Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Speaker 0]: Hi. How are you doing? Are you feeling ready? Oh, we are live already. Yes. Okay. All right, good morning. This is Friday, March 20, and this is Senate Natural Resources and Energy. And going to start the morning with Lesley and Dopinha Giroux, who's from a professor at DVM and also a climatologist. Is that fair to say? And so I should just preface this by saying, so I met Mr. Dominguez Drew at an event this past summer talking about drought. And as you remember, I know it feels perhaps far away at this point, but that we experienced some really catastrophic droughts over the summer. And so this is an area that Professor has a lot of thoughts on and data and research. So for our own education, I thought it'd be great to have you in.

[Speaker 1]: So welcome. Well, thank you for having cheering. Yes. I've actually never been in a room before, so it's really nice to see all various parts. The state. Thank you for that warm welcome. So one of the clients of the community is to sort of the stage for the trials that took place last year and tell you that we're still in the trials right now, right? And so some of the things we need to think about and learn about so we could pre stage or we need to keep in mind all the motels and all of our various needs that are going on right now. So the drugs that we saw back in 2025 the ones that accelerated football and that's all the way through to the end of the year they actually started even before it's about them until 2024. So you think about that and you think about the fact that we are still in a drought right now, we're actually in a three year drought, we can really put it into the process. Tell me if you see my mouse move. Oh yeah, yeah. To squint a little bit. So you see a map of a model, this is from the US Geological Survey. And one of the ways that we know that this is a really long term trial, which is already at least in attention, is they monitor wells across the state. There are a few of them. And what they're looking at is how deep or how shallow the wells are. So Latvian in 2024, when they were making these measurements, you see these little red triangles there, that means that those would be the absolute lowest on record for that particular web. And it goes only about in September 2024 and it continues into 2025. It's So not 2025, we're still setting records at that particular well. And we see it's on the Eastern side of state. So we're coming forward, let's talk a little bit more about this. We had a little bit of recovery coming into the summer, but then we went back into setting records, right? So that's how we know that groundwater in particular is a great concern to us, right? And so when we think about all of the constituents that contacted you were asking about assistance because the wells are going finally go into the winter, this is part

[Speaker 2]: of the reason why it's

[Speaker 1]: a long term thing. So the trials that we saw last year of the story. Historic in terms of lowest values ever, but historically in of the type of drug that we also experienced. We haven't seen that particular type of drug before. And so again, it's not a reason why we need to kind of pay particular attention to what's going on. It was so historic that it made news, flash long news. So NASA actually looks at events over time and back in September, this was the image of the day. So they picked one image to highlight and the droughts across the entire Northeast were that image that they highlighted because of how catastrophic the dryness was. So the way that you're going to see this, everything I'm showing you, blue means wet and brown and orange is really dry, really really dry. So if you see values like this, it means that the soil is so dry, had between 02% of water in the soil. Now, have you ever seen soil outside that? It kind of crumbles in your hand, doesn't hold anything, the plants feel for growing more. Think about that when we were talking about severe conditions in here. So one of the things we need to kind of remember about droughts is droughts have occurred in the past, they are occurring now and they will continue to occur in Vermont because every place on earth experiences droughts. It just looks a little bit different, right? So we don't have droughts that affect other places like parts of Oklahoma, for example, but our droughts stop at for equally severe across the areas of Pespobontas because they affect different health sectors, so on to resolve all the way to plant and also to human health and so on. So here's how I can say the droughts have occurred in the past and will continue to occur because we can look at these measurements through time. So we're starting with 1895 on the left here, then going all the way to 2025 on the right. And what this is showing you is an index that tells you how dry and how long we're going to take. So again, remember I said, anytime you see browns and oranges, means dry and then blues and greens mean that we're wet. So back in the early 1900s, 1920s, 1930s, 1960s, we tended to be more of a drought prone state. So if I were grieving the community back then, we wouldn't be talking about floods, we were talking about droughts and droughts lasted for years. And then about 1917, there was a switch that occurred in both cisum and we started becoming wetter. So keeping that in mind, so yes, we do have a lot of moisture, yes, we have a lot of floods but we're still getting floods. So that's why we still need to kind of keep an eye out for understanding how the floods across the sea are playing out. So if I just moved into the last twenty years or so, and what you see across here are various times, from 2000 all the way back to the 2021 when we had the normal drought, right? And so you could see things like the 2012 droughts in here, 2016 drugs, 2020, and then here we are in 2025. When we darken red, the more severe it is. All right, so this particular product that I'm showing you is something called The US Drought Monitor. And that gets put together every week. So the latest one got released yesterday and the columns mean something in four letters. So when you're now starting off with drought, it's the lowest sounding air, so zero. And then as you increase in severity and intensity of the drought, those numbers get larger. So once they've done, they being a National Drought Litigation Centre, is they looked at all the droughts that you've had in April months and what happened at each level of severity. When So we're now starting off with things like thrombophosphine has started and by the time you get up to really, really severe drought, that's

