanimous vote when we built this language to kind of the removable stupidity permitting process in S101. It passed the Senate, it came to the House. At the time there was a new member in the committee, Senator Bongartz, testimony in Canada was really confusing. The committee was hearing different stories from the people and Senator Mawadarz was tasked to reach out and say you know the public health center here like what is the truth? So I thought we were going have a five minute conversation about the frequency tax but it turned out to be like an hour long conversation and so that's kind of many subsequent collaborations that are doing with the telephone needs to evolve on regulations so we're having contacts in them so thank you for your interest I can't believe it's five years later but you're the reason why there's going be that So switching to the report and that was what I was involved in. I don't want to give you specifics of the bill, but just a point of clarity, you know water and wastewater is a challenge you know and building housing is really hard but I would say this simply the permanent connection process is not the only thing holding up housing. There are a lot of factors in this kind of the complex process. It's availability of sewage water, the ability to make a connection, size of the pipes, the cost of the land, the cost of financing, know, on and on and on. So I would say though that anything you can do, even if it's small, can help And our stakeholder group did look at this plan and know it, but this doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me just twice. So even if this is a small step, I think it is an incremental improvement that will make housing more predictable, particularly in the large and biggest towns of Lisoa, the delegation is for funds. Little bit on how we got here, you know duplication of the process is by design, these things just follow on the rules that you guys make. It's not an elegant solution, I think you can do better. And I would say the goal here at high level is not deregulation, it's appropriate regulation. So municipalities have the capacity and the knowledge and technical skills to regulate the economic connections should in a partnership with the pdc.

[Harry Shepherd (Public Works Director & Town Engineer, Town of Stowe; VP, Green Mountain Water Environment Association)]: The core of the report, I don't know

[Chris Cochran (Director, Community Planning & Revitalization, ACCD/DHCD)]: if you read it,

[Brian Redmond (Director, Drinking Water & Groundwater Protection Division, VT DEC)]: it

[Chris Cochran (Director, Community Planning & Revitalization, ACCD/DHCD)]: proposes a general permit framework that allows municipalities that want to take on this responsibility to work with ANR or DEC to coordinate these permits. I think that kind of partnership will significantly speed up the process. I don't think, you know, it's appropriate in every municipality, especially the ones that don't have super water systems. They're going to really rely on ANR to take a technical review and prevent the septic systems. They don't want pollution to happen. We just want the process to be inefficient. In closing toward the end here, I think modernizing your rules may be more significant than we need a statutory change. Know, DC's water wastewater rules are kind of little bit in the 80s. Last provides twenty days. Yes. There's some older things you can ask and I don't want to ask DC to do a bunch of work but I think there's some opportunities to modernize the regulations so that it is easier to come across the board sewer and water connections. And one of the things that the group recommended in the report was creating, well modernizing and also creating specific standards for design manuals making it a little easier unless engineering for every solution you need you know you basically have a book and then you're like oh here's what we need to do for this situation so it's not okay or one off solutions that they're actually pretty standard. So compiling those I think and creating a roadmap for permitting these connections would be a huge step in the criteria. Capacity is the real constraint. Many of our towns that have sewer and water systems have a capacity constraint whether it's at the plant or it's physically the size of the pipe and that's why programs like CHIP that you passed last year are huge you know this is really going to you know unlock a lot of opportunities there is a lot of land and you can have kind of voice to your areas there's often not a capacity to Capacity to serve isn't a really important question that is really murky and complicated to be solved. Thankfully Brian's here today he can talk to you about like we just don't know what any municipal capacity is because our permitting systems, you know, say the installers do not align and even if these know what capacity is that undermines kind of where we can develop and why we develop and we just don't have an answer to the question Perhaps it's a future setting. I don't know, Brian. You're gonna kill me. But I just think, you know, figuring out capacity would do far more to my housing, but permitting on the phone or any statutory changes That ultimately fell outside the state of the country's setting, so it's not I think

[Dan Robillard (Manager, Wastewater System & Potable Water Supply Program, VT DEC)]: it was mentioned

[Chris Cochran (Director, Community Planning & Revitalization, ACCD/DHCD)]: by I think John wrote and, to be honest, we probably have hypothesized about this, but. So in closing, I think the report's very pragmatic, it offers a solution I think to legal dispel permitting conundrum that we face. The issue supports this bill and without even my knowledge understanding of the EC's rules I'm happy to ask them what other kind of related high level questions that you have to understand. Thank you. Great, thank you so much.

[Sen. Ruth Hardy (Member, Addison District)]: We too. Did I outgrieve a call or fire for the two posts?

[Brian Redmond (Director, Drinking Water & Groundwater Protection Division, VT DEC)]: Yeah, I

[Unidentified (brief interjections)]: got my copy. If

[Sen. Anne Watson (Chair, Washington District)]: we don't have that posted on our website, I can get it to you. We'll make sure that it's posted.

[Harry Shepherd (Public Works Director & Town Engineer, Town of Stowe; VP, Green Mountain Water Environment Association)]: Greetings on your site.

[Sen. Anne Watson (Chair, Washington District)]: It is on

[Unidentified (brief interjections)]: the same.

[Dan Robillard (Manager, Wastewater System & Potable Water Supply Program, VT DEC)]: Last January.

[Sen. Anne Watson (Chair, Washington District)]: Okay. So it's on the site to last January. Very good. Thank you.

[Unidentified (brief interjections)]: Pretty long.

[Harry Shepherd (Public Works Director & Town Engineer, Town of Stowe; VP, Green Mountain Water Environment Association)]: You know,

[Unidentified (brief interjections)]: I already turned it.

[Jon Groveman (Policy & Water Program Director, Vermont Natural Resources Council)]: Now you need

[Dan Robillard (Manager, Wastewater System & Potable Water Supply Program, VT DEC)]: to read it.

[Sen. Anne Watson (Chair, Washington District)]: Right.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Member, Bennington District)]: But just to be clear, we're talking here about the physical, this is about the physical connection and engineering around the physical connection, not capacity, not anything else, just weather and and whether we need to have that reviewed twice.

[Sen. Anne Watson (Chair, Washington District)]: I'm interested in what you're saying about modernizing the language. I don't know if you have any examples of what could be done. I mean maybe this is also a question for Brian but it's something that it is also of interest.

[Unidentified (brief interjections)]: I can't give you specifics but I can give you stories. Sure.

[Dan Robillard (Manager, Wastewater System & Potable Water Supply Program, VT DEC)]: Yeah.

[Unidentified (brief interjections)]: You know we work with a group called BCRT Vermont they were in Addison County and I don't know if you know about Addison County but it's full of claims it's very hard to do the ground treatment A local resident was there saying you know I'd really like to subdivide my home but there's really not a super modern or the septic capacity in the community. Rules just don't allow me to do that. Historical and technical solution is I will defer to my friend at BC but I think there's some more modern technology out there where we can pre treat, we can put high fence to get the most out of it that we can out of our any ground capacity. I I mean the technology is best in a lot of ways and I think there are some that that would have been. That's great. Super. Awesome.

[Sen. Anne Watson (Chair, Washington District)]: Well, to know that you all are supportive of this, what we have here moving forward. That's all. We look forward to having you back. Thank you. Okay, super. All right, and we are joined by Mr. Grohman digitally, virtually. Welcome.

[Jon Groveman (Policy & Water Program Director, Vermont Natural Resources Council)]: Thank you. Good morning. Can can you hear me okay?

[Sen. Anne Watson (Chair, Washington District)]: Yes. We can.

