Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Sen. Rebecca “Becca” White (Vice Chair)]: You're live.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: This is the senate transportation committee. We are at Friday, February 6. I might remind the committee that before crossover, we have sixteen days of committee time, which is daunting if you ask me, but and we are here with the agency Natural Resources updates, and first with wildlife crossings, and if the two of you could name, give a little background, and then go into it, we'd very much appreciate that.

[Jens Hilke, Conservation Planner, Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department]: Great. Thank you all so much for having me. For the record, my name is Jens Hilke. I'm a conservation planner with Vermont Fisher Valley Society.

[Andrew Wright, Environmental Policy Manager, Vermont Agency of Transportation (VTrans)]: And I'm Andrew Wright, the environmental policy manager at the Agency of Transportation.

[Jens Hilke, Conservation Planner, Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department]: And we wanted to speak this morning for a little bit about the work that we've been doing collaboratively for many, many years now and give you a little bit more insight into roads and wildlife.

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Clerk)]: Is that a real father?

[Jens Hilke, Conservation Planner, Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department]: Yes. No. Benjamin Young. I believe that's in the kingdom somewhere. I'm not it's not true.

[Andrew Wright, Environmental Policy Manager, Vermont Agency of Transportation (VTrans)]: Yeah. You think it was AI?

[Peter Collier, Commissioner of the Vermont Department of Motor Vehicles]: I'm weird. A it's

[Andrew Wright, Environmental Policy Manager, Vermont Agency of Transportation (VTrans)]: a whole it's weird, buddy.

[Bob Allney, President, Lamoille Towing Association]: You just pull up and then it

[Peter Collier, Commissioner of the Vermont Department of Motor Vehicles]: walks across like that.

[Jens Hilke, Conservation Planner, Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department]: Yeah. That's kind of my worst nightmare, actually.

[Andrew Wright, Environmental Policy Manager, Vermont Agency of Transportation (VTrans)]: I know. Know. Know.

[Peter Collier, Commissioner of the Vermont Department of Motor Vehicles]: And you can hit your camera out fast enough. Yeah.

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Clerk)]: Maybe it's best.

[Andrew Wright, Environmental Policy Manager, Vermont Agency of Transportation (VTrans)]: That's pretty amazing. I

[Jens Hilke, Conservation Planner, Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department]: assume you're pretty familiar with the Agency of Transportation's mission, so we didn't include it. But for those of you who are new to the department, we believe in the conservation of fish, wildlife, plants, and their habitats for the people of Vermont. That's a mission that we take very seriously. It takes us in a lot of different directions, and one of those is ensuring the the safety of of animals and the ongoing maintaining populations into the future. So I think we should start with a little bit of why we should care about this issue and why you might want to care. And first of all, of course, is the safety of the traveling public. I just mentioned how that moose on a foggy road, that's my my worst nightmare. And I think that is a substantial concern for the traveling public and one we take very seriously. Another reason we should care is the economic argument. Nationally, there's more than $8,000,000,000 a year in property damages because of wildlife vehicle collisions. The full cost to society, we estimate, is estimated at about $7,000 per collision with deer, about $30,000 per collision with a moose. That's the full cost to society. That's not just the the cost to the the the driver's vehicle, for example.

[Andrew Wright, Environmental Policy Manager, Vermont Agency of Transportation (VTrans)]: Can I ask questions or

[Sen. Rebecca “Becca” White (Vice Chair)]: I'll ask it?

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: Would you rather we go through the presentation or or break you?

[Jens Hilke, Conservation Planner, Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department]: Your choice. It is your choice.

[Sen. Rebecca “Becca” White (Vice Chair)]: I'll just ask the question and you don't have to answer it. We can talk later. So the the

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: Go.

[Sen. Rebecca “Becca” White (Vice Chair)]: The way to, I'm interested in knowing how those costs are defined because sometimes there's a cost for a person it used to be a million dollars a person but that was years ago, I don't know what it is now.

[Jens Hilke, Conservation Planner, Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department]: This study was done by Clevinger, Tommy Clevinger out of Alberta, and I believe they took into account the cost of the the average cost of the damage to the vehicle, the average cost in compensation for time off work, the cost of the animal itself in terms of potential revenue, and then any as the average damage to road infrastructure. As far as I know, that's what's included in that estimate.

[Sen. Rebecca “Becca” White (Vice Chair)]: Thank you.

[Jens Hilke, Conservation Planner, Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department]: And then the the last argument I would suggest here is one of stewardship, and it is much more effective, efficient to keep our common species common than to wait till when they become endangered, and then it's much more costly to be dealing with endangered species than it is to be keeping common species common.

[Andrew Wright, Environmental Policy Manager, Vermont Agency of Transportation (VTrans)]: Yeah, I could just add that for the stewardship part, keeping the common species common. If they're common, we don't get regulated on those species. So there's sort of an added benefit to helping that happen.