[Speaker 3]: sort of severe, it's like Crystal Street violence being

[Speaker 1]: affected. So we're looking at where we are and can we sort of compare to as a result. So the drought last year started around August and then rounds up something. And what we are looking at is probably in time when it was the most severe and this is where we saw these large red lava crusts here which stayed streamed out. And pretty much the entire state was in drought but the central part of the state and eastern part of the state were the most severe. So again red is what you're looking for, brown is what you're looking for. So you see that everybody needs to be concerned about drought because everybody was experiencing drought back in September, into October itself. So this type of drought that we were in and why we need to pay attention now is, you know about flash flooding, right? Flash flooding, onset starts about six hours. Well, we're now seeing a type of drought called flash strains. And what flash drought is, is it starts really quickly since started in late August and by the August and into September, we had ramped up so much that everything started to dry out rapidly, like so a couple of weeks. And because we hadn't seen so many of those before, that's what sort of caught us off guard because we're like, what's going on? Is this gonna end really soon? And when it did, we were like, oh, so this is different. Oh, what are we gonna do? Right? So the cholesterol is something that we need to get on everybody's radar, right? So that we're not getting caught in that particular situation. So it started in July and we had a relatively wet May which gave us a little bit of a cushion but then the stick got shut off in And August is actually the driest August since 1895. And that other one should sort of like put your ears up because if you go from wet to dry like that, then things dry out really, really quickly. And when the temperatures are really high, it causes it to dry out even more, right? You get a lot of loss from the soil, you get a lot of loss from the trees and so on. And so everything just really, really ramps up, it's like there. So all this was a particular time frame there is one of the reasons why we saw that last drought. So remember how it said brown is bad? Okay, do you see what Vermont looks like? So this was September, this was the September. And what you're seeing is these soils pretty much all the way across the entire state were in that less than 5% of all forestry. So that being really bone dry stuff, right? And think about this is time we're getting into harvesting. So this is not the best one to see this type of stuff. So the timing was also important to hear. So you'll get all that. And then this is one of those massive maps that show you how quickly we went from blues, which is too much, to browns, which is like almost completely bone dry. So I like using this type of stuff and I use it every week that we've had the drought task force activated because it gave us a good sense who was drying out in the last six weeks and the last seven. Right? So it's a really, really helpful tool to help us understand what's going on. So this is what home driving site. So this is from the 2016 drought. And do you know the San Lazo San in Colchester that you got on there? Mean, berry picking or so on? So this is what it looked like in 2016, but it was also a severe drought. It took a while to develop, but you have the same sort of impacts in terms of really, really cold drought. I remember walking on this and it dusts just kind of like going up into the air because there's no moisture in ground itself. So that's one thing in here. And when I knew that we were going into our trials and we needed to kind of pay attention, started taking pictures of this field in South Burlington. So this is what it looked like at the August. So I'm just looking here and there's tractors going along all of that stuff just like because of how driving. So I did some more driving around and some of the ponds on the golf courses because again when you're in the droughts the ponds usually have that ponds scum. Right? So that's another way if you're moving along like, oh, okay, so there's some problems going on with that. And going to Forest Parks and Recreation in Essex Junction, they have some high alerts, right? Because it's also the potential for wildfires to occur. So wildfires are something that we pay attention to in droughts particularly because when things start to dry out, then it doesn't take too much for birds to kick in. And so we saw that in place, not just in the authority, but also during the South. And so again, if you want sell more national farms across the entire Northeast, there was this really high risk, significant risk for us and our forest fires, so much so that on October 12, we had a red flag day. And a red flag day means the National Weather Service puts out an alert saying, don't burn Take precautions, particularly if there's anything like a flock to match, flock cigarette, actually slock a really, really severe flock. So we got that in October. And we actually had staging, pre staging, like helicopters that are able to fly in an assisted firing lead and we actually have to use this in the mother western part of the state itself. So it's again one of those things that groups are getting to the issues. Right, right. And so it's like, how many helicopters do we have? Are they three stages in the right places? How quickly can they get to the site in question? Yeah. That's one of the things, again, as we're moving forward, we need to

[Speaker 4]: kind of keep all our radar.

[Speaker 1]: Now, if all of the invasive countries are flowing down, that means all of the water that flows westward into Lakeshore Plain is going to be less. So what you're looking at here is, do you know where the echo is? There's an actual gauge incision right outside the echo, kind of like Windsford or even Allen Knox. So if you know where that area is, that's where the gauging station is. And so they've been taking heights of the lake over its mine at that site. So it's a nice continuous surface we're looking at. And so what this is showing you is the kinds of ratio of play over the course of the entire year. So it starts off in January, goes to December here. This is the highest the baby's been, right? So this blue line is the highest Vegas ever venue. So think about Irene, think about, you know, the first 2023, some of these peaks you've set then, and this is the lowest Vegas ever been. So there's a green line here. And when I say lowest I mean so low you can actually walk out with somebody high abundance. Have you seen those pictures? So walking out to the rocks, walking out to the rocks.

[Speaker 3]: Now big. Pardon? Now it's big. Yep,

[Speaker 1]: absolutely. And so there's this middle line here, this purplish line is the average value and then the red line is what was happening in 2025. So you see how we sort of tried out, tried out, tried out how we were getting really, really concerning that almost in here, right? Almost hitting those lowest values. Just for context, when we were here, like just above this line, just before Irene, I was working with the one who had the Spanish ones who had felt SARS declaration because the impacts are so severe. So this drug was even worse, right? So even worse than just before Irene back in 2011. So when we look at that, when those last 10 songs are, we see back in 1941. So again, that gives us a sense of how far back in time as we have to go to actually see how low the main was. When the drops, the temperature goes up, right? So just like in pots, when the water level goes down, the water actually keeps up. And so on this thing here, so the 30 other people that we actually sat around. Well, out the lake guns. Right? So again, that's another one of those markers that we're looking at here to see why are we paying attention. Because again, will trigger sort of algo blooms and so forth.

[Speaker 3]: So

[Speaker 1]: if you wanted to try and see how fast the lake drops, One of my colleagues at National Weather Service sees my Weatherford Landscapes class on Wednesday and showed me this slide. Boring that. Yes, just the moment. And so here, this slide, this blue line here shows you how the makeup is dropped. See that in precipitous drop? We can flip, right? So they dropped and as it was dropping, the temperature is still high. So lots of evaporation. So by the time the data solved us, that's when we saw a lot of those really severe conditions. I love to take pictures to set context. I run down to the burn exam dock, walking around all the maps are up here, all of the bumps are down here, folks kind of get into their craft because there's too much of a drop. And you're also seeing all of that falls down in the green house. So that's the the whole front, right? If you look at the DC cyanobacteria tracker, you'll see it's not just the neurons in there that we're paying attention to. So again, when we put red out, so it's showing where they have bigger words for. So it's wasn't just in the Burlington area. Like, I would say, Albans, but also Lake Mentor Leygaard. So all of those places where the water levels were scrubbed and temperatures went up, we started seeing all that green green algae taking place in them. So I was getting an interview with colleagues at the Save All Books Messenger and I said, if you happen to be doing this story, go and check and see how far the lake up is as we see it from shore. So here are my pictures in 2016 and here are Alex's pictures last year. My pictures would have been here. So 2016 would have been here, this is 2025. So again, another very visual way of seeing how dramatic end of story last year was. So sticking with the theme of water, my class did a project with the town of Richland because we wanted to see how can we create some materials for the residents of Richland to learn about wealth and floods. So you can only use the blueprints and understanding of what floods and wells look like for the Tower Of Richmond. And I'm actually going to drop off some these posters from the Bay Area here today. And one of interesting part was is that this is what you saw in September. And I don't think you can remember the bridge on Bridge Street in which one? They give dribble glass there. The water was about 10 to 20 feet lower than three floods of twenty twenty three. It was so low that you see on these shoulders, the beds between the river itself, which tells you again how much of a drop down this is. So water, where is it? On surface, but also on the groundwater. So you start seeing wells running out and running dry and not having enough access to wells because I think that we needed wells to be dug or to be debunked, but we had words in that. So this is one of those ongoing service. And one thing that is important kind of problem that was how much weight is everybody asking me this, how much weight should fall or needs it to fall for us to kind of come out? So back in September, we needed to have as much as we never been, just afraid to fall and then make its way down through the ground to get to the groundwater, to actually bring us out to the ground. So think about that. That's a lot of water, right? And it needs to replenish all those layers before it gets down to the groundwater, so the aquafelt to actually bring us out of the drought itself. So if you're feeling like this right now, right, this whiplash, you're going for floods, droughts and back and forth, high temperatures, low temperatures, there's ice outside to show all of that stuff going on. Yes, because that's part of the story of Vermont itself. So there's that shot of the bridge here, but I kept going back because I wanted to see people coming out of the drought, right? And so going back, yes, you started to get rainfall, yes, you started to come out of the drug. And so that's the first sign in terms of come back to your peace. On the Eastern side of the states, conditions were still not second. And so thinking about what I think the Lake Worry, right where we were, hopefully along, and I'll make Eastbourne, where we could see a lot of the blocks that are still present in the streams themselves. So plugs and droughts, part of our history in here. And one thing that is also part of the stream is that we can move from plants to droughts, droughts and plugs in a couple of weeks. So we saw that last year, we also saw that. We've been going up to 27%. So as we're looking at that all of these water pieces, again, by now you should be sitting along with me. Red is bad because it means it's absolute lowest ever. Right? And so we're seeing a lot of those conditions across the North Country. So it looks like it's asking. So this slide is hopeful news because last week, and I was saying views, which means that now we're getting a replenishment of how they reward our things in various subsystems across the state. So this is the whole thing aside