[Jon Groveman (Policy & Water Program Director, Vermont Natural Resources Council)]: Great. I'm sorry I can't be there in person. I'm just juggling a bunch of different appointments this morning. But but for the record, my name is John Groban. I'm the policy and water program director at Vermont Natural Resources Council and great to be before you my first time this session. I'm sure it won't be the last. So like Mr. Cochran and the other witnesses you're gonna hear from this morning, I was also on the Act 47 working group, and VNRC supported the recommendations and were supportive of this concept. But I really want to pick up with what Chris said at the end and kind of put on the table and really want to hear from Brian Redmond, who obviously runs this program at DC. But so, you know, VNT supportive of this concept but as Chris said, the Act 47 report, which if you haven't read it, I mean, read the executive summary is easy to read and actually the whole report is pretty easy, easy to follow. But it it did recommend the general permit approach that's in this bill for a delegation revising the delegation to municipalities if they have the capacity to undertake and so there would be would be a state review or a local review if there was a delegation. But the report also does recommend the issues that Chris talked about addressing the need for some technical rules about connections and want to emphasize what Senator Bongartz said. Is about connections, right? So it's about sort of the pipe connections and doing it the right way for the system and making sure that it meets the standards of the municipality. And so that report called for a technical manual addressing those connections. And as Chris said, modernizing the water supply wastewater rules with regard to connections, the rules now mostly focus on on-site systems and there are provisions in there that address connections, but it's not easy to follow and clear and they do need to be modernized. And so my thought is and you know, for the committee to consider is how do we time these things, right? Could we time this new delegations authority in the general permit to the update to the creation of the technical rules manual and to the modernization, you know, of the wastewater rules for these standards because, I mean, I think for the program to work, you just need to know, you know, municipalities need to know, developers need to know, people connecting, just need to know what is expected of them to make the connections. And I would also suggest and again really interested to see what Brian at DC says but we did talk a lot about capacity not so there's two capacity issues. One is the capacity of the town to accept and administer the delegation. But there's also the issue of capacity that Chris referenced, which is water and sewer capacity. And like Chris, I do not work for a public works department. I am not an engineer. I do not run a water supply or a wastewater system. I'm an attorney who works on policy issues. And I was really, it was surprising that, you know, capacity does not one definition of capacity. There are different limits on capacity. There's design capacity in the system. There's capacity in the collection system. Capacity issues are different for water supply systems. You've seen Montpelier have issues with water supply, issues dealing with pressure, right? So that could be a capacity constraint. So I think there was agreement that we need to define capacity and identify the various constraints. And then also come up with a system to make sure we're tracking it better. There has been changes in who and how capacity in these systems have been tracked over the years and I think it's reflected in the report that that just needs to be clarified. I think everyone agrees. It's not, you know, we just need to know definition of capacity, what are the capacity constraints, and as connections occur, how much capacity is left in these systems? So, if there's a way to incorporate like these efforts, you know, while we're updating the delegation and you know, and call and and authorize general permit and and I and again, I'm not a technical expert so I think Chair Watson's question was was a good question to Chris but what do you, could you give examples? I would really ask Brian, ask the public works people that you're going to hear from because they could do a much better job than I could of explaining it to you but I do know that there there are those issues and I think it would be prudent and make sense to try to, you know, address them as we're, you know, you know, altering the the delegation. And then the last thing I wanna say is every time we talk about this issue, and we've talked about it a lot over the last five years at least in the legislature and various committees. There, the issue of combined sewer overflows comes up. So, I just wanted to reference that because I'm sure it's gonna come up and I could give you VNRC's perspective on it and so do you all know what combined through overflow is? I don't wanna launch into, like, a definition of it if everybody knows what it is. And I see nods. Everyone's nodding.

[Sen. Anne Watson (Chair, Washington District)]: A lot of nods over here.

[Jon Groveman (Policy & Water Program Director, Vermont Natural Resources Council)]: So I'll skip that part of it. So, you know, the concern has been that I think there are, you know, 11 or 12 wastewater facilities in the state that are combined wastewater and stormwater systems and so, when it rain, when we get severe rain events and we get more of them now because of climate change, you can get the wastewater plant to get overwhelmed and then it discharges come, you know, combined storm water and wastewater and it doesn't go through full treatment. So, you get raw or partially treated sewage. So, there, I just did it. I just can't help myself. I guess I did. But

[Sen. Anne Watson (Chair, Washington District)]: Sorry.

[Jon Groveman (Policy & Water Program Director, Vermont Natural Resources Council)]: But and there have been concerns that if you're connecting to some of these systems that you're exacerbating those combined sewer overflows. And I've done a lot of research on this and I'm happy to come back if the committee really wants to do a deep dive into how the state and the federal government addresses combined sewer overflows. Because I think it is not, it's been a neglected issue and I don't think it's well understood and I think we need, so I know we, my research is and we've actually had some court cases around this that I don't think that the state is doing an adequate job in addressing combined sewer overflows. I don't think the state is following the Clean Water Act which the Clean Water Act basically says that for any wastewater system with a combined sewer overflow, there needs to be a long term plan to reduce and ultimately eliminate those CSOs. And we've made some progress, but it's been very slow. And you may recall during the conversations about some of the infrastructure funding and the funding that came with COVID, some of that money went to, you know, address combined sewer overflows because it's very expensive. And I think that's why it's gone so slow because you're changing the piping of these systems that are, you know, 50 to a hundreds of years old, right? Very expensive, very hard to do. Tens of millions of dollars but I still think we're going too slow and I don't think we're addressing it the way the Clean Water Act is requiring it to be addressed. But having said that, I don't think that stopping housing developments from connecting to systems is the answer. And that's not what the Clean Water Act requires. The Clean Water Act doesn't say there shall be no connections until the long term combined sewer overflow plan has been completely implemented and affected. It's you know, basically, it's a dual system. It recognizes that we have to continue to treat sewers and to if there is capacity, there's that word again, if there is capacity in the system to during dry flow times treat wastewater, we should continue to connect people, businesses, housing to those systems. But we really do need to redouble our efforts and and move forward much more quickly with these plans. So so I don't know. I hope that makes sense. So that's VNRC's view. This is you're gonna hear about this. I I I I'm I'm sure. And I do think that CSOs is an important issue, and I think that we need to do a lot better, but I don't think the answer is not addressing connections and having better rules about, as Senator Bongartz said, sort of the technical plumbing aspects of making the connections and to having clear updated modernized rules. And if municipalities can achieve the delegation have a more efficient system where you're either going to the state or to the town. But I do think that's where tracking capacity does come in. I think it would help ease public concerns about capacity. And I think also much more public interaction about CSOs and what we're really doing about CSOs. I don't feel that it's well understood. And I think that's why this issue comes up as part of this conversation because it's one of the few times that we from a policy point of view really intersect with that issue. So. So, yeah. So, that's basically what I had to say. I'm happy to answer any questions.

[Sen. Anne Watson (Chair, Washington District)]: Well, Thank you. I I don't think I have any questions at this point. Well, actually, I do have one question. So, at this point, you are comfortable with the language in the bill as it exists?

[Jon Groveman (Policy & Water Program Director, Vermont Natural Resources Council)]: What I'm suggesting is if there could be some time and I really would want to talk to Brian and others about is there a way to tie in along with the adoption of the general permit language acknowledging that they're going to be the development of these technical rules, the modernization of the wastewater water supply rules to make it just clear what the connection rules are in those sort of regulations. Then have something in there about better tracking capacity and who's responsible for it. Sure. Because there's there's this I think there's there's confusion about that right now or lack of clarity I guess is a better way to say it. So if the if if it if the committee is willing I I would I don't have the language, right? I mean, I would want to talk to other people. I don't, I don't feel like I'm the right person to, on my own, just come up with it, but I, I do think that those are, it wouldn't be hard to insert something like that into the bill. And I think it makes sense to do that now if if we're if we're trying to address this issue. But I'll let's do what Brian has to say. I would hear.

[Sen. Anne Watson (Chair, Washington District)]: I apologize. You had said that and I even wrote it down and highlighted it actually.

[Jon Groveman (Policy & Water Program Director, Vermont Natural Resources Council)]: Yeah, know. It's it's alright.

[Sen. Anne Watson (Chair, Washington District)]: Yeah. Thank you for that clarification. So, those are some good suggestions. Okay. Any other thoughts or questions at this point?

[Jon Groveman (Policy & Water Program Director, Vermont Natural Resources Council)]: So I'm going to listen as I drive to my doctor's appointment. I'll spare you the zoom in my car.

[Sen. Anne Watson (Chair, Washington District)]: Be safe. Yeah.

[Jon Groveman (Policy & Water Program Director, Vermont Natural Resources Council)]: Thanks for the opportunity. Yep.

[Sen. Anne Watson (Chair, Washington District)]: No worries. Thank you. Okay. So we're going to keep going in order. So we're going to hear from Mr. Hanford from Raleigh of Cities and Towns, and then we're going to go to Mr. Red.

[Josh Hanford (Director of Government Relations, Vermont League of Cities & Towns)]: In all offer, I can go later. It's helpful for the technical people. No issue with that.

[Dan Robillard (Manager, Wastewater System & Potable Water Supply Program, VT DEC)]: I think

[Sen. Anne Watson (Chair, Washington District)]: we're okay. What I'm anticipating is, if let's just go in order, it's fine. If you go and then we'll go to Mr. Redmond and then we're gonna take a break.