[Jens Hilke, Conservation Planner, Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department]: So I just want to lay out the larger language pattern here beyond the road segment itself. So of course, we have our largest forest blocks, and that's where most animals spend most of their time. And so we have more species diversity in in the larger forest blocks. And then we have a set of forest blocks that are smaller, perhaps not as biologically diverse, but are so critically important because of their location on the landscape. I often refer to those as connectivity blocks or connect stepping stone blocks. So as we think about ACT 181 or the larger land use implications here, we're very much focused on this larger landscape patent. But then within that, of course, we do have the So those blocks would include private owners then? Yes. And Vermonters have been managing their forest lands effectively for many years, and so that isn't necessarily mutually exclusive. We can have a working landscape. We can meet multiple goals at the same time and still allow for wildlife chronic pain.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: I would just say this because in my afternoon community we've had, a lot of those large larger blocks are pro are more than likely in current use. Absolutely. And one of the concerns I've had for a long time is the breakup of those blocks. A lot of people bought with it. If you've got 100 acres, then they do three thirty, three acre lots, and you end up with three houses in smaller blocks. That breakup in current, I think, is not good for the landscape in that. And we have not

[Jens Hilke, Conservation Planner, Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department]: figured out how to adjust for the breakup of those large blocks. Your point is well taken. The sprawl is perhaps our greatest threat in Vermont, and one that really endangers this this whole pattern and the success of our wildlife populations into the future.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: And in the current use program, our the per acre benefit you get is greater in a 30 acre piece than it is for someone with two windows. Yeah.

[Jens Hilke, Conservation Planner, Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department]: So then there are the wildlife crossings, and then there's the entirety of the the stream network.

[Unidentified AOT Director (Emergency Management, Safety, Hazmat & Homeless Encampments)]: Mhmm. And so all

[Peter Collier, Commissioner of the Vermont Department of Motor Vehicles]: of these

[Jens Hilke, Conservation Planner, Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department]: are microvectors that help link this this larger pattern together. So wildlife road crossings are the pinch point between the True. Connection of wildlife movement and the the human transportation networks, but those those overlapping networks, they really come to a head right at those wildlife road crossings. But my point is that the the larger system we're depending on is much more than just the gray infrastructure at the at the wildlife human interface. This is great. Are these maps? Yes. And that's my next slide. We can see them in the Vermont Conservation Design on the BioFinder website. Okay, great. Thank you. So the Conservation Design is a science based vision to sustain the state's value of natural areas, forests, waters, wildlife, and plants for future generations. Design has been around for quite some time now. You can interact with it on the Biofinder website, and it's really the it answers it's the prioritization, the statewide prioritization of what the most important places are for maintaining our wildlife into the future. The design is broken up into several different scales, so you can look at this landscape pattern. Again, I'm just starting with that larger pattern that we're looking for across the landscape. So the conservation design does include landscape scale elements like those forest blocks to get the sense of where that biological diversity is and where those most resilient places are on the landscape. The design also includes those wildlife road crossings, and so those are mapped based on the amount of forest on both sides. So typically wildlife road crossings are evergreen and wetland habitat with forests on both sides. So they have not been field verified. This is a model based on where there's suitable habitat on both sides of the road. But those models have gotten significantly better since I started in the department in 2006. And so the science has really improved dramatically in that time. So just to give you a sense of the scale of moving this as a bobcat, male bobcats move on average about 19 miles per day. It's been a few years since I've hiked 19 miles per day several days in a row. They have a home range of 27 square miles and females have about a nine square mile home range. So some animals are moving around a lot just to meet their daily and seasonal needs. They're using different food sources at different times of the year, so that might take them to the wetland in the spring, the ridgelines in the fall, they're moving around a lot. And so that inherently means crossing roads. We also see very big movements. This is a bear down outside of Bennington, who during a bad mass year, the peach nuts weren't great, up and went over to Brattleboro and back. That was a 140 kilometer journey in a month. So we see these big movements. We see Canada lynx moving through, dispersing from populations in Maine. So there are everyday movements, there are seasonal movements, and then there are these very big dispersals. Typically, those are young males looking for love, sometimes in the wrong places.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: More than that more than

[Jens Hilke, Conservation Planner, Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department]: that species are on the move in response to climate change. This is a model of some 3,000 species mammals, birds, and amphibians, and there they are moving in response to climate change. This is from our partners in The Nature Conservancy. They estimate that entire populations are moving north and south away from the Equator on average 11 miles per decade. That's about a mile per year. Entire populations moving a mile per year away from the Equator, north and south. It's off it's also about 36 feet upslope. So animals are rearranging their home ranges in the face of climate change, And please notice how the Northeast, what a pinch point that is for this sort of movement. So the connected forests and waters that we enjoy in Vermont are critically important for the movement of species on a continental scale. And the fact that we still enjoy forest in Vermont makes our connectivity even more important for the entire region. That was

[Andrew Wright, Environmental Policy Manager, Vermont Agency of Transportation (VTrans)]: great.

[Sen. Rebecca “Becca” White (Vice Chair)]: Well, I just want to say I was shocked when they found a limchen

[Peter Collier, Commissioner of the Vermont Department of Motor Vehicles]: in

[Sen. Rebecca “Becca” White (Vice Chair)]: Massachusetts, which if you've ever seen one of those, they're like a Florida bird. So that might be happening incrementally, but I also think we're seeing species make unexpected extreme leaves at much faster speed. So I do also want to recognize that.

[Peter Collier, Commissioner of the Vermont Department of Motor Vehicles]: Yes, thank you.