[Speaker 3]: that we're starting to turn the corner. So how

[Speaker 1]: do we work on this? How do we determine the client response to the ongoing drug situation that they're in? Which trials are we talking about? Is it how much rain on the sea we can get, which is a neurological drought? Is is our soil still dry? Is it, are our groundwater values still low? Or is it, has the economic impact kicks in? Because we're more able to grow stuff or we had to slather to feed supplies or pumpkins may not have been so large, right? That's the social part that we need to go to the next. The answer, of course, is which one are we talking about? This is from yesterday. And yesterday we're still seeing drought conditions across pretty much mostly staying here, right? So even though we've been getting snow, this is gonna surprise you. Even though we got all that snow, January and February will still be ninth, highest January and February since 1891. Wow. Surprised me. Know.

[Speaker 3]: No melt. Pardon?

[Speaker 2]: No melt, all a sudden stick around.

[Speaker 1]: Right, it's been starting to melt now. And so there's not lag into how we come out of it. That's part of the problem solving of this as a system. So as we think about this, if I were giving this testimony last year, like freezing rain and snow, we had temperature extremes, we had some flooding, we had ice jams all going on at the same time, and that's not for flash. I think kind of told this up here and make sense of it and prepare for it. So there's that. And we have these multiple things going on at same time, which makes it a little bit more challenge. It's not just 100 phones staying on, it's all of these things going on at same time because it means that there's a challenge of really good resources. Want to cope with the various challenges that we're experiencing. So just a quick little shot from 2023, when we were focusing on the fuzz, we also had a lot of fun. So it makes it challenging to do messaging when you've got two or three different hazards going on and you have to warn folks about health and their quality at the same time as you're cleaning up. So holding this at the same time is always really, really challenging. So one thing I'm gonna kind of leave you with is the Moncton Action Plan because it was my privilege to spare at the writing of the Climate Change Chat. So I did bring a few copies in here, believe all of this stuff that you share it around the committee because that's where a lot of this stuff is actually housed, the drought, the floods, the moisture extremes, temperature extremes, they're all kind of in here if you wanted to take a closer look. If you are working with your constituents and they are telling you more and more what the drought is to experience the city, I would invite you to invite them to actually kind of put some of that information that this conditions monitoring observatory because again, allowed folks who've lived in there about, I'd say, fifteen to twenty, thirty years to upload their pictures, to upload their observations and that's going help all of us who deal with people. All of us actually see what's going on in all corners of the city, right? So drought monitor, condition monitoring observability, and we have to help get that message across. And is that in your, is the link to this in your testimony? Do we have this testimony? I am not sure if it's already captured, but I have more than that. So every big thing.

[Speaker 0]: Okay, yeah, it would be helpful to get the link to That

[Speaker 1]: would be awesome. Okay. That would be awesome. Thank you for answering. Sure. So the other piece is with my colleagues at Cornell, I'm working to stage a drug dashboard, and we have all of this information, including a direct link to be able to drill down and see what develops like in your neck. You do not have to be loud enough. Big bar. You don't to be attached to the adult and take a look. So one thing that I wanted to kind of also put on the radar is state pharmacologists of South Carolina has the sort of mandate to dialysis and Bongo's sake because she is a state employee, she's a department of natural businesses. And about thirty years ago, we've been doing this route response act that allows them to bring in triggers when this happens, this legislation needs to be in place and these ordinances kick in and all these various pieces, it's a really well on machine in once you get to certain levels of drought, you can this type of permissive support, right? So some kind of like a controlled response act yet, maybe have to just share the direct link for this if you wanted to kind of take a closer look to see what happens to them or not. Wouldn't that be great? Yeah, because they have to go between hurricanes and drugs. And so we have to go between floods and air quality and drugs. So not necessarily have to reinvent it, we can sort of have a lot of lessons learned. I can reach out to Doctor. Hope Ruzelle and call me if you want to chat with her, if you want to chat with a bunch of us, psychologist, happy to do that as well so that we can actually get some of these, know, what would you have as this said thing. Okay, so we're still on track right now. My fear, my concern is that this is gonna continue because we're still not out of it yet. So how do we kind of think ahead for next few months, next year, and so on? And so one of the things that I'm working on is to create a all house, all safe, all sector drought plan, building up South Carolina, Iowa and Massachusetts that will allow you to see what these triggers are so that we go into a drought, come out to

[Speaker 2]: a drought and so on.

[Speaker 1]: How do we, you've already said you should be sharing some of these resources, how do we start building that culture of see something, see something, so the onboarding monitoring and leveraging a lot of resources we have with state, so state agencies, making sure that everybody knows and maybe has their information so that onboarding can communicate to to them be probably simpler. So I'm gonna leave you with this. I'm gonna leave that because I know that folks online who are probably getting their phones up right now and scanning that QR code. I've learned to do this here. Get that QR code up there because what this over in Q2 is a study map that the students in my climatology and natural causes class created last fall that puts together what we know for droughts in the state of Vermont. And they have this wonderful little poster that runs along with it. So I'm also talking about legal entities, orange and red, right, because it takes you through the various trials that we've had and timelines of when he chose that certificate. So again, communication, communication, communication with us knowledge. So I believe with that, I'd like to end my testimony and thank you for the opportunity to chair all of the committee members here at Press Lodge to have a the chance to share a little bit of what we've been doing in terms of job conditions and policies. Thank you.