[Harry Shepherd (Public Works Director & Town Engineer, Town of Stowe; VP, Green Mountain Water Environment Association)]: Great. The

[Josh Hanford (Director of Government Relations, Vermont League of Cities & Towns)]: director, Josh Hanford, director of New York government relations at the Montague cities and towns. And I will be brief and non technical so you can get

[Dan Robillard (Manager, Wastewater System & Potable Water Supply Program, VT DEC)]: to the people that know what they're talking about. I too was on this working group,

[Josh Hanford (Director of Government Relations, Vermont League of Cities & Towns)]: went into it not knowing a lot about this issue, sort of hearing rhetoric, but learned a lot and thankful for Brian and his team that led the process and really had good input and a chance for people to weigh in and dive deep into this issue. And like said learned a lot about how the state does its process, how municipalities do their process, and the variety that exists across the state for the municipal permits for connection, and really support this bill, voluntary nature of it. You know I sort of learned that what the state is looking at when they permit it is the capacity of and then the municipality is looking at

[Dan Robillard (Manager, Wastewater System & Potable Water Supply Program, VT DEC)]: the capacity to connect.

[Josh Hanford (Director of Government Relations, Vermont League of Cities & Towns)]: The capacity of system versus the capacity connect and that they both have to work together, they both have different processes and there are some duplication in processes, but it's

[Dan Robillard (Manager, Wastewater System & Potable Water Supply Program, VT DEC)]: not a one to one.

[Josh Hanford (Director of Government Relations, Vermont League of Cities & Towns)]: There's some reasons that all entities play a role in this. So we're always, the league is always supportive of when municipalities are granted some delegation of authority. I think we're pretty clear that the existing process really hasn't worked out well, there's been municipalities that have sought it and given it up and from my limited non technical understanding of why is that the databases never worked, you know the municipality had these systems in place decades, but then it needed to transfer to how the agencies, it just didn't work, it was too much of a burden, so appreciate this new look at it. And as I said, we always appreciate more authority to delegate or that delegation of authority at the municipal level. You know water and sewer infrastructure is one of the most costly and important assets that municipalities have. So they care deeply about getting this right and making sure that they're not doing anything to jeopardize their systems, their taxpayers care deeply about that. And so you know taking a cautious approach about this is good policy. Know the permit fees that are proposed to develop you know I don't have an initial like oh they those are the wrong law, think we can look at that a little bit more. This sort of technical review aspect of what municipalities you know existing permit may have cost versus the new fees for the general permit. Mean we don't want this to result in higher fees for simple connections, guess is the way to say it. And so I just want to make sure that we get that right, I'm probably not the right person to answer those questions of whether we've set this up right. You know some municipalities will choose to seek this others won't for very good reasons and I think you'll hear maybe different perspectives on that and you know we want to ensure that this remains voluntary and that the municipalities have that choice to choose. Duplication, removing duplication is always good in refining how we conduct our processes, taking the time to look at where we've been, how we're doing things is always good government and so I appreciate that we're doing that here.

[Dan Robillard (Manager, Wastewater System & Potable Water Supply Program, VT DEC)]: And really

[Josh Hanford (Director of Government Relations, Vermont League of Cities & Towns)]: that's that's all I have to say we're supportive of this process if there's language that changes or some of these technical aspects you know we want to you know reserve the right to come and talk about some specific aspects of that but are generally supportive of how this has gone, and as I think others said this isn't the magic wand, it's going to make ordering moreausible, know, to build and connect. It's a good staff and we appreciate the staff, Also support what you've heard I think from the last two witnesses that you know it's always a good time to review those technical permitting issues and then there are new systems that can meet the needs we have, but you know can allow housing to happen in places maybe that the on-site wasn't working in the past, we do support that additional sort of

[Jon Groveman (Policy & Water Program Director, Vermont Natural Resources Council)]: look

[Dan Robillard (Manager, Wastewater System & Potable Water Supply Program, VT DEC)]: there. Happy to answer your questions if you

[Unidentified (brief interjections)]: have one, but pretty sure. We can

[Sen. Anne Watson (Chair, Washington District)]: do a question from Josh, thanks. You mentioned the fees and that was the one question I had from his testimony. I'm sorry I missed some today, but I'm wondering the $500 fee that's the last page of the bill, it was unclear to me whether that was for the state alone or if that is for a combination of state and muni or if it's just muni. Do you feel like the municipalities have enough authority to charge a fee or do they need?

[Brian Redmond (Director, Drinking Water & Groundwater Protection Division, VT DEC)]: That is one area

[Josh Hanford (Director of Government Relations, Vermont League of Cities & Towns)]: I think that we need a little bit more clarity.

[Harry Shepherd (Public Works Director & Town Engineer, Town of Stowe; VP, Green Mountain Water Environment Association)]: Okay.

[Josh Hanford (Director of Government Relations, Vermont League of Cities & Towns)]: And also there was an area about the neighborhood areas and those, I mean like, I just have a few questions and probably Brian will clear them up for me and certainly advice from from Harry and you know Green Mountain Water and Environment Association I think we'll figure out sort of those type of questions or whether those are the right ease and there is enough authority because we do believe we do need authority to have fees that cover our costs and make sure our technical side of the review to prove this capacity can be covered.

[Sen. Anne Watson (Chair, Washington District)]: Yeah I mean that was my thought too, if you need to be able to charge a fee, the state probably needs to, but we also don't want to have XF. The point was not to raise the fees, was to just make it clear who we So, would okay. Right. Hopefully we'll figure that out. Thank

[Unidentified (brief interjections)]: you. Thank you. Super. All right.

[Sen. Anne Watson (Chair, Washington District)]: So we'll move to Serenity. Welcome.

[Unidentified (brief interjections)]: Thank you. Good morning. Thank

[Brian Redmond (Director, Drinking Water & Groundwater Protection Division, VT DEC)]: you for bearing with me. I have been out of connectivity on the glacier. I can say they've been a bunch of different hazards. Good morning. For the record, Brian Redmond, I'm the director for the Drinking Water and Groundwater Protection Division. So our division is within DDC, within AR, and we oversee regulation of public water systems. So I believe you heard from one of my senior program managers yesterday, Mr. Mountain Frost, as well as wastewater systems and put whole water supplies. So put whole water supply being for non public waters and wastewater systems in this context being discharged of treated wastewater to the ground water. So soil based water systems, wastewater systems, me, so septic systems, ski areas using large capacity septic systems to villages like the village of Rochester, this whole wastewater system is an example. Under that program, we also cover municipal connections. So the connections to public water and wastewater utilities we're here to speak about today. I do not have prepared testimony or testimony or an intense review of the bill with line by line suggestions. But what I figured I would say today is to continue on the historical timeline that Mr. Cochran started and kind of give you an update on where we are at today. So we filed the report, the Act 47 report, many of the participants are in the room today. And I think Bill, that is S-two 12 largely represents the findings of that report. So we are generally supportive of moving forward with the work that we did with the committee. That report was filed with the legislature in January. There was language in the administration's housing bill reflective of the report, which ultimately didn't get picked up last session. So we, not having that language move forward, we went to plan B. And so what I want to describe is where we're at today on this issue and moving forward. Part of our budget package last year was a small appropriation of 50,000 to do this design manual and really taking an intensive look at the connection standards for the municipal water and sewer connections part of our movements. And I will say that in the summer months and ever since really the pandemic, we thought we were gonna see a downgrade and take a haircut on our revenues and the activity would not, it would slow down, but it was quite obvious. Our activity has skyrocketed and continued to maintain significant pressure in the program. So during the summer, we are doing one thing and that is

[Sen. Terry Williams (Vice Chair)]: doing our permit.

[Brian Redmond (Director, Drinking Water & Groundwater Protection Division, VT DEC)]: So this connections proposal got a little bit delayed, but we have just rounded the corner and about to release some RFP for consulting services to take a look at our existing standards. And I think you've heard from other witnesses that the standards are really kind of buried in septic system, cold or cold water supply regulations. The connections part of the program is not the primary feature. The thought with the Connections Manual is to hire a consultant to really bring those standards forward into a design manual. One of the professional engineers that served on the on the report committee, had worked extensively in a community in Montana that was growing very fast. Her experience, want to forget if it was Bozeman or Whitefish, one of the bigger towns. If you wanted to do a water and sewer connection in this town, here's your main. Our regulations are largely legal and a lot of words, and what we're trying to do is bring those standards forward into more schematics and more of a name. So that's where we're at right now. We're about to put that RFP out for a request for proposals to have that work done. The other major component of that manual is this investigation of capacity to serve from a non regulatory perspective, but to identify the issues that municipalities should be considering when connecting new connections for housing or other uses as it relates to capacity. It is a complicated issue. So we are looking to have as part of that scope to start to identify some of the concerns around capacity and some of the issues municipalities should be looking at in terms of making new connections as it relates to their capacity to serve. So those are the two main features of the manual. And what we were planning to do before this bill was introduced was we were using our existing authorities under our existing fee schedule to move forward with a general permit program that would be applicable to all types connections in all means to have. And so it wouldn't be a delegation program, it wouldn't remove that duplication that you've heard from others, but what it would do would have this design manual to standardize the connection process, really enough guide for use consulting engineers and the people that are doing the design work for the connections for the applicant to apply to the municipality or to the state. So really just trying to streamline that process and move. We have significant provisions under Title X Chapter 64 relating to deference of licensed professionals. And so we would be moving this program more to a deference type of certification general permit program. So that's the path we are on right now before this was introduced. So that's really what I wanted to share today is where we're at.