[Andrew Wright, Environmental Policy Manager, Vermont Agency of Transportation (VTrans)]: So this is a typical culvert replacement for us, going from a culvert to a bridge. Traditionally, it's been hydrology and hydraulics that drive the structure sizing, of course. Well, even before tropical storm I mean, but more in a more intense way after tropical storm I mean, the agency really worked closely with river scientists at ANR and biologists, and really have adopted a new hydraulic design standard that considers bankfull width and also is looking at sediment and debris transport so that it is more resilient in our floods. But at that same design standard, we can achieve both aquatic organism passage and terrestrial wildlife movement as well. That upsizing has an overlapping benefit, certainly for resilience. And you can see in that picture of the existing culvert, the small culvert, it's not nearly bankfull width, so you have the water on either side of the culvert. So you can imagine in a storm event how the water is trying to get through there, not really being successful at that and going around, Whereas in the bottom picture, plenty of room to move and meander and storm events also giving us the opportunity to provide some habitat movement underneath the structure.

[Jens Hilke, Conservation Planner, Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department]: Yeah. When we go new, we overwhelmingly need multiple values at the same time. Go ahead.

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Clerk)]: Do you have numbers on how many bridges that we've replaced with from cobras? Because I wonder how much that plays into their increase in cost. Not that I'm saying it's not worth it, but

[Andrew Wright, Environmental Policy Manager, Vermont Agency of Transportation (VTrans)]: Yeah. They're certainly more expensive. I don't know. They're more

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Clerk)]: expensive to repair and replace. Yeah.

[Andrew Wright, Environmental Policy Manager, Vermont Agency of Transportation (VTrans)]: I that we could probably dig that data out, but I I don't know. Yeah. Yeah. Certainly, we need to look at the the cost benefit over time with our storm events and what that provides. There's definitely sort of an optimization in that. Right.

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Clerk)]: So having trouble replacing the bridges.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: Mhmm. Well, for stormwater runoff, particularly in the Xiangping Valley, we we must have met most of that area. For stormwater runoff? Yes.

[Andrew Wright, Environmental Policy Manager, Vermont Agency of Transportation (VTrans)]: Probably not my area, that's more, you know, ours, not even your department. Yeah, pretty much.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: Question about that. Yeah. You know, we have standards that we've agreed to and where we're gonna get to with the stormwater runoff piece. And particularly, there's a lot of, culverts, for example, that, aren't up to snuff and are, are really important to change for storm water runoff. And I, you know, and we've set standards and we have goals, I'm just wondering how much we have stuff mapped in that.

[Andrew Wright, Environmental Policy Manager, Vermont Agency of Transportation (VTrans)]: Yeah, I'm not sure about the mapping. Certainly, this is sort of speaking to sort of the whole landscape of development and permitting, and there's the the stormwater rules that require, you know, retaining a certain storm event on on the property that it's coming from, the impervent surface that it's coming from. And so that being retained there is definitely a benefit to our downstream structures. So that's been a big improvement over the last, I don't know, five or ten years. This is This is a really great example of some early coordination. This is a project on Route 12 between Worcester and Elmore, the side of the Worcester Range. We had five undersized structures that were being replaced, four of which were identified as being in really important high rated habitat blocks. Certainly using a lot of what Jens just went over in the science, we have a good understanding of where those important areas are, and so that was during our resource ID process during scoping, so really early in the design process, identified as a need in this area. So any accommodations and benefits were really incorporated really on the project design process, and that's a really important thing. So we had a variety of both culverts and bridges that were upsized with this project. Before, they were really impassable for wildlife, and now they'll accommodate a variety of most, if not all, types of wildlife, from macroinvertebrates, fish passage is better, amphibian passage is better, terrestrial passage much improved. So and then going back to sort of the co benefits of resilience and activity, one of the structures on this stretch is actually included in our resilience improvement plan also. It was at 36% bankfull width and was then designed for 183% bankfull width. Creating much more resilience along that stretch, which we did have some repeat damages in that area over the years, and definitely improving the connectivity in this area.

[Jens Hilke, Conservation Planner, Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department]: This is one of those five structures, Bridge 84, and I just wanted to point out right the wildlife shelf underneath the bridge. With early coordination, it's very easy to accommodate those sorts of shells and put it right into the plants at really minimal, minimal cost. It's just a question of allowing for enough ground before it and when we say wildlife shell, please don't think road. I'm talking about goat path, where where we really don't want something as wide as a road that's going to increase human use or people hanging out under there, but really look for a goat path. The rocks that protect the abutments under bridges are particularly bad for deer and moose movement. So really we just need a goat path to get in and amongst those rocks. Other species will tolerate those rocks just fine. Bobcat would much rather be up on that rock. Bear will tolerate that. So it's really the moose and the bear, exceeding the moose and the deer that that would need that shelf.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: I'm glad that Richard used to leave.

[Jens Hilke, Conservation Planner, Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department]: And the rest will be finished this week.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: Yeah. It's my way home. Yeah. So and and at least some practical nature home. Yeah. This

[Jens Hilke, Conservation Planner, Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department]: is an example from Route 9 in Searsburg that was constructed in 2004. This is another occasion where the the Fish and Wildlife Department worked very closely with the agency of transportation to appropriately size this bridge to allow for bear movement. And then we were wonderfully surprised when a dispersing Canada links used that same structure a few years a few years ago. So here again, we're meeting multiple values at the same place, certainly this passes floodwaters. We really pushed for this with bare dispersal in mind, and yet these structures are working for a whole host of animal species. I mentioned the rock and movement for deer and moose. The Little River Shelf, so that's under I-eighty 9 and Route 2 at Little River in Waterbury, was our first effort at building a wildlife shelf in 2014. It added about $20,000 to more than 8,000,000. 8,000,000 was the contract price. The project regrettably went well over that. So it was not a significant amount of money and it was an insignificant addition to a very significant project, and it was our first proof of concept. And so we did add the shelf under I-eighty 9. It has been wonderfully successful in terms of the number of species that have moved under 89 at this location. I'll talk more about this location in a moment, but I just wanted you to see in the bottom right, even when the erosion control matting was still on, Deere began to to use this structure and use the shelf underneath it.