[Speaker 0]: Super, thank you so much. Yes, go ahead. Any questions? Thank you. That was really, really interesting and great professor.

[Speaker 5]: Everybody always says that. You're very engaging.

[Speaker 0]: So I'm Senator Ruth Hardy from the Assis District. We didn't get to introduce ourselves, but I have a lot of agricultural land in my district. So I know that many, many farmers were impacted severely by the droughts, especially livestock farmers who could produce hay and crops to feed their livestock. But my question, a lot of the work you do depends on federal data and with the cuts of everything that's going on there, are you still able to access the kind of data that you need?

[Speaker 1]: I don't actually. Oh wow, that's good. Lot of the sources of data and the methods that I use are sort of in the public domain. So when I can show you things from yesterday or today, it's because they're so accessible. The other piece is that there's a really close relationship between some of those federal entities and the National Drug Litigation Center, which is housed in the University of Nebraska. And so there's really close knit community.

[Speaker 0]: It's community. A little insulated from what's happening.

[Speaker 1]: I would say more sharing the knowledge, sharing the wealth, sharing the expertise so that everybody needs to have data and the patient has that. And a lot of state dermatologists are actually drug experts as well. And so they build the conditions on the ground in the local part of a three tier system, national level, regional level, and then local governments where the state and Charlotte sit. But so we can work closely with federal agencies within the borders, So like National Weather Service here in Burlington, USGS here in Burlington, in partnership with state agencies to make sure we are getting that COPESIN free across the board and knowing exactly what's going on in various parts of the state. Okay,

[Speaker 0]: that's good to hear. And I was gonna ask you what you thought we should do to prepare. We've done a lot of flood work planning. The chair and I were involved in several major bills about how to respond to floods and then get a drought. And I think of all, I was really surprised. Was like, how can we possibly be getting drought? But we should look

[Speaker 1]: at the South Carolina legislation. And if you have other recommendations for things that we should do, that would Absolutely, be I'm happy to provide data, information, anything else that you need to actually put this place. Because I think once we get that drug plan, it needs some help. We didn't perform for the state of Vermont. And I think what we don't have right now is clear on the side of what the last drug looks like in cities and what ongoing conditions from a vegetation perspective of the sea, so that you can get the benefits and symptoms. Yeah, flash drought is something I never heard of. Thank you. Also, want to thank you, that was fabulous.

[Speaker 0]: I'm maybe reading the word graphs better. So it makes me very happy. But so you referenced 1895 a couple of times then because 1895 was a particularly bad year or is

[Speaker 1]: that because that's when the data starts? The lack of. So, chronological just have the ability to use the records they have going all the way back to when they are most consistent. And so NOAA, National Otiatic and Apostolic Administration, their records consistently start in 1895. So for us to always get a long term perspective, we use that. If you're looking at massive data, those start in 1880. So again, we'd have that 100 plus here. So if you only look at last two or three years, you get one interpretation. If you look at fifty years, different interpretation, one hundred and twenty years, then you're like, that's when you really see where things sit. Then you put the next mountains. And

[Speaker 0]: then at the time that we met over the summer, we were still in it and you were looking for, because people's wells were drying up and you had been looking for, like if we knew folks who were experiencing dry wells, that was useful information for you in the future. And maybe this gets to the potential future of like, if we look at what South Carolina did, if there's some kind of build out as to how Vermont should respond to droughts, flash droughts, etcetera, that there might be some kind of system, like I'm imagining some reporting system to say, yeah, my well ran dry here, which could be useful in terms of like, how do we get resources to people, but also to be able to map what is happening literally on premise.

[Speaker 1]: And so that's an excellent framing because we have part of that right now. So at the environment of conservation, but also in Department of Health, there are mechanisms of reporting when wells run dry or running dry or coming back on running. And there are map tools that are showing broadly speaking so protecting privacy, broadly speaking, you know, those wells are going die. We take it to the next level, which is to integrate all of that information with other assets. So what else is going on with the streets? What else is going on with lakes in that region? Because you need to understand what's going side to side where those riots are occurring, what's the other way? The better we can pinpoint the dry, whatever the dry house is, whether it's your trees, your farm, bait in your backyard, the more we can pinpoint those, the more we can get that information to the National Drug Litigation Center, the better we're able to draw the lines of where travel is across the state and the problem we do that, it will then trigger stuff like USDA monies. So if we don't know where things are drying out, we draw incorrect lines and we don't get USDA trigger. So that's again, it's a win win win for everybody. So that's why I keep saying, if you see some weaknesses, because we're all in this together. Everybody's affected by trauma. And so we need to report every single thing. Looking outside the window right now, yep, we got some stress still going on out there, right? So yeah, when you bring to the community meetings, want to see some pictures, upload them to see more. So they've been modeling what we're trying to do here with building that culture, reporting everything that's going on planet. Susan? Well, you so much. Any other questions, comments? Thank you, Anne. Really appreciate it. Okay.

[Speaker 0]: So we're going to switch gears to hear from the Housing and Conservation Board. This year, we have a draft amendment that does reference you all. So we're looking at this point at draft 3.2 of an amendment to this three twenty eight and and myself.

[Speaker 1]: Okay. We'll we'll get you a credit.

[Speaker 0]: No worries. Welcome.

[Speaker 3]: Thank you very much for having me. Director, Council Seeler, Executive Director, Board of Housing and Conservation Board, he's our policy director, Colin Major. I understand we'll come back next week to give an update on the board's larger work. The amendment looks fine to us. So that's quick and the dirty on this. If we'd like an update right now on the farm housing program that we're operating, I can give it to you. That would be helpful.

[Speaker 0]: I think that would be interesting. It would

[Speaker 3]: be cool if you're a parent dude. Yeah, sure. And so just by way of background in the 2020, I think we began to look at the issue of farm labor and housing and commission of study by the development cycles and by consultant named John Ryan. There had been a lot of preceding work led by Doctor. Dan Baker at the Center for Global Studies by the migrant justice and Registry Health Project and some great advocacy from them and particularly one person, Linda Costa Caswell. Yes.