[Sen. Anne Watson (Chair, Washington District)]: Can you explain more what you mean by deference to licensed professionals? I mean, I know what those words mean, but just sort of explain how you can practice that, what do you mean in practice?

[Brian Redmond (Director, Drinking Water & Groundwater Protection Division, VT DEC)]: Sure. So these are, again, we have not designed the general permit program, but generically speaking, these are professional engineers that are licensed in the state to perform this type of work. These are relative straightforward projects, similar things. And the capacity to serve is not as straightforward, but the actual physical connection is generally relatively from a technical side of things, relatively straightforward. So what we would be doing is a certification program that the designer or the consultant has met the requirements and standards and the rules, which are bolstered by this design manual, this guidance that makes it easier to follow. Okay. I think it's a critical piece because as you've heard from others, the standards are really kind of co mingled with technical standards for septic systems and So including water

[Sen. Anne Watson (Chair, Washington District)]: if a licensed professional who's licensed and in good standing uses the manual, the design manual, and follows the design manual, then the assumption is that everything is okay. Because that way you-

[Brian Redmond (Director, Drinking Water & Groundwater Protection Division, VT DEC)]: Plans and specifications would still come. We would still have the right to review, but the idea, and I said, we are under extreme pressure in our program. The way I always put it to my team is we're always trying to take small peels off the care. It's not quite where we need to be. And this would be one of those peels that we were trying to streamline this process, move it to a certification statement with plans and specifications. We would issue a permit that would contain conditions, but they would eliminate essentially

[Unidentified (brief interjections)]: the in-depth forward.

[Harry Shepherd (Public Works Director & Town Engineer, Town of Stowe; VP, Green Mountain Water Environment Association)]: Okay, got it.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Member, Bennington District)]: We're talking about certifying engineers.

[Brian Redmond (Director, Drinking Water & Groundwater Protection Division, VT DEC)]: We are talking about

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Member, Bennington District)]: For the general permit, which they would have

[Harry Shepherd (Public Works Director & Town Engineer, Town of Stowe; VP, Green Mountain Water Environment Association)]: to go through a certification program.

[Brian Redmond (Director, Drinking Water & Groundwater Protection Division, VT DEC)]: They're already licensed to perform this work in the state and so we're that is who is filing the application on behalf of the applicant. That is a requirement of the application. We're just using that licensure to say that providing deference to those licensed professionals to submit and certify that they've met the requirements of the rule and have used in reference to manual that for working towards. So the certification is

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Member, Bennington District)]: the engine they're certified. Okay.

[Sen. Terry Williams (Vice Chair)]: Any other questions? So a lot of, I've had a constituent company last year, I assume, with a problem that you know they were trying to do some improvements to their facility which included about seven different septic systems and they probably got through the active fifty process, active fifty said go ahead two days later the city came in and said no you care. So are you do you have these entities on the radar that would would be required to fall under this this general permit? They're they're obviously big enough that they probably should. So that they know going into it yeah okay you got proof this time but you know the next time you apply you're going have to change standards that change. Do you have any mechanism to identify those entities that I'll talk about? Yeah, so in terms

[Brian Redmond (Director, Drinking Water & Groundwater Protection Division, VT DEC)]: of the general permit, the applicability that we would be planning for is for connections to public water systems and public wastewater utilities. So that is a defined universe. Those entities are permitted through through their individual permitting programs. So, yes.

[Sen. Terry Williams (Vice Chair)]: This this entity doesn't have different. Yeah. They don't have their capability. There's nothing hooked in. So they're kind of they're kind of gonna have to build their own system. And the feedback I got from the people that contact me was, you know, if we'd known that two years ago, they would have started planning for they have a regional air armed staff. Mhmm. I'm just concerned that those guys may slip through the cracks. And

[Brian Redmond (Director, Drinking Water & Groundwater Protection Division, VT DEC)]: Yeah it sounds like based on what I'm hearing is that that type of project would not be eligible for the general permit and you know part of this is the communications and producing materials that are clear accessible transparent all those things that go in standing up a solid program. And yeah, that would be part of this. Our idea is to get the technical work consulted, that contracted through a professional engineer, get that report, and then the state would do the work of actually building a general permit, which we have done in other programs. I gave the example of our public water supply program. We have a construction general permit for water aids, which historically used to take a long time and they would be backlogged into a file, but we want to see the water remains replaced. And we moved in this direction of general harmony with, it's been a very, very popular and low.

[Sen. Anne Watson (Chair, Washington District)]: So a couple of questions. So appreciating that you all moving forward I in guess I'd call it like a similar direction under the authority that you have. If we were to move forward, and I also appreciate that simultaneously you're supportive of the bill. If this bill moves forward, how do you anticipate your current path either changing or can this deference to licensed professionals, does that dovetail with this? Like how would you picture the work changing if we move forward with this?

[Brian Redmond (Director, Drinking Water & Groundwater Protection Division, VT DEC)]: Yeah, think if the bill moves forward, I think there's probably some issues that we would want to talk about, some of them have already come up with fees specifically. I think it's going to have very limited applicability. Based on my understanding and discussions with municipalities and then our previous experience with our delegation programs, generally people do not focus. That's been my experience so far. Both our delegated programs were in Colchester and Charlotte, and both of those programs got turned back to the state, not cost competitive for the services that we can provide. So I think it will have limited applicability and I think the path that we're actually on right now has much wider applicability. And they could work in comps. They really go. The thing that is coming to mind, I mean, you've heard other witnesses talk about it. Previously the big hurdle had been technology and systems in some of the environments on delegation. And maybe there's some tweaks to be made there on partial delegation. A lot has changed since, it goes back well beyond S-one hundred one. We're talking fifteen years here, ten, fifteen years here, this issue's been deliberating. And at the time there was firewall concerns, but really since the pandemic, everything that we do is electronic. We have a lot of information coming in and out. We use in our online system. So I do wonder if some of these hurdles around partial delegation are actually resolvable now. I have not been a fan of the delegation program just because they have not gone very well in two instances where we've tried them. What would the state receive back once delegation returned was less than ideal and caused significant level of effort for us to take those programs back and bring them into the system. The other thing that I would say about the approach for ACT 47, which is really important, it's still critical for me is we are very good at record keeping. And that was really the part about the general permit where that information, philosophy of that report is that the technical part is wrapped up, everything is done. And then that package is filed in the general permit. Because I think we still want the conditions and the ability to oversee those connections with permit conditions. But the big ticket item there is that we take that information, we warehouse plans, specifications, all the permit related documents and make that publicly available. And that's important for some of the utilities. I've heard from Megan Moyer, she said she works on her system all the time, but really for title attorneys. And if we move off that, I would suggest talking with them because creating a password of where to go for the records, I think would be a step in the wrong direction for the state. I think keeping that consistent, it's all available online, people know where to go is a really important element to all of this. What is the building, what is the structure approved for, for water and wastewater? Where are the pipes located? All really important.

[Sen. Anne Watson (Chair, Washington District)]: That brings me to my second question, which is about the fees. So it sounded like for presumably larger developments, having a standardized fee, 500 was going to be, for some of them, a lot less. It also sounded like perhaps for some smaller developments that could actually be more than what would otherwise be expected. Can you speak to that or if you have any recommendations around the fee?

[Brian Redmond (Director, Drinking Water & Groundwater Protection Division, VT DEC)]: Yeah, don't have a recommendation right now. So our fee schedule is based on the flow of the project. So our, it's a funded room for the program, but the smallest flow single family residence $2.40, is that 200 gallons per annum?

[Dan Robillard (Manager, Wastewater System & Potable Water Supply Program, VT DEC)]: Two, okay. This one would be $2.40, yes.