[Andrew Wright, Environmental Policy Manager, Vermont Agency of Transportation (VTrans)]: Yeah. And Jens says $20,000 for that that nearby $8,000,000 project or more. Really, those projects always have waste materials that they need to find a place to put. So it was really a nice benefit to be able to fill in that stone stone at a bridge end right

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: nearby. That's great.

[Andrew Wright, Environmental Policy Manager, Vermont Agency of Transportation (VTrans)]: Yep. So, yeah, we proved that it worked there sort of like a pilot project there. So now we are incorporating it into projects as a standard drawing where habitat importance is identified and where the structure has the headroom. Traditionally, the stone fill under the bridge is isn't covered. We usually grub, what we call grubbing materials, filling in that space in the stone fill outside of the bridge. But now, we have seen that we can the concern was that if we fill that in vegetation would grow up and sort of interfere with the substructure, but we're seeing that doesn't happen. There's the shading from the bridge and it really doesn't allow for larger vegetation to take hold. So it's really an easy thing for us to do and fill right underneath the bridge so that there is that passageway. And as Jens said, it's really small, a really narrow area that we're trying to provide, so we don't attract human activity in that area, and so the wildlife is using it more regularly. So

[Jens Hilke, Conservation Planner, Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department]: I was just speaking about Little River, and so I just wanted to focus on the larger effort of of reconnecting the Green Mountains. The spine of the Green Mountains have relatively few roads across them, and so it makes for, compared to the rest of Vermont, well connected forest north to south. And so you can think about that as the spine of connectivity across the whole state with, I think it's just 13 road crossings in total along the entirety from north to south. But in particular, the Winooski River Valley does present something of a barrier. And so here we have I-eighty 9 with 13,500 vehicles in each direction every day, Route 2 with 5,000 average annual daily traffic, the railroad, the River River Road as well. So there's a really significant barrier in the middle of this this highway of of movement. And so we're really focused on reconnecting the greens and extending. There's there's considerable amount of permanently conserved land, state owned land in Mount Anfield State Forest and Camelot's Home State Park, and yet that permanently protected land doesn't come all the way down to the road. And so we are very interested in land use planning and land protection that makes for a permanent connection so that when VTrans can invest in infrastructure improvements at those locations, that lines up with a land use pattern that will allow for wildlife movement. So, partners in the land protection world, the Nature Conservancy, Vermont Land Trust, the Trust for Public Land, the Snow Land Trust, the Water and Great Lands Initiative have been working for, about a year now, really focused on on this area and and reconnecting the Green Mountains. It's very much a a team effort. So this is the map of permanently protected land in green, and you can see that the the fingers of that permanently protected land get close to, but don't connect. And then I highlighted three structures along this road segment that are particularly important for wildlife. As I mentioned, Little River Shelf is already very effective. The other two, when they reach the end of their service life, we're really hoping they'll be appropriately appropriately sized. So so there's really opportunity to meet this to have a a multipronged approach in this location. The town of Bolton has reworked its zoning to extend its forest and conservation district down to the river, to allow for North South connectivity that meets up with permanently protected land on the other side of in Duxbury. So what we're seeing here is a land use land use opportunity where zoning is meeting up with gray infrastructure to allow for wildlife connectivity. At present, Pinio Brook isn't passing a lot of animals. It has a turn in it that means animals can't see all the way through it. So when it reaches the end of its service life, I'm confident that we I know we have an opportunity to appropriately size it, and I would suggest we also have a responsibility.

[Andrew Wright, Environmental Policy Manager, Vermont Agency of Transportation (VTrans)]: Yeah, I know we're running close on time, so I'm gonna fly through this. This is just another area when we talk about reconnecting The Greens. This is an area down south, what Jens was talking about was more north. This is connecting The Greens to Western Mass in Connecticut, Southeastern New York, into the Hudson Highlands, and this is a project that we had, know, we hadn't showed that bear tracking movement in this area. We knew that Route 9 was a potential barrier in it moving through that area. And so knowing that we had that habitat and the connected lands and we have this priority linkage mapping, we decided to, instead of lining a seven foot culvert, to install a bridge instead. You can see in the detail there's little shelves on either side. Like we said, those shelves are really small. So it's not this kinda just points to the the different scales. We talked about the small scale putting grubbings underneath the bridges. This is a larger scale. It's not something that we're doing everywhere, but we're using the science that ANR has, and really in those critical areas, seizing the opportunity that we might have missed, because if we just lined this, it would probably last another fifty years. And so we wanted to make sure that while we had the opportunity to replace the structure that we went with something that could provide that movement in this critical area.