[Speaker 1]: He's the one who wants

[Speaker 0]: the report updated. Appreciate

[Speaker 1]: it. And

[Speaker 2]: what we learned from that

[Speaker 3]: report, a few selling facts that I went over last night was a little over 20,000 people working in agriculture, mostly farmers and farm family members, about 8,500 people who were not family members, 2,000 of which showed on farms. What the greatest for health report suggested was that one third of them felt stressed by their housing conditions for a variety of different reasons that led to habitability, quality. And so we were in an atmosphere where lots of funding was available in the pandemic era. We actually stood up programs with recovery residences and people, intellectual development disabilities, public safety. And as a result of the judge report, we put out an RFP asking for somebody to operate a program for the farm community from the Champlain Housing Trust, respond within the best application we got. In conjunction with ABM and one of their competitors, which is the line of energy investment operation, have been at the business of repairing housing, in some cases replacing the housing construction program. Basically, the repair projects, you get a $30,000 loan that is forgivable over ten years. And for replacement project, you can get $120,000 loan with $30,000 forgivable. Program so far has served, it's two eighty four workers in the repair program and another 30 in the replacement program. There is more to the advertisement program and the repair program. And we will be happy or monthly evaluating.

[Speaker 1]: They

[Speaker 3]: the report from 2021, I think it is located somewhere that the legislature has, but I don't know exactly where, you know where?

[Speaker 0]: Yes, it's the Act, the House Act. Yeah, it's on the legislative reports page. I found it when I was working on this, but we can probably repost it to our Smith.

[Speaker 1]: I've got a bunch of people feel beautifully safe. It's from 2021, so that's what we're trying to update.

[Speaker 0]: That's what the amendment would do, ask us to

[Speaker 1]: give us a new report. So

[Speaker 0]: if you want, I can dig it out and send it to Jude. It's on the reports page. Ruth, can you? I call it, thank you.

[Speaker 3]: So that's the long and short of our story, terms of the farm labor housing. I think there's a continuum that we need. The initial report, what we've done so far, all the projects completed a little over 300 farm workers. The report suggests that the need was around 600. So we may be halfway there, but when you're doing a repair program after a decade or maybe more of a there may have been other houses wasn't captured by the bridges to help us. And so, but I think we've made more than a dent. That's encouraging. Yeah, actually. Yeah. But the other thing I should say to you is we have a fundus with one time funding. That was available to us. So as that disappears, question for our board and for the newest time on chat of our general allocation in this area as opposed to ground housing, compartorship, shelter, all the other things that you would like us to be doing, you So know, many things. So true. Well,

[Speaker 0]: thank you. I appreciate it. Any other questions for Mr. Seaton? Okay. Thank you so much.

[Speaker 3]: Okay,

[Speaker 0]: great. Well, so the next thing on our list is to have our legislative council go through the amendment that is, we have a new draft up, she's not supposed to be here for another ten minutes. So I think we will, well, and actually what I would love to do after we walk through the amendment, assuming that there's no further concerns or comments or questions or anything, if we could do a straw poll on it, think that would be helpful. So so you're mentally prepared for that. Then we also are going be hearing from the Legion Plan Systems Advisory Board an update. So let's take a let's take a break. Yeah. Take a break till ten.

[Speaker 1]: All

[Speaker 0]: right, good morning. So the National Resources Energy coming back from a break. We have draft 3.2 Meditu S-three 28. Just thank you, appreciate it. And this is incorporating some of the testimony that we heard the other day from Liz Royer, from Bordeaux Water District about places that are at least feeling left out of the quadplexing because their sewer and water is not municipally owned specifically, it's not owned by the town, I should say. And so, you know, how does this apply to fire districts? So the thought was to include fire districts. Because even though they are all technically abused. But anyway, I'm going turn it over to LJ Tyson. Welcome.

[Speaker 5]: LJ. This is a proposed amendment to S-three 28 draft 3.2, 3.9, twenty twenty six. It is currently from Senators Watson and Hardy, and there are only two sections of this amendment. So the first is amending section eight of three twenty eight, which is the definition of area served by municipal water and sewer infrastructure. So you will see in the first and second method that it is striking out the first half of this definition. So what that will mean is that the definition of area served by municipal water and sewer infrastructure will just have one process for for what these areas are. So it means an area established by the municipality by ordinance or bylaw,

[Speaker 1]: so on at the bottom of page one,

[Speaker 5]: where residential connections and expansions are available through municipal water, for page two, and direct and indirect discharge wastewater systems, or fire district, and which may exclude all of the following. So the municipality can establish this area by ordinance or by law, and it's the areas with the expansion and connections that are available to municipal water, the discharge system, or a fire district, and which may exclude flood hazard or inundation areas as established by statute, river corridors or fluvial erosion areas as established by statute, shorelands, areas within the Midzoning District or overly district, the purpose of which is as a resource protection, and when you're out of residence and development, it's not allowed. So this and all the other criteria on this list are not changing. The change is that the first part of the definition is being removed and then also adding that fire districts are part of the areas that could be part of this definition.

[Speaker 0]: Yes. So yeah, I missed yesterday, apologies for that. So obviously we're getting rid of the whole like, piece. Okay. Can someone just give me a little quick summary on thinking on that? Yeah, so the idea is that if we try to, because, so just to back up about before we get to the feet. Thank you. The Roman I that is being struck here, correct me if I am wrong, but my understanding is that that is sort of, that's the area if the municipality has not mapped an area, and arguably those like Roadmap I and II could be competing with each other. So let's just have it be established by the municipality and because they know their capacity, they know their landscape, they know the areas where it makes sense and how that ought to look. If it's served by municipal water or fire district, because it's probably a relatively sophisticated municipality. So they probably have the capacity to figure that area out. And most municipalities have already heard that from VLCT. And then the reason to not include feet as a default in case the place hasn't figured or even determined that on their own is because we contemplated anywhere from 300 feet to 2,000 feet, that even 300 feet could be 300 feet into the next town. It could be 300 feet straight up a cliff. It could be 300 feet into a conservation area. So there is not necessarily any one distance that would make sense necessarily as a default. Let's just ask municipalities to figure out what the area is that makes sense to them.

[Speaker 4]: Got it.

[Speaker 0]: Section nine?

[Speaker 6]: What are they getting by by striking out section eight? This

[Speaker 0]: replaces a 2,000 foot thing that have to infinity down the hall back. Okay. And that's the only, wasn't there another thing that we were talking about? I mean, in addition to Farhorn's thing, but There was the Labies Review Board report that I got struck. Yeah. But I felt like there was another

[Speaker 5]: measurement thing, it's been a

[Speaker 0]: long week. So I've Maybe

[Speaker 5]: it was just that there were,

[Speaker 0]: because it went to three or two people.