[Brian Redmond (Director, Drinking Water & Groundwater Protection Division, VT DEC)]: Single family residence, $3.00 6 and 25¢. You had 25¢, been on it for a long time. But $3.00 $6.25. So that is an increase for this proposal would be an increase for a single family residence scheme. But then it goes up to $8.70 is the next, so it should be a larger home. And then it goes up from there. Mean, I think our highest fee category is 13,500. So a lot of these larger projects are in the 10,000 to 13,500 range. So that is a significant savings for those projects. It also creates a hole for us, and that's the concern. I think that the 500 is an attempt to really cover our costs. Record keeping work, the technology, the data management, all of that comes, that isn't effortless. That takes money and investment in systems. It takes people to manage those systems. So it doesn't come without a cost. So that fee is essentially trying to cover that cost from our standpoint, recognizing we're creating a hole by doing this and trying to recoup some of that. Part of my thinking is that by creating a new product, this general permit, we actually may see more activity than we do now. So it's a balancing act, but I do think that I don't have a specific recommendation. I think that that's something that should

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Member, Bennington District)]: be discussed. So as a practical matter under this program, which by the way makes good sense to me, but I think it's a different approach to get in the same place as far as this division. But is it the case that you will be much more likely because right now, most firms that are understanding a patchy don't get reviewed. And that you would be much more likely to review connection with medicine for a larger than he would for a smaller blood reference. Yes. So that would provide some rationale for having at least somewhat a new breast. Yes,

[Brian Redmond (Director, Drinking Water & Groundwater Protection Division, VT DEC)]: you know, we are a, I call it a permit factory. We're issuing 2,900 permits on average. I think we hit almost 3,000 permits this year amongst nine staff and two of those are working supervisors. The math is brutal. And so I think that the reviewers in the offices really know who they're working with and know how to use deference to their advantage to meet the needs of the the app.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Member, Bennington District)]: They know the engineers that take suss. Okay, I will, I think this this general permit, the presumption of deference is intriguing and they may get us a lot further along the way we're trying to go than this. So, okay. Yeah. Yeah. I

[Brian Redmond (Director, Drinking Water & Groundwater Protection Division, VT DEC)]: think it'll have a broader applicability, right? We're really talking about rolling out something that's statewide. It's not going to eliminate that duplication, but I think they go here from Harry Shepherd in a little bit. One of the findings of the committee with the municipalities in the state in the same room talking about this issue is that our standards, we're reviewing for our standards, the municipality may have a different knowledge or interest in their system that they know the course, and they may be looking at a different element that's important to them in that location. So I think streamlining is good, but there is some benefit to the duplication. We have different, I always say it takes a village. We're in it together, but we have different roles and responsibilities.

[Sen. Anne Watson (Chair, Washington District)]: Yes, Ben. So I guess I just wanna be clear based on some of the questions that Senator Bongartz was asking and some of

[Sen. Terry Williams (Vice Chair)]: your

[Sen. Anne Watson (Chair, Washington District)]: testimony. You're supportive of the bill, but it sounds like you're not 100% sure whether it's necessary if you're going to this general permit deference model, which I agree sounds like a good direction. Is that true? I

[Brian Redmond (Director, Drinking Water & Groundwater Protection Division, VT DEC)]: think that's accurate. Yeah, we've made a pivot after the outcomes of last legislative session. We've got the appropriation to move forward with the manual or We call in on feel like that's very necessary. We have, under our existing authorities, the ability to issue general permits under our existing decoder. And that is our plan.

[Sen. Anne Watson (Chair, Washington District)]: Okay, so if this bill does not go forward, you're still going forward with all that stuff. It's of the care. It's appeal, I like that image. But if we did move forward with this bill, do they work together, or does this get in the way of the other thing?

[Brian Redmond (Director, Drinking Water & Groundwater Protection Division, VT DEC)]: Yeah, I think it could. For those municipalities that want to undertake effective overview, Alternatively, I could investigate our current delegation, partial delegation. So partial, full delegation is the full scope of the rules. All of septic system permitting, and that's what Colchester and Charlotte had. All the water supply permitting, the full scope of the rules. Partial delegation, which we actually never had somebody come from the door for, is just for the water and sewer connections. And the historical reason that I have heard has been this issue around the data management requirements. So maybe that is more navigable now that and a we've lot has changed since the pandemic happened. Everything went online. Weren't able You would have right now, virtual delegation authority.

[Sen. Anne Watson (Chair, Washington District)]: You could partially delegate just the connections for water and sewer to Colchester if they wanted to come back and just do that part of it under current law.

[Brian Redmond (Director, Drinking Water & Groundwater Protection Division, VT DEC)]: I think so. I think that I would want to, you know, I've listened to Megan's testimony in your report and I, yeah, I think I would wanna talk that through with her because it sounds like Burlington may be interested. Okay. And there may be others.

[Sen. Anne Watson (Chair, Washington District)]: Yeah, that's what I was gonna ask Josh was how many municipalities are interested in this, or is it just Burlington or are there more throughout the state? I don't want to try to solve a problem that's not a problem. But at the same time, if this is helpful with what you're also doing, then we should do it. Because it seems like, aside from the fees, most people are on board with this. I don't want to feel good about something that's

[Brian Redmond (Director, Drinking Water & Groundwater Protection Division, VT DEC)]: not really actually doing anything. I think it will be very limited, at least to start. You never know if something gets rolled out, maybe there's more interest than that. And Josh has other

[Sen. Anne Watson (Chair, Washington District)]: Okay. Thanks. Okay. Any other questions? To make

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Member, Bennington District)]: sure we're clear about this. No matter what happens, you can believe that the station in the repository for wall connections with both. Right.

[Brian Redmond (Director, Drinking Water & Groundwater Protection Division, VT DEC)]: Can only imagine if we created a patchwork, maybe we'd be getting calls from the government attorneys, like, upside up on closing, and I don't know. Is that Rutland records or is it in the state system?

[Sen. Anne Watson (Chair, Washington District)]: That is what's envisioned in this bill, is for the data to stay with the state. Also for the general permit process, so you're, if I'm saying right, you'd say, you, it's your understanding that you all have the authority to create a general permit right now as it is, which is what this He's dead. Right, okay. All right. Thank you. It's very good. Right. So with that, we're going to take a quick break. Let's wait for like five minutes.

[Sen. Ruth Hardy (Member, Addison District)]: Woah, sound sound.

[Sen. Anne Watson (Chair, Washington District)]: Okay, wonderful. This is Center of Natural Resources and Energy coming back from a break and we are sticking the same topic. I'm going to go to Mr. Douglas who is with DEC. Welcome.

[Dan Robillard (Manager, Wastewater System & Potable Water Supply Program, VT DEC)]: Thank you. First, I'd like to make a sound check by the Damascus. Can you hear me okay? Good

[Sen. Anne Watson (Chair, Washington District)]: question.

[Dan Robillard (Manager, Wastewater System & Potable Water Supply Program, VT DEC)]: Thank you. So I'm the air base. I work with the drinking water and dry water protection division. I work directly for Brian Redmond, and I manage the wastewater system and portable water supply program that we're talking about here, Brian mentioned that regulates municipal water infrastructure as well as other than power wastewater and water supply issues. Have a little background on me. I've been in this role for almost five years coming to the state of Poland and previously I worked for the same program for ten years but from '85 to 1995 And then I took twenty six year sabbatical in the private sector and worked as a as a consultant to municipalities and been a professional engineer with my own consulting firm. I've worked around and worked in at least six other states on wastewater and water supply projects. So I'm really glad to have this opportunity to come back in fact contribute some of the big three picture thing. But one thing I also involved in, and I've been all along, but is in developing regional and national documents and guidelines. And one example is the New England Interstate Water Pollution Control Commission that the BEC has been part of for probably almost fifty years, sets up a regular guideline, technical guidance document for engineers in municipal waste, that's on the wastewater side. So I just finished my role on a subcommittee reviewing the sub chapter of the committee for each of the different sub chapters of wastewater management. And so I was on one of those, it's coming a new document is coming out in the next few months, to segue into that each of our municipal water supply and wastewater connection sub chapters in the Environmental Protection Rule Chapter one that we follow has a list of example national and regional standards such as the American Water Works Association for Water, Water Environment Federation, National for Wastewater, New Year, the Interstate Water Pollution Control Commission is right on that and so it's really it's we you know we are using some of those examples right now we the American Water Works Association just adopted a water budget calculator to recognize the benefit of low flow fixtures and how you can design water systems for multifamily housing and single family and multifamily housing, but it really has a water savings benefit for multifamily units with a modern design that's based on data that was collected since the country went to the bulk of fixtures in the early 1990s. Another example is we're involved in a number of municipal wastewater projects under the American Rescue Plan Act. And those, a number of those are going with a small diameter liquid only sewer that's much more cost effective than a traditional gravity sewer that carries everything. But having a separation unit happening at each connection can really save on the overall sewer cost and operational cost of the system. So those are things we can do not explicitly in our rule but we have that caveat that allows us to utilize the late state of the art technologies as needed. So really my main goal here is to answer questions. Have a few prepared big picture remarks, but so the interesting thing is so we have five regional offices. Brian mentioned it. We we historically, prior to the pandemic, we're issued about 2,500 departments a year. Since the pandemic we've been in the 2,900 plus or minus, actually one year we've got over 3,000 permits with our regional office staff doing technical review of water and wastewater systems. The interesting thing is our data shows there's two we've issued roughly two fifty municipal apartments a year in the last five or six years, and that's down from 300, and Brian mentioned that we had some exemptions to our rules in the 2019 rules, we were issuing about 300 municipal water and sewer permits a year, and that dropped to two fifty just so it's basically less than 10% of our total work.