[Jens Hilke, Conservation Planner, Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department]: Some species, because they are longer lived, lead to sexual maturity, and quite frankly slow, are harder hit by vehicles than others. So with amphibians and reptile populations in particular, we run the risk of eliminating entire populations pretty quickly because they don't make a dent in the car. And so with amphibians, they take on average about six minutes to cross the road. Think about how quickly a deer can cross the road, and still we have a million and, nationally, we have a million deer collisions every year. So six minutes crossing the road, you can wipe out many, many, animals in in short order. And, we're talking about the first rainy night, in the spring. So in 10 inherently bad conditions. So even if the mortality of the amphibians isn't a huge concern to you, there it is a concern to some drivers who will brake, who will swerve, who will create other traffic problems. So the amphibian amphibian crossings are a situation where we don't just get that by building appropriately sizing our existing infrastructure. Often, these sorts of species require specialized structures.

[Andrew Wright, Environmental Policy Manager, Vermont Agency of Transportation (VTrans)]: Go ahead.

[Sen. Rebecca “Becca” White (Vice Chair)]: I I just want to make one point on your last slide, which is in our area we have a team, the salamander team, and they plan around what that first move is in our area and they will go out and they move salamanders from one side of the road to the other and they flag traffic in multiple locations. And I wish there was some kind of support or financial way we can help them or or offer like AOT support for flagging or something because they are volunteers who go out and really make sure that our area doesn't see like mass casualties of salamanders, and they do it all with their own time, and it's quite a community event. So if there's any support you can offer them from your work.

[Jens Hilke, Conservation Planner, Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department]: Well, I would say I'm thrilled they're doing that, and I'm certainly aware of that and have participated in that. I'm concerned for their safety.

[Andrew Wright, Environmental Policy Manager, Vermont Agency of Transportation (VTrans)]: Yeah.

[Jens Hilke, Conservation Planner, Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department]: Exactly. And we shouldn't have people on the road and rainy nights in the spring. Yeah. And so ideally, have an infrastructure that moves those animals rather than having people on those roads.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: Well said.

[Jens Hilke, Conservation Planner, Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department]: So but please don't get me wrong, I absolutely support that effort, but I just want to point out this inherent safety concern with that. We,

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Clerk)]: in Moncton, we have one. Are you showing that?

[Peter Collier, Commissioner of the Vermont Department of Motor Vehicles]: Yes. Oh, Oh. Yeah. You have two. You've already beaten two of

[Andrew Wright, Environmental Policy Manager, Vermont Agency of Transportation (VTrans)]: them. Please. Oh, look at that.

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Clerk)]: There it is.

[Jens Hilke, Conservation Planner, Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department]: This is tremendously successful. It is now known internationally. We've taken field trips here for the International Conference on Ecology and Transportation, national field trips here as well. These are functioning very, very well for salamanders. We're estimating 93% effective moving moving amphibians, non climbing amphibians, through these structures. Please note the the presence of those stone walls, that's waste concrete block that funnels the animals into the crossing. Not only are they successful for salamanders, they're also successful for other species. And please note that that bear is scratching the the top of the culvert with his shoulders and still would rather go through the culvert than than over the top of the road. Alright.

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Clerk)]: That's great.

[Jens Hilke, Conservation Planner, Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department]: Agency and fish and wildlife department have been working on the highways habitats training for many, many years now. It is incredibly successful. It has been one of the most successful ventures in helping agency staff to better understand the issues, to handle those species, and to really understand their needs and how they interact with the road system. We do collect roadkill information from the public. We have a roads and wildlife data collection system. We encourage drivers not to do this while driving. It is set up so that you can pull off to a safe location and then flag the location. We have been collecting this information since 2001. It's ready for prime time. They're still collecting that information, but it's absolutely helpful helpful to begin to figure out where there are likely vehicle collisions.

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Clerk)]: So you could receive Robe till

[Jens Hilke, Conservation Planner, Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department]: you go online and just submit it. There's actually an app that you can download on your phone that that talks you through that whole step by step. And then the last point here, I know we're a minute a few minutes over, but thank you for your patience. The Agency of Transportation and Fish and Wildlife Department have really focused on prioritizing structures so that those costs aren't everywhere all the time, but really focused on what we consider to be the most ecologically important. We have identified 12,000 structures of all conditions 1,200. Thank you. Thank you. 1,200 structures of all conditions that we feel are ecologically important. And so you can see the the map at right. And then we there are 67 of those that are in poor condition. And so those are the really the immediate opportunities for appropriately sizing infrastructure moving forward.

[Andrew Wright, Environmental Policy Manager, Vermont Agency of Transportation (VTrans)]: I don't have anything to add to that. Yeah. Just really building on all of the work that's been done for the last couple of decades together. We have built another modeling tool that helps us predict where different species want to move and their movement patterns, and just have been able to overlay all of those different efforts and technologies into this so that we can be making good decisions where it needs to be made. So we're not just sort of trying to fit it in everywhere. Yeah. Being really pointed with our decisions and working with our asset conditions at the same time.

[Jens Hilke, Conservation Planner, Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department]: Great. And with that, this is from the Richmond Elementary School. Just wanted to reinforce how important this is for the for many of the public. So thank you all so very much for your time this morning.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: Thank you. Thank you. We really appreciate it. It's very interesting. Thank you. Great. I'll bring in a

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Clerk)]: framed picture for the poster, that mass in a way where there were chairs. So I think Phil Scott was the vice chair of that. Were you on

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: that Wednesday at the In

[Sen. Rebecca “Becca” White (Vice Chair)]: the house.