[Speaker 5]: Oh, started in 2000 and so it was

[Speaker 0]: just the same issue. Yeah, we were contemplating having it change at 2030. Right, and it was a two part. And PLCT was like, Please don't make us do that. Places Because have already been, they were like, if you did that, we'd have to go through redoing our violence like three times. We've already, most places have already done it once for this purpose. But if it becomes 300 feet or any set feet, we do it again and then in 2030, we have to

[Speaker 1]: do it again.

[Speaker 0]: Okay, so overall this just makes it simpler for talents. Yes.

[Speaker 3]: Okay. Yeah. Perfect.

[Speaker 1]: Okay.

[Speaker 5]: So the other amendment is on page three, the second sub amendment is adding the farm worker housing report. So there's a little more language in that section now. So on the 04/1937, the BHCB shall provide an update to the farmworker's health and needs assessment of 2021. The update shall describe the farmworker housing program established by the board following the initial report, evaluating the program's impact on farm worker housing and burn block, and identify barriers to improving by expanding farm worker housing.

[Speaker 1]: Ruth? And that's right. Yeah.

[Speaker 0]: Okay, any comments or thoughts about the naming of this?

[Speaker 3]: Yes. It's kind of interesting as I've been following through this, all the institutional knowledge you guys have got that

[Speaker 1]: I have. This report and but let's kind put it together and and the changes of of the. Great. Excellent. That is. We all want to sponsor.

[Speaker 0]: Yeah. If we all sponsored it, would that should we need the noon draft or None of

[Speaker 1]: those. Okay.

[Speaker 5]: I mean, you could just ask you could ask

[Speaker 0]: Louder to do it or

[Speaker 6]: I could do it.

[Speaker 5]: How are you?

[Speaker 1]: Terry, you're good. You're on it? You're the event? Certainly good. Yeah. Okay. I see. And

[Speaker 0]: so that sort of makes us drop all almost irrelevant. You

[Speaker 5]: don't need to drop all because your committee doesn't have

[Speaker 1]: this bill for this matter in ten minutes.

[Speaker 0]: Okay. Well, if we're all on the amendment, then I can say it came from all of and that is encouraging. Okay. Gosh, we are running fast here again tonight, which is fabulous.

[Speaker 5]: Yes? I always send the draft with all your names on it right now.

[Speaker 0]: Okay, great. Thank you. And so I'm going to be, I'm slugged to put this to economic development on Tuesday. Okay, so with that, we will take another break until. No worries. We grew a lot.

[Speaker 2]: Yeah, so thank you very much for having us this morning. We are a little bit disorganized. Were expecting more people to be here. We got some confusion about when we were actually meeting. So sorry about that. I'm sorry that you don't have all the resources that we actually have available. My name is Brett Gallatin. I'm a member of the Vermont Citizen Advisory Committee. I retired a number of years ago from the University of Vermont, the Rutland School where I was a professor of environmental sciences and directed the Lake Champlain Secret program. I'm not sure if you know about it, but it's

[Speaker 3]: a NOAA

[Speaker 2]: program that focuses on the environment and the economy of the children. On retirement, asked to be a part of the Citizens Advisory Committee and was appointed. So just a little bit about us. The committee was enacted by legislation that the Canadian United, so we have been around for about thirty six years now. We're all volunteers, all of us are appointed by the governor, and we have diverse backgrounds, Bob will tell you about his. Our charge is pretty simple, it's to listen to stakeholders in the Lake Champlain Basin and to report to you on an annual basis on those things that we're hearing as being priorities. So I want to start with our, I'm going to do this old school one. There is your teacher's speaker, there is a QR code here that if you

[Speaker 1]: want to pull it

[Speaker 2]: up on your own phone,

[Speaker 3]: you can do that. I

[Speaker 1]: might I

[Speaker 2]: don't know.

[Speaker 0]: I think I might do that. I

[Speaker 1]: didn't know.

[Speaker 5]: I'll take that.

[Speaker 2]: We're a little more active, sex savvy than you might think.

[Speaker 5]: Can I just ask

[Speaker 1]: a question

[Speaker 0]: here? Yeah. Sure. Go ahead. Are you giving them what he sent me? Yes. Yes. So it's on our website.

[Speaker 4]: It's on the

[Speaker 2]: website right now. It's on

[Speaker 1]: the website.

[Speaker 4]: Also you should be,

[Speaker 0]: yeah, okay.