[Harry Shepherd (Public Works Director & Town Engineer, Town of Stowe; VP, Green Mountain Water Environment Association)]: When you say municipal permits, do

[Unidentified (brief interjections)]: you mean just the connect the government connections? Yeah.

[Dan Robillard (Manager, Wastewater System & Potable Water Supply Program, VT DEC)]: Okay. Yeah. But I said and this is the context that I understand where, you know, it's some places like Tri County Water in Addison County has a large water system, but no municipal. So that I'm not counting that. I'm counting the what the municipalities, like Waterbury or Barrie or just connections

[Harry Shepherd (Public Works Director & Town Engineer, Town of Stowe; VP, Green Mountain Water Environment Association)]: yeah yeah okay yeah so

[Dan Robillard (Manager, Wastewater System & Potable Water Supply Program, VT DEC)]: just to I think one thing to mention is is it's important roughly about 80% of our permits are for housing, which is a significant aspect of that, and Brian touched on the data management, how important that is statewide. We we we've just the our numbers show that 15 municipalities issued more than five permits a year. So it's not we were talking about what's the population that might be interested in this bill. That's 15, you know, over five, and then we have our again this is our permitting number from our database, is that only four municipalities have more than 10 water and sewer permits a year. So any know, Burlington and, you know, other larger

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Member, Bennington District)]: I think don't even gonna be the same Okay. Or they don't wanna talk about Are you talking about connection permits? Are you talking about like permits for a system? Connection? Okay, connections.

[Dan Robillard (Manager, Wastewater System & Potable Water Supply Program, VT DEC)]: So let's go ahead and talk. The 2,900 includes both.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Member, Bennington District)]: Okay, okay.

[Dan Robillard (Manager, Wastewater System & Potable Water Supply Program, VT DEC)]: And then they told two fifty, you know, again this is our data. Okay. That that we have it's been just Okay. Give you an idea of scale. Other than that, I guess Brian covered a lot of what I was going to say, so I'm here at both the technical resource and information regarding the day to day workings of the program.

[Sen. Anne Watson (Chair, Washington District)]: Yes, go ahead. Sure. So only 15 municipalities have over five connection permit requests per year.

[Sen. Ruth Hardy (Member, Addison District)]: That means

[Sen. Anne Watson (Chair, Washington District)]: five, it's not the municipality that's asking for the permits, the individual who's developing that, wanting the connection. That is actually, like,

[Brian Redmond (Director, Drinking Water & Groundwater Protection Division, VT DEC)]: Nothing. Yeah, my beliefs in that housing are not made in homes.

[Dan Robillard (Manager, Wastewater System & Potable Water Supply Program, VT DEC)]: But that's the question, is whether everything is cost.

[Sen. Anne Watson (Chair, Washington District)]: But one of those connection permits, it could be a request for a single family home, or it could be a request for a 100 unit development. They're the equivalent, so to be fair, it could be a big development with multiple units.

[Dan Robillard (Manager, Wastewater System & Potable Water Supply Program, VT DEC)]: We could add up the gallons per day and I'd get a feeling for that, not only the number of permits, how much wastewater in the community we have

[Harry Shepherd (Public Works Director & Town Engineer, Town of Stowe; VP, Green Mountain Water Environment Association)]: elected that today. Okay, okay.

[Sen. Anne Watson (Chair, Washington District)]: Because I think that's an important distinction. It's like 15 single family homes, that's only 15 houses, but it could be actually 1,500 houses if they're all under housing unit So the point is that even if this bill passes, it's limited, the number of municipalities to be interested in.

[Dan Robillard (Manager, Wastewater System & Potable Water Supply Program, VT DEC)]: That yeah. That's that's consistent with what others should check today. Yeah.

[Sen. Anne Watson (Chair, Washington District)]: Okay. Are you as excited about the manual as Brian?

[Unidentified (brief interjections)]: I am.

[Sen. Anne Watson (Chair, Washington District)]: I wanna feel the love

[Dan Robillard (Manager, Wastewater System & Potable Water Supply Program, VT DEC)]: and the plumber designer and apparently that should be it's just type of graphics you know really really helpful and and we listed dozens of requirements that engineers have to make into a graphic on their plan so the builder can know what to build. Would it be great to you know make sure everyone here's an example you may have to treat it for your specific site but here's an example of how you cross a waterline and sewer safely. You know, how, what's a pump station, you know, what's required for a wastewater pump station, you know, and so that I'm very excited about.

[Sen. Anne Watson (Chair, Washington District)]: Okay, that's good. And you would be an example in your previous work of a licensed individual who would be given deference to because you are you were somebody I

[Dan Robillard (Manager, Wastewater System & Potable Water Supply Program, VT DEC)]: I was. So I haven't been up in the environment for about four years, you know, and and

[Harry Shepherd (Public Works Director & Town Engineer, Town of Stowe; VP, Green Mountain Water Environment Association)]: yeah. So I think And

[Sen. Anne Watson (Chair, Washington District)]: would this manual be, like, a living document so that if something changed and that you would change it easily?

[Dan Robillard (Manager, Wastewater System & Potable Water Supply Program, VT DEC)]: So that's the advantage. So so basically, it's not intended to be a rule. It's not not like the stormwater manual, which is essentially the rule. Right. This this is a a guidance document to show graphically or schematically as Ryan mentioned. Here here's how the system a system could be put together an example of a detail that you need on new plans and so the end dependencies are envisioned to be here's sub chapter ten and twelve in the rule that apply to the, you know, to these systems so that, you know, the rule changes, we change the appendices, but we can always change the, you know, the detail if it's appropriate, if it meets the rule we can improve it. Someone says you know that detail would be great if it you know had this on it because we often have it, know, we can do that. That's the advantage of a design, this kind of a design manual as opposed to a regulatory change. These are examples, they're typical examples of it, and it also would outline the general permitting process and the issue capacity, so I'll lose those threads, which are also important that we need to advance those. Got it, well thank you.

[Unidentified (brief interjections)]: Yes, go ahead.

[Sen. Terry Williams (Vice Chair)]: So going back to your point on the new technology, that's interesting. I mean, how far out do you think the virus over with? Use that.

[Dan Robillard (Manager, Wastewater System & Potable Water Supply Program, VT DEC)]: We we right now we do I mean so we're making the rules the rules say it right you know right there's a list you know in one second of the world this this national sanitation but you know society of institutional engineers national american public works association if someone else has this accepted you know alternative technical standards called this is actually you know it's called the sub chapters flexible specific technical standards for wastewater systems as those flexible specific technical standards for water supplies, two chapters. We can do that now. It'd be great though in a rule to address things that we can you know do more efficiently now. Think the example of the low pressure small diameter sewers, it is people may not be aware of it. It's not explicitly in the rule, you know the larger firms that are doing these building projects are aware of it and pursuing it because they're cost savings, but it was first proposed I can't remember it was in Cabot in the 90s. Warren actually did it in the early 2000s they have a hybrid system in their village they have some low pressure source and some gravity source but then then on and off engineers would do it but no one there wasn't large enough recognition to make it public, but I think with these you know the village of Montgomery, know the village of Walcott, and all these other article projects that are advancing, doing it is going to really show the efficiency of it at a municipal level.

[Sen. Terry Williams (Vice Chair)]: The problem I lived in 1970 I worked for the company put the sewer in in the village of Bowman and every time we dug alongside the logging it's for a run. Watering we put in 1898 and cast iron and blew out and took the throttle and was lit. So if the town you know could they put that system in or could they integrate with the existing gravity system they have now or would it have to be off to a spur?