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Clerk)]: In the Okay. At first. We we filled it, and but it's a it's a kind of a

[Bob Allney, President, Lamoille Towing Association]: because I thought it was. And

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Clerk)]: turns out it was real.

[Sen. Rebecca “Becca” White (Vice Chair)]: This is the Moncton Crossing there?

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Clerk)]: Yeah. The Moncton. So we we it's a it's a spoof on that. The picture of bringing it, you know,

[Peter Collier, Commissioner of the Vermont Department of Motor Vehicles]: But we need some They had a frame

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Clerk)]: that said to me, and it looks official and stuff.

[Unidentified AOT Director (Emergency Management, Safety, Hazmat & Homeless Encampments)]: And I'm

[Jens Hilke, Conservation Planner, Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department]: happy to share with you some non spoof. Yeah.

[Andrew Wright, Environmental Policy Manager, Vermont Agency of Transportation (VTrans)]: Yeah. I like a big

[Unidentified AOT Director (Emergency Management, Safety, Hazmat & Homeless Encampments)]: I have to say as the former commissioner, it's such a joy to see Jens and Wendy are presenting. We have a treasure in both of those folks. Yeah. Yeah. So, morning for the record. I'm Mr. Perchlik. I am the Director of Emergency Management Safety, Hazmat, and Homeless Encantments for the Agency of Transportation. Sure. And so I believe I'm here because the commissioner mentioned my name. Probably

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: got you in trouble.

[Unidentified AOT Director (Emergency Management, Safety, Hazmat & Homeless Encampments)]: Well, I've been watching the testimony. I'm like, he says it two more times.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: Three times the churn. Exactly.

[Unidentified AOT Director (Emergency Management, Safety, Hazmat & Homeless Encampments)]: So I think what I'll do is I think just to give context about what I've watched all the testimony and I actually thought that these folks were wrong. So in Vermont, since I've taken this over, have about a year's worth of data. I'm currently dealing with around 35 homeless encampments in the state right away. So that's my purview. Don't deal with them outside. So that includes along the highways, the park and rides are where we see most of our business airports, believe it or not, and along the railroad right of way. In fact, we have one over here in Montpelier. So what normally happens, and it's part of our protocol, is we do an assessment. We'll go out and just how many are here, how many folks are here, and when I said how many, how many structures, are they tents, are they vehicles, campers, so on and so forth. How many people are their children? And then the assessment that we built has a threat or a safety scale. Is there an immediate danger to life in safety? Are they under state bridge so infrastructure now becomes compromised if you're building fires? And so that's how we prioritize working with folks. So then when we make contact, we bring in folks either from AHS or somebody who has contract with AHS, whether it's the Howard Center, Washington County Mental Health, because there are a lot of things going, a lot of dynamics with these homeless encampments, whether it's mental health issues or trying to help them get housing. So one particular case was in Williston. I'm just going use this as an example of how complicated these get. I swung by the Williston Park And Ride and there was a car there, and there were two people in it, and I noticed it had been there a couple of days, so I knocked on the window, and it was weather like we're going to have tomorrow. And so I said, are you all right? I'm like, yeah. I said, are you living in this car? Yes. And I said, how are you staying? Well, they had a dog in the car too. I said, you have food? Do you have a dog? We have everything to eat. I said, well, okay, this isn't the best situation, but can't really just throw their car away from them. That's where they live. He had

[Bob Allney, President, Lamoille Towing Association]: a full time job, by the way.

[Unidentified AOT Director (Emergency Management, Safety, Hazmat & Homeless Encampments)]: Couldn't put money away enough to get an apartment. And there's a lot of other things going on. So I brought in Howard Mental Health and we started working with Getting them into housing was problematic, but we worked together and we finally, in September, I met with them in January. It took me till September to work out all the kinks with Willis and PD and get them into housing. That was suitable for a lot of reasons. Then we worked with Howard. Howard was getting them a car. So anyway, now we're left with this car. And I can tell you it's not a car that has any value. But I was able to find a record to take it, and he said, I'll try to recover something from the salvage. He's not going to get a penny. He's going to rely on the reimbursement, which is currently $125 But he was willing to do that. That is somewhat atypical, but not completely unheard of around the state. What I'm finding more commonly, and I was up in your area yesterday, parking a ride in Colchester, there are six camp trailers in that parking garage and everyone got served with trespass orders yesterday. Actually one of them just called me while I was leaving. And they'll be moving. Every