[Speaker 2]: You can do it either way. Okay, okay. I'm just gonna- Oh, here

[Speaker 1]: it is, okay. Got it,

[Speaker 2]: I'm just gonna point out this Venn diagram to start out with. This kind of encapsulates our whole philosophy and approach. So what we're all after is a health plan. Now the way that we approach this is there's three broad areas, the big circles there, healthy ecosystems, climate resilience, and clean water. Those things intersect with each other, so where healthy ecosystems and clean water come together, we're improving the biodiversity of our systems. Where healthy ecosystems and climate resilience intersect is in the area of restoration, restoring our natural assets, and where clean water and climate resiliency is set, is watershed management. And when all those things come together, then we're approaching, you know, a healthy play, perhaps what we're after. And I want to say from the outset that although our charge is to look at the future of Lake Champlain, Lake Champlain drains about half of the total area of the state of Vermont. The things that we advocate for though, for the entire state of Vermont. So this is not just about Lake Champlain, although that's our charge, it's something that is beneficial to each entire state. So in this action plan, we have four major priorities. That's on page two, a box on page two if you have that available to you. I'm going to talk to the first one and turn it over to Bob to talk about the next two, and then I'll come back to talk about the last one. Those four priorities are to advance flood mitigation and climate resilience, to address water contaminants, to invest in aquatic invasive species management, and to ensure equitable public access to waterways. These kind of broad categories haven't changed that much over the last few years. The broad categories are ones that we keep bringing out. But kind of the underlying bills that you are considering and programs that you see occurring are changing. And so we highlight a few of those things. So let just start with the first priority of flood resilience. I'm sure you're all aware that Lakeshore Chicolein is a big lake. The area that drains into it is even bigger, and as a matter of fact, it's remarkably bigger. The ratio of the land area to the lake area is about nineteen:one, and that's the largest ratio or a large ratio for a lake that size of any place in the world just by comparison to the Great Lakes that ratio is only three or four of them. So what that means is that we have 19 acres of land that's put into every acre of water. So it's a lot of land that's delivering things, water, sediment, nutrients, pollutants to the lake. And compounding that challenge is a changing climate where things are intensifying in one way or another. In the last fifteen years, the Lake Jiangbein Basin has been impacted by all 25 FEMA declaration events. In fact, we are the seventh highest in the nation with respect to those declarations. That includes the floods in 2003 and 2004. As I'm sure you guys all know, the 2003 floods caused upwards of a billion dollars in damages and response recovery and support for social support costs. There was a UBM study in 2022 that estimated that just in general, a one hundred year flood would cost the state of Vermont about 3 quarters of $1,000,000, every one of those floods. And if we look out to the next hundred years, we might be facing 5,200,000,000 in losses. At the other end of the spectrum, we have droughts. And I understand this, if you heard from my colleague, Leslie, with the big major oaths this morning about the droughts in 2025, a record setting low levels in late January, sixty million dollars worth of loss related to the key agricultural sector. So these extreme weather events are affecting us now and they're getting worse. And we have an administration watching them that is not really friendly to helping us with philosophy. So these are daunting challenges, but I want to flip the narrative here a little bit. So that nineteen:one ratio begins to have big impacts on the lake, but flip side of that is that if we do good things on the land, the chances of getting rapid recovery are higher than would be the case in other places. So in the area of flood mitigation, we've identified five high level opportunities, and those opportunities are outlined, I think, on page two, page Just beginning on the bottom of page two and then to page three of that document. I'll just quickly paraphrase them. The first of them is to restore and conserve headwaters, corridors, floodplains, wetlands, soils, repairing buffers, and so forth. And the rationale for this is that natural assets like that are effective and far less expensive in our infrastructure, burning infrastructure, and so forth. The second is to invest in our agency staff and empower them work across agencies and with outside organizations. I'll point to a document that you may have seen probably since was Julie Moore back in April about gaps in funding, kind of unfunded mandates for ANR totaling about $500,000 I think, in various places. We need funding for the staff and the programs that are addressing these dread issues. The third opportunity is to support funding for research and demonstration projects that are designed to restore natural processes in the lake. It's great to be able to point to research that was done in California or in Nevada or Florida or whatever, but having research that is specific to Vermont that Vermonters would say, okay, I get that, is really important. The fourth is to invest in sustainable agriculture, forests and working lands initiatives. Agriculture is the biggest source of phosphorus to the land. And we've done that for a while and we're addressing that. Forests, it turns out, are also a large source, not because every acre is big source, but we have a lot of acres of forest, so it ends up being a big source to the lake. So investing in sustainable agriculture and forestry is important. Please go ahead. So how do forest spread send phosphorus to the lake? Same process is of erosion, there's a lot of forest roads that run through the forest, small culverts, not well maintained, there's a lot of sediment that gets delivered and that eventually moves downstream to the the length that phosphorus is. Phosphorus is natural, phosphorus is it's a natural compound, it's everywhere and it's not that every acre in the forest is a problem, but we have so many forests, maybe it's the right. It's the land. But in the Sisquoid Bay, for example, the Sisquoid River, forestry is a big problem of what gets delivered to the to the the way. Okay. The last one is to invest in public and private infrastructure to meet modern standards. A lot of our waste treatment facilities are woefully out of date and need upgrading. And interestingly, although agriculture is the largest total source of phosphorus to the lake, on an acre per acre basis, urban areas are the largest source per acre. So it is not trivial what's being delivered from the only 6% of the basin that is developed. So the sorts of things that we want to see continued supported are initiatives like the clean water initiatives associated with the Lipschamp and PMGL, the ANR Tactical Basin Planning Program and initiatives around it, the Vermont Resilience Implementation Strategy, and the Vermont Climate Action Plan. Those are all things that are helping to support what's going on in budgetary length. Just mention that the Farm Security Act, which I think it passed last week, right?

[Speaker 1]: We're

[Speaker 2]: tremendously supportive of that, so appreciative of that asset, that's great. We need

[Speaker 0]: to get funding for it. So if you talk

[Speaker 1]: to the appropriations, make

[Speaker 0]: sure you ask them to put some funds in it, otherwise it won't get off the ground. Okay. And just as a flag in that, I do intend to have a letter coming from this committee.

[Speaker 1]: Oh, it's great. It's great. Is great.

[Speaker 0]: It's great. That's

[Speaker 6]: I didn't know you had that position so make sure we do well make sure we know you said you're supportive of the farms and farms yeah like I didn't know that

[Speaker 0]: yes yeah

[Speaker 6]: so make sure as things like that happen well I'll give you two other examples before we know okay because that'll help us I have it.

[Speaker 0]: Well, just to finish the thought that I was, mean, you can probably guess what I was gonna say. We're gonna have a letter that comes from this committee to the Appropriations Committee, and so we should flag this as an item that maybe we want to include. Yeah. So please continue.

[Speaker 2]: So we're very supportive of the Flood Safety Act, Act 121, which is passed, but I understand has funding gaps. Actually my number of 500,000 was about that, not anything on ours, funding gaps. But there are funding gaps in the flood safety act. And so we're very supportive of that act and ensuring that it is fully funded. And thirdly, the House Transportation Committee H467, were very supportive of it. I understand there's been no action on it, but the provisions still yet that would require the agency of transportation to be forward thinking rather than reactive in the way that they operate are things that we are very supportive of. So those are examples of bills that are very supportive of.

[Speaker 0]: How about, I don't know what the number is, the salt bill.

[Speaker 2]: Oh, very similar. So that is a great segue. I'll turn to my following.

[Speaker 0]: Before you go, I just want make sure that I'm copying all this. So, Flemency Act, farm security bill, there was a little about AOC, but what was the name of that one? It's a bill, but it's in New York.

[Speaker 2]: It's not a bill per se, but know that anytime there's something that it's addressing ADRs need to have staff or programs addressing flooding, the Rivers program in particular, those are things that we want to see supported.

[Speaker 5]: Great, and then you mentioned H-four 67.

[Speaker 2]: Four sixty seven, there's a presentation that I understand is solid. I don't think there's been any action that's on last year. Yeah, it's going on. That's interesting.

[Speaker 0]: Okay, welcome.

[Speaker 1]: Thank you.

[Speaker 4]: My name is Bob Fisher. I'm the water quality superintendent for South Burlington and I

[Speaker 2]: live in Beardentown. I used to be the chief operator of the Mont Belier Wastewater Facility ten plus years ago.

[Speaker 0]: Which is how I originally lived?