[Dan Robillard (Manager, Wastewater System & Potable Water Supply Program, VT DEC)]: It could be a spur and and the issue that that Warren had is is it's a different type of sewage where they connect you have to make sure you account for that that if it's one is has everything in it and one of them just has a liquid in it and have different biological properties and you know like that that cause corrosion of pipes. So so that just just gave us an example. The one the one that is would like to say that that I don't that I I rule generally are in good standing relative to the municipal sewer connection, and and we for in 2007 when we got universal jurisdiction, we ramped up an innovative alternative on-site wastewater. For septic systems, we have pretreatment systems, you know, that that that allow for overcoming soil capacity constraints to the degree possible of keeping of everything underground. So I think that the right now, we're on a good path. I think the focus is is what can we do in the short term, and one is clarification and communication accessibility of the requirements, and that's where design manuals don't come in. Also we can be with if it does meet the rule, can put the guidance document out and get broader the guidance documents is clarification, of, you know, of something, you is it gives you guidance that doesn't change the rule, you know, that that's something we can we can do that today without a regulatory change. Okay.

[Sen. Ruth Hardy (Member, Addison District)]: Any other questions? I know

[Dan Robillard (Manager, Wastewater System & Potable Water Supply Program, VT DEC)]: I've communicated with you, your projects, so I couldn't answer it.

[Sen. Anne Watson (Chair, Washington District)]: Super, well thank you so much.

[Sen. Terry Williams (Vice Chair)]: Thank you.

[Sen. Anne Watson (Chair, Washington District)]: Appreciate you taking the time. Thank you for all the permits that you wish.

[Brian Redmond (Director, Drinking Water & Groundwater Protection Division, VT DEC)]: Okay

[Sen. Anne Watson (Chair, Washington District)]: and so we're going move to Mr. Shepherd, welcome.

[Brian Redmond (Director, Drinking Water & Groundwater Protection Division, VT DEC)]: Good morning. Good morning.

[Harry Shepherd (Public Works Director & Town Engineer, Town of Stowe; VP, Green Mountain Water Environment Association)]: I'm Sharon Senators, I'm Harry Shepherd, I am SOW's Public Works Director and Town Engineer. I'm also vice president of the Green Mountain Farm Environment Association and I served on the act forty seven committee so I have some significant knowledge of that process and all and I will offer that our Green Mountain Water Environment Association has roughly 400 members, mostly water and wastewater operators, but design professionals also who practice in the water industry and we think we produce about 40,000,000 gallons of drinking water and clean roughly 40,000,000 gallons of wastewater every day. We also manage most of the sewage from the 55 of our launchers who were not connected to a Lewisville system. So started out with what I would call village centric system, and on the water side it was 100 years old, on the sewer side that is we saw in the late 70s and early 80s. But then in the early 2000s, so invested in major upgrades and major expansions of its water and sewer system. It used to be kind of a village centric system, got extended up and on the road to the resorts, and another branch kind of goes off the tracks. And so because of that major expansion of our systems we do with municipal connections, they didn't. I'm a little surprised to hear some of the numbers that the staff reported here. Think in my fifteen years in the position we fell hundreds, and because the sewer and the water became available to so many properties, And so I would like to offer that I support the bill. I think that for their role of trying to reduce technical review redundancies, it probably provides a path forward

[Unidentified (brief interjections)]: that could

[Harry Shepherd (Public Works Director & Town Engineer, Town of Stowe; VP, Green Mountain Water Environment Association)]: be helpful in the challenging permitting process that all developments need to manage in Vermont. I know that there are maybe a few Chitney County towns that might be interested in taking it on. I would offer that I don't think I would recommend it to our select board. I just realize for what we do that there's not really a strategic benefit for the town to take up this additional burden. And I should share that because so has been so active in the municipal connections of all that one of the things I shared with the chair when we were off on pause, should be recognized that the towns own these systems. I'm the owners representative. The state is involved in permitting connections to the town's assets in doing this, And I think that that's kind of the result of Vermont's kind of overall regulatory structure that 50 old with multiple layers, right? But we we wouldn't forego connection permits or technical reviews to the state's process. When the developer is gone and the engineer is gone and the permitting agencies issued their permit, we still have a customer. If their water service leaks, that's water loss for us. If there's sewer lateral leaks, it's infiltration for us. Those are dinging on our capacity. And so, and so this you've got a uniquely challenging water distribution system and sewer collection system around the foothills of the mountain. You know a lot of our municipal connections could involve hundreds of feet of pipe and multiple manholes and switchbacks coming down mountains and real sources for potential operational challenges that we manage already. We start at the development review board process, we take a look at some utility jobs, we see what's being proposed, we have a conversation with the developer and or their engineer about hey you know we're not going go up

[Unidentified (brief interjections)]: a survey there it's going have

[Harry Shepherd (Public Works Director & Town Engineer, Town of Stowe; VP, Green Mountain Water Environment Association)]: to move here and make a connection over there and we don't want that connection to the manhole if it's going to become a leader. You know we do that kind of technical review already as the owner's representative. One of the things in the report that kind of made me have paused is it said that we would be doing those technical reviews on behalf of A and R. We're doing those technical reviews on behalf of our ratepayers, and that's how we do it and sell. We need to continue to do that because the prescriptive stuff that the regulators are looking at in the WW bills is not that complicated, but it doesn't necessarily kind of really address the kinds of issues that we're looking at. Except for single family residential, every water connection that we need to make these days needs to include considerations for fire protection systems. Let's not address the WW rules at all. And so the water service isn't like just dealing with domestic demand. It's got to deal with both domestic demand and firework. How that is managed for protecting the domestic system from a fire protection system. We get deeper into the granular details about trying to protect SOW's water and sewer system interests, and although it may be possible that this evolves or it might be something that might expedite for a development their wastewater WW permitting process. Don't think it's going to have a significant impact and for so the juice is not worth the squeeze for this bill we would support it because maybe it could advance the way it's structured it would be very important for us that it'd be voluntary, it would ever kind of flip the switch to become required we would have a much more concern but we see it as made beneficial not for someone like so and we're doing dozens a year, and I also would offer that you know kind of seeing it from my limited perspective dealing with water and wastewater tows and sometimes saltwater because it's you know I'm also dealing with highways and things like that the public works well. The w w permitting process after we get through with it and going into buying this apartment that's not a critical path for anybody it's days weeks we usually have a pretty well worked out where it kind of flies right through with these guys and it's not like months typically. Now there may have been situations whether it was a region where I might have had a problem with a particular employee or whatever but it's not unknown. I think the process is challenging and maybe there was ways of simplifying it and hopefully this does it some, but it's not going to change anything for the kind of tactical review we need to do to protect our ratepayers' interests and so I offer them. I also offer and I think I want to reinforce there have been a number of comments about capacity and two words that I didn't hear when we were talking about capacity is aged infrastructure. We could have a designated downtown in Stoke's Lower Village, but I'm telling you that our pump stations are running too much when we have time on. And the run times on the Lower Village sewer pump station is such that you guys can designate as a downtown, but I'm not comfortable if we had a big development post that we would issue a capacity to serve letter and I want to differentiate for you guys between capacity and allocations. Allocations is a process to kind of come about in Vermont to kind of keep track of flows and plants whether it's drinking water or wastewater. And it might not have been tracked by many, I know when we took it on when I started fifteen years ago we had no idea who's allocated what. It took us years to evolve the database to kind of get that under control. We now know in the property what they're allocated and such. The capacity to serve this has nothing to do with what our plant capacity is doing, so has 19 water pressure pumps. We have a very complicated water distribution system because we have to pump water multiple times to get it up to the money. Every drop of water we deliver during peak periods gets pumped five times before it gets out to the to the Lower North Power Reservoir. Every one of those pressure zones has kind of a limit, elevation right? We have water stored at this elevation in this pressure zone and in order to supply 40 pounds to a customer we can't go above roughly 100 foot below our storm water elevation. That's simple capacity. The development can come into my office and be at a higher elevation that we can serve in that pressure zone and I have to say we do not have capacity to serve. We have plenty of capacity in our voice mail. Can't supply it, and that's the difference between capacity. And I I I know it's not directly linked to municipal connections, and I know that's the charge of this bill, but for the big picture in terms of trying to address our housing challenges, age infrastructure and capacity to serve are a lot more important than municipal connections. I'll be happy to answer your question.