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Clerk)]: once

[Unidentified AOT Director (Emergency Management, Safety, Hazmat & Homeless Encampments)]: in a while we find one where they just leave. That's a problem too. And in those cases, the agency tells them and we pay, we just pay for it. We don't go through the DMV reimbursement process because it's on the state right away, we need it out of there, it becomes a, forget the legal term, but it's an attractive nuisance. And we actually had one that sat on a property, was uninhabited, the snow came in, we couldn't get it out and somebody else started living in But we tell them and we eat all the costs. And the cleanup costs for the last year cost the agency, and this is a lowball estimate, dollars 179,388. And that's just around for the whole state. That's not including my time, this time of my staff. So just to get you, And if we have to go in and clean up an encampment, I bring one, I have hazmat underneath me as well, I bring one of the hazmat personnel because oftentimes there are lithium batteries and other substances that can't be disposed of in a normal waste stream, and needles and so on and so forth. Then we bring a contractor in and they help us dispose of that. So part of that cost is the contractor, but my staff costs aren't in that. Staffing costs for just my bureau total $126,750 and that's an estimate. That was when we had a person working full time on homeless encampments, and 20% of my time and 20% of one of my staff. My time's now gone up because that other person has left, and then the $10,000 for housing. So that's kind of the world that we're living in, in trying to state right of way. I'm not able to speak to what happened on private property or on town property, and I would defer to the commissioner on that. We did have a discussion about raising the reimbursement rate scores proposed for abandoned vehicles from 125 to 50, what you floated. I don't know how that impacts their budget. But just to give you a perspective, because we did have a meeting to try to see if there was another approach we could use. What I understand is there were 1,400 vehicles last year considered abandoned. 400 of those were in the state right away. And the number of toes were in 24, a hundred and fifty seven, twenty five, two hundred fifty six, and I'm sorry, that's an incorrect. That's the number that filed for reimbursement. So it's 01/7256, and then this year so far, 01/1960. Could we get the copy exactly the records number? Yes, we'll get your copies. And so I just wanted to kind of frame the problem. I'm not saying it's not a problem, but it's also not like we have a thousand vehicles out there where people are getting, tow truck drivers are getting stiff. I hope that's not the case. So anyway, that's the view from my perspective in AOT in the non VMB world. I'm certainly happy to answer any questions or suggestions from slides on. Yeah,

[Bob Allney, President, Lamoille Towing Association]: when you get a call

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Clerk)]: or when you call a record, tow a camper or whatever it is, you just pay whatever they tell you, it's the cost of this.

[Unidentified AOT Director (Emergency Management, Safety, Hazmat & Homeless Encampments)]: You're No, they're going through the normal title process, which is $125 If it's a camper, that's a different process. But it's

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Clerk)]: I thought you said you don't go through the reimbursement process for simple cars that you're different.

[Unidentified AOT Director (Emergency Management, Safety, Hazmat & Homeless Encampments)]: So if it's a car that's left in the right of way from an encampment, What we'll do is folks from the commissioner's shop will put a sticker on it saying it's abandoned because I need law enforcement. I need law enforcement to do that. After seventy two hours, then I'll have it hooked. That tow truck driver will take it and then start that whole title search, and then they will get reimbursed. That's in those numbers. Campers, completely different. Just pay them directly on our budget.

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Clerk)]: So the cars, always go through the 125 process, but for anything that's not a car, a car, you just pay what they charge.

[Unidentified AOT Director (Emergency Management, Safety, Hazmat & Homeless Encampments)]: Yeah, because then eventually what's going to cost us is the disposal of it as well. So we're talking anywhere between $700 to, I think we had some down in Bennington, we had a few that we had to get rid of, and it was $5,000 by the time we were down there.

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Clerk)]: Yeah, we heard from the records it could

[Unidentified AOT Director (Emergency Management, Safety, Hazmat & Homeless Encampments)]: be even more than that. Yes. So if we take them, we pay. Yeah, okay. Or if we have taken, I should say.

[Sen. Rebecca “Becca” White (Vice Chair)]: Well, you so much. I hadn't realized that this had fallen in your new role.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: We all get surprised.

[Sen. Rebecca “Becca” White (Vice Chair)]: One of the challenges we've been having in Hartford in particular, and it's slightly separate from this conversation, but it's we are told we can't do anything because it's not our right of way. It's AOT's right of way.

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Clerk)]: We, the town.

[Sen. Rebecca “Becca” White (Vice Chair)]: We, the town, municipality. Exact thank you. And then AOT says they can't do anything because it's in the utilities right of way. You know, there's all these, like, layers of folks who tell us nothing can be done.

[Unidentified AOT Director (Emergency Management, Safety, Hazmat & Homeless Encampments)]: Well

[Sen. Rebecca “Becca” White (Vice Chair)]: And we've had situations where we've gone from one person who is residing somewhere in an unsafe situation because I just wanna, like, you know, clear the air. If you're unhoused, I think of you as a victim. I don't think of you as someone doing anything inherently wrong. But we want you to not be in that kind of dangerous situation. But what has happened is we've had such delay that then more people come because it becomes a place of safety. And then we're talking, you've got five vehicles, maybe a camper now, maybe a a we had an abandoned boat that people were living out of. And it was even though it was identified months before by the town, we were basically strung along, told we couldn't do anything about it. And it wasn't until we had, like, a a a serious we had to seriously approach AOT to be able to resolve it. I'm just wondering what's the process now

[Unidentified AOT Director (Emergency Management, Safety, Hazmat & Homeless Encampments)]: Okay.

[Sen. Rebecca “Becca” White (Vice Chair)]: If a municipality is experiencing this and it's not technically their parking ride or it's in a right of way that is with AOT.

[Unidentified AOT Director (Emergency Management, Safety, Hazmat & Homeless Encampments)]: So I'm sorry to hear that experience. That never made it to me, so I'm not sure

[Sen. Rebecca “Becca” White (Vice Chair)]: This is about two years ago.

[Peter Collier, Commissioner of the Vermont Department of Motor Vehicles]: Okay, good.