[Speaker 1]: Is a big and tourist facility

[Speaker 4]: and I still in person all of the cities. So to go backwards really quickly, as Brett noticed here in 1989, it was federal legislation. There were two others. This is a trimer bid. We are also in Quebec and New York. So there are three CACs and the original language is quite strong. We of, we can like call anyone we want and etc. It sort of got, what happened is Senator Leahy got a lot of money for the basin program and sort of supplanted this, this

[Speaker 2]: sort of conveyed. But this is where it

[Speaker 4]: came from. We have numerous members on here. Eric Clifford has been on as long as me, sixteen, seventeen years, a dairy farmer. We have engineers, we have Lori Fisher, we have all sorts of, you know, it's a fairly large community. We have two senators and we have Senator Bullock and Senator Brock and we have Representative Modi and Representative Bennington on our committee. And as we said, which I understand what you always want to hear is action of life. What can we do? Give me a bill, give me a number, what can we afford? Again, we're a fairly disparate group that moves fairly slowly and you know we listen to the public and kind of bring it up. But I'm here to talk about chloro I'll take contaminants first of all excuse me would be so chloride. Plugs have a big issue. Looks like there's a phosphorus being MMBL there's already five impaired streams There's Sunnybrook in Colchester, we have potash issues. So there's going to be a TMD. I was a federal fisheryologist for many years. There's probably going to be a federal TMDL coming down, which is the same thing it's going to drag everyone kicking and screaming and do something more or less. Salt is just like phosphorus it's there it's legacy salt what do you do? Know also I'm a ski coach at Killington that drives an hour plus every down 107 except for the year when it wasn't there for the last twenty six years at Killington so we're not slammed into things. But nonetheless, we have to reduce salt usage. A lot of it is private people, know you own a mall, somebody slips they sue you. You want, you know, so we're trying to push along like the New Hampshire model more or less where they the state takes on some liability with trading to help you know reduce salt usage because it's one of those things that's kind of common more or less assuming that EPA is gonna do what EPA probably does in the past then you know it has to be

[Speaker 2]: addressed so it's really not ours. And

[Speaker 4]: just like everything else there's no money. There's a lot of money's gone and you know everyone here is the same I go to Water Week in Washington the night everybody walk in and Senator Sanders

[Speaker 2]: and all. I'm not we're not

[Speaker 4]: like the firefighters or the nurses that are here for money. Yeah we are. We're here for that infrastructure. I obviously am very supportive of our infrastructure. I run one of the old water cheap wastewater facilities. You basically put out drinking water and when the river turns chocolate there goes basically all my work. Know PFAS is big issue, and also preventions for the pound of cure. As I was explaining to the other senator here, we currently land apply, there's only really two methods in Vermont, land for to get rid of your biosolids at the end. You can either land apply or you can ship them somewhere into the landfill. Neither one's a great option, but we're doing it at 5% base with Etrans. Have to test Vermont has the most restrictive rules in the nation. Virtually everyone else is going with the Michigan Ohio rules other than Maine, which ban. But we are number one for the lowest numbers. I just did mine yesterday. And we're way below background levels. It's a 5% mix. We're putting it where people won't go along roadways, long runways. And if you don't do it then you're gonna have to report that phosphorus. And so same thing if I had to go to Coventry, your brother's gonna be a ton of greenhouse gases plus the PFAS actually off gases from Coventry not to mention the methane in The United States. I saw a study on that. Yes, I'm not gonna need some of that. Yes, not only do the methane, they're capturing the methane, they're trying to use it, it's still, it's a landfill. And the main issue is biosolids are 20 some percent it's like mud and it's structural structural stability. Hands melt keeps doing it. And some places are you know so it's really huge again but you still need that phosphorus and whatnot for fertilizer so you

[Speaker 1]: got to import it. So there's no easy solutions anyway.

[Speaker 4]: You know, so basically beyond that, I should probably pivot then we're running out of time to apply a new basis. Yep. Apply a new basis. And I think Brecken pulled the numbers off his head more than I can. What is the amounts? Yeah. You know, they're all around us. There's far more in, like up in the Richemont and up above us and certainly into the lots. The main issue is coming from the lot. The round robin gets in, know, fishery, fishing is a huge industry here and all sorts of things that's going to cause, you know, billions of dollars to get fish. And it's very hard once you get in and

[Speaker 2]: out of prevention for the public here, you

[Speaker 4]: could never, I remember in California, there

[Speaker 3]: was

[Speaker 4]: a large lake, one of special fishermenologist, Northern Whitehorse, and someone decided to bring Northern Pipe there. Great, because they wanted to fish that, that's great. But it also released to the American River, so it would get down and so they had to, they wrote down the whole thing. There were people lost their entire livelihoods they were fishermen and after two years they went back and all they found were a couple of mice. They wiped out everything but the hives on the very hardy room. So you know any sort of money and it's one of those things that's also like you know mill weed among that the state of the money they'll be kind of holding steady and then there'll be a funding gap for a year or something and then it's rest and then you kind of hold steady again and you maybe get a little and then there's a funding gap or something. So you know really the solution which you know they've worked on is really to come through the canal trying to drain that one down and all of that's digesting their relevance. And okay I guess also the public access recreation? I can do that. Sure. Understand.

[Speaker 0]: Just recognizing that we are

[Speaker 4]: We're out of time.

[Speaker 0]: We're gonna be Okay. We

[Speaker 2]: have about 50 invasive species that have got the end of the lake she knows. Just outside we have connections of course to the St. Lawrence River, to the Hudson River. There are over 100 other invasive species, just on poise, that come in. And so to Bob's point, house prevention is better than trying to cure it later. Our last point here is about public access. The state has about a $1,500,000,000

[Speaker 6]: a year

[Speaker 2]: outdoor recreation industry and so public access to the lake is extremely important. Actually, think we may step in the relationship with lot Alberta and San Mexico in terms of industry and how important it is. However, we have probably on the south end of the lake with very little access to the south end of the lake, and so we just want to put it on your radar. We're not aware of any bill moving through to do something, but we want to promote the idea that there needs to be additional access to the southern end of the lake. We need to create opportunities for marginalized groups to be able to have access to the lake, so that we have an entire community that is empowered to use it and appreciates it and wants to support the chamber.

[Speaker 3]: With that, we have just delivering we'll stop. Okay,

[Speaker 0]: thank you very much.

[Speaker 3]: Thank you very much. You.

[Speaker 1]: Great. Thank you all for your hearing.

[Speaker 4]: I mean, our work is you know, in crash