[Sen. Anne Watson (Chair, Washington District)]: Thank you, I really appreciate that. One, so that with the aged infrastructure and capacity, I mean, seems like the answer there is money, like to be able to replace that

[Harry Shepherd (Public Works Director & Town Engineer, Town of Stowe; VP, Green Mountain Water Environment Association)]: infrastructure. Well,

[Sen. Terry Williams (Vice Chair)]: you you're start building new stuff on top of old infrastructure and it fails. Now you know, you're gonna move all that new stuff. That just for all, layman's terminology. I went to my, you know, downtown development. They're talking about farming projects and so, know, your infrastructure, you know, is 60 years old. So you really have to look at that before you start putting, you know, on top of it.

[Harry Shepherd (Public Works Director & Town Engineer, Town of Stowe; VP, Green Mountain Water Environment Association)]: I I dread the day and so where we will actually and this has started to occur, it didn't it didn't offer to you because there's so much development desire and stuff. And during the day, I'm gonna have to have our water and sewer commission, our SOAP board, but we can't support a real housing initiative because of that challenge. We're gonna continue to say yes as long as we possibly can, we haven't seen a project come into our lower village district that's of a scale that you know would make me say turnout, but if we're going to put 90 units in a four story building down in a lower village, Caledonia is going have to say come out.

[Sen. Anne Watson (Chair, Washington District)]: I'm also wondering about the cost to replace some of that equipment. Thinking about strategies to do that, I mean, one possibility is to say, developer, here's an impact fee. If you're gonna do this, then I mean, I'm not saying that this is the best strategy or even the right strategy, but one possibility is to ask for that. Do you do you all feel like you have the authority to ask for something?

[Harry Shepherd (Public Works Director & Town Engineer, Town of Stowe; VP, Green Mountain Water Environment Association)]: We don't have impact fees. We have higher water and water allocation rates that I think are probably intended to maybe be something similar to an impact fee, but doesn't necessarily come with the requirements like maintaining a capital program and some of what ties in with the back, so the allocation of funds are roughly $4,000 a day. We charge $21 gallon for a sewer, dollars 11 a gallon for water for many years, so it was one of the most expensive in the state. And all that's still the case, but that is how so paid down their debt burden over the last twenty five years for the major expansions that the town invested in to advance those. And I think maybe to share that a little more to that question, Madam Chair. So our lower village sewer pump station is something we recognize as a passing challenge. We've studied our capacities and so I think you understand pretty tight. We have advanced the preliminary engineering study for replacement of that pump station, we've been trying to advance it through the taking our revolving loan fund and the use plan and the process there. I believe we're on the list. We don't see that we're making any progress on advancing up the list in fact I think last year we came down and a preliminary engineering report is it's a 4 and a half million dollar problem. Our existing pump station was in fact in with flood zone. It's elevated. The new one if we can get it permitted next to the existing pump station which is what we strive for it'll have to be elevated at a higher elevation. But securing that permit is not assured. We've got to acquire more property and I think that before the dust settles it'll be a $5,000,000 project if not more and generally you know that individual housing development isn't going to be able to like take that

[Dan Robillard (Manager, Wastewater System & Potable Water Supply Program, VT DEC)]: $5,000,000 problem and make

[Harry Shepherd (Public Works Director & Town Engineer, Town of Stowe; VP, Green Mountain Water Environment Association)]: it go away, right? They may participate a little bit, they would, to the 2 or $4,000 a bed in their allocation fees, But advancing those capacity challenges is very real and it's a bigger picture issue that you guys need to be aware of.

[Sen. Anne Watson (Chair, Washington District)]: Thank you, it's helpful. Yes, thank you. Couple of questions. I think what I heard from you is you're supportive of the bill, but you're so wouldn't use it. You kind of like the dual review because you have specific things that you're looking for, are corpse in your system, just put it maybe bluntly, I don't know. And that the state is looking for different things in their review. Am I okay? Don't think that's what I heard.

[Harry Shepherd (Public Works Director & Town Engineer, Town of Stowe; VP, Green Mountain Water Environment Association)]: Well, state is, they have some prescriptive requirements embedded in the WW rules, inches separating distance between a store of a large crossing, or know you got to do some special things they're truly prescriptive right it's not like the regional engineer is not looking at like you know can we really connect to

[Sen. Anne Watson (Chair, Washington District)]: that manhole? Right, exactly. What I'm

[Sen. Terry Williams (Vice Chair)]: hearing is-

[Harry Shepherd (Public Works Director & Town Engineer, Town of Stowe; VP, Green Mountain Water Environment Association)]: We're looking at and saying there's no way you're going seal that.

[Sen. Anne Watson (Chair, Washington District)]: Right, so that's what I'm hearing from you is like you have different, and you're not alone, everybody has force in their system. Okay, so my other question, hearing you talking about the infrastructure issues, and I'm a little hesitant to bring this up, but wasn't that the point of the bill we passed last year, the chip bill that everybody seems to love that you're supposed to be able to use that to do these infrastructure upgrades so that then you can do development? That's

[Harry Shepherd (Public Works Director & Town Engineer, Town of Stowe; VP, Green Mountain Water Environment Association)]: Well, we We

[Sen. Anne Watson (Chair, Washington District)]: had a job back there, but you know, and like that was what the point of the bill was supposed to be.

[Harry Shepherd (Public Works Director & Town Engineer, Town of Stowe; VP, Green Mountain Water Environment Association)]: Honestly, we're in my Green Mountain Water Environment. We're just thrilled that you guys are recognizing the bigger picture challenge, alright, and chips may be a way forward on that. We've all been, you know, waiting to see how it all kind of unfolds and some of that is relatively new, the the VOP four provision, I think there's a provision that's buried in the CHIPS bill and says something to the effect of you know we're only going to be able to allow this investment for this particular project if it wouldn't have occurred on lease but bought for the bid.

[Sen. Anne Watson (Chair, Washington District)]: Got it yeah yeah yeah.

[Harry Shepherd (Public Works Director & Town Engineer, Town of Stowe; VP, Green Mountain Water Environment Association)]: And it needs to be tied into a very specific parcel and a very specific development and there needs to be a bunch of financial analysis associated with kind of proving out that the TIFF kind of characteristics of the CHIPS program will in fact pay the bills because our water and sewer rate payers shouldn't. Got it. And so I think the CHIPS is potentially a good thing I hope it could be a great thing but I would recommend revisiting them because I think you're going to find that a lot of missed houses simply can't figure out the path forward they're not aligned with a property and a developer who's going to bring in home houses and got to you know we know to serve that project we need to do very specific things with the sewer collection system, add pump station, whatever.

[Sen. Anne Watson (Chair, Washington District)]: All right. We're not doing that bill now, but I just wanted to I just wanted to ask you because it sounded like that way you're describing to me, but heard. Yes, go ahead.

[Harry Shepherd (Public Works Director & Town Engineer, Town of Stowe; VP, Green Mountain Water Environment Association)]: Is this so often CSO even as well? Okay, you're through that or you never had it before. Okay, good for you. But the real thing the CSO community sure yeah

[Sen. Terry Williams (Vice Chair)]: technically I don't want

[Harry Shepherd (Public Works Director & Town Engineer, Town of Stowe; VP, Green Mountain Water Environment Association)]: to get anyone in trouble but I think there could be an interpretation of the rules that basically say you can't allow

[Sen. Terry Williams (Vice Chair)]: that connection unless you got

[Harry Shepherd (Public Works Director & Town Engineer, Town of Stowe; VP, Green Mountain Water Environment Association)]: a plain plain panel with CSOs and yeah that's it's like got a breakthrough map if that's a fact got a breakthrough map because it you know we shouldn't be penalizing and solving our housing problems or normal dry weather conditions if they have the capacity because we periodically experience an overflow and no one likes it, no one wants it, but it can't stop advancing getting housing developed, particularly Chicken County or many of those CSO systems. Ben here. Dan Dan Robillier. Robillier.

[Sen. Anne Watson (Chair, Washington District)]: Yes. Go ahead.

[Sen. Terry Williams (Vice Chair)]: Well, just so thank you because sometimes we all have to hear the bearer of bad news. I mean, it's not not necessarily bad news. It's just being aware of that. There are capacity issues that we all need to look at before we start. We want to know where we want to go.

[Harry Shepherd (Public Works Director & Town Engineer, Town of Stowe; VP, Green Mountain Water Environment Association)]: It's very real on the ground.

[Brian Redmond (Director, Drinking Water & Groundwater Protection Division, VT DEC)]: Thanks. Thank you.

[Sen. Anne Watson (Chair, Washington District)]: All right, thank you. Appreciate your time. We are, that is our last witness for today. So we are going to