[Unidentified AOT Director (Emergency Management, Safety, Hazmat & Homeless Encampments)]: Glad to hear

[Sen. Rebecca “Becca” White (Vice Chair)]: You weren't on the job yet.

[Unidentified AOT Director (Emergency Management, Safety, Hazmat & Homeless Encampments)]: So this program probably, it kind of started in the summer before I started, and I started December '24. So here's what I'll tell you. My phone number is (802) 839-0660, and if any town has what they believe is a homeless encampment in the state right of way, I will come down or have one of my folks come down and assess it. I often use the DTA, the District Transportation Administrative, to go out and look. Yeah. We have maps, and so, but we, just because it's not in our right away doesn't mean we go.

[Andrew Wright, Environmental Policy Manager, Vermont Agency of Transportation (VTrans)]: Okay.

[Unidentified AOT Director (Emergency Management, Safety, Hazmat & Homeless Encampments)]: And I like you, I'm very concerned about these folks, especially this time of year. And I'm proud to say, and I've reported this to the Secretary and in Human Services when I was brought in there, the Agency of Transportation treats every one of these situations with dignity and respect. And I'm very proud of that and I demand that of my folks because we don't know how or why people are in this situation, but it's where they are. And so if it's in the state right of way, I want to know about it and we will deal with it. It might not happen in a week, but it takes time then getting the other agencies involved. If it's in a utility, we can work with them and encourage them. They probably don't want folks there either. The railroad is in the state right away.

[Sen. Rebecca “Becca” White (Vice Chair)]: Yeah, okay, that's helpful, because we've definitely had railroad situations, and that is who do you call?

[Unidentified AOT Director (Emergency Management, Safety, Hazmat & Homeless Encampments)]: So you can call me, and with railroads, it's a little bit complicated in that we also have to abide by the federal rail regulations. We can't just go out and put flaggers like we can on the interstate or Route 2 or Route 7. We have to get special flaggers because even though the railroad may not be active, it's still a railroad. And so we have to work with Vermont Rail Systems, and they've been very cooperative as well. And so there is a system in place. So, I would say I'm the entry point, but everybody at AOP happens to know this now. If anybody gave you the runaround, let me know, please.

[Sen. Rebecca “Becca” White (Vice Chair)]: Thank you. That's really helpful.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: Yeah. And then I have some questions for the commissioner, and I see we have some

[Unidentified AOT Director (Emergency Management, Safety, Hazmat & Homeless Encampments)]: of

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: the tellers here today, so I'd like to give them ten minutes to I can I can

[Bob Allney, President, Lamoille Towing Association]: hold on? That's K.

[Unidentified AOT Director (Emergency Management, Safety, Hazmat & Homeless Encampments)]: And you certainly can reach out to me. I think you all know how to get ahold of me.

[Andrew Wright, Environmental Policy Manager, Vermont Agency of Transportation (VTrans)]: Can you put

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: So you're not on the schedule, but we did ask you if you could come back with some language and Thank

[Unidentified AOT Director (Emergency Management, Safety, Hazmat & Homeless Encampments)]: you very much. Oh, my pleasure. It's good to see you. Excuse me. Peter Collier,

[Peter Collier, Commissioner of the Vermont Department of Motor Vehicles]: Commissioner of DMV, for the record. Yeah, sure. So as you mentioned, you had asked us to sit down with the tour association, see if we can come up with some better solutions that might not be perfect, and this isn't certainly perfect. I think

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: have highlighted and we understand what the scope of the problem is. We're just looking to move in the right direction and be accommodating to both sides. Absolutely.

[Peter Collier, Commissioner of the Vermont Department of Motor Vehicles]: So if we could just touch on the RV section first, because I think that's, at least from our perspective, easy. We think the process now, which is the agency or miss and we haven't heard too many municipalities, but there's just no way for us to adjudicate six, five, more or less thousand dollar tow bills. It's hard for us to determine that the appropriate amount payout. I think that's a big question. I think that is an area we need a lot more focus if that was to be thought of being pulled into the DMV realm. With our I'll start off with the language we have, which I think was an initial attempt to move in the right direction, which is when we have instances of difficulty with municipalities and state agencies getting a tow truck that they can pay if we would reimburse directly to those, so I would continue with that. When we sat down with the towing association, state police, with Chris Eric as well on Monday, the focus was more on fee, which, you know, we heard the 125 is not great. We The Tour Association came back and was adding that there could be improvement if it was at the $2.50 mark. I have numbers for February, 02/25, and February, and what that delta between what we budgeted this year would look like. I would say the state police on the call also mentioned that they are working with the towing association to remove after hours towing of abandoned vehicles or try to work away or find a way where when there's not a situation of of immediate safety danger for that vehicle being there, that those tows happen between the hours of eight and five or or banker hours, if you will, to help alleviate the cost for tones the towing groups to be out at 3AM or 2AM paying that extra fee. So I know the state police is working on that on their end. We're happy to move move this number up. I think it'd be beneficial. I would just say in f y twenty five, we had 256 payments out for the towing. I went through the staff and tried to look through why is that the case. A lot of these are not reimbursable tows. A lot of these are not being marked as wanting to be reimbursed. We have a lot of check boxes that are no for the reimbursement from towing companies. So it's hard to pinpoint exactly the causation of why that might be, but we're happy to move it up and see if that will help alleviate some pressures that are on

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: the ground. So in the language in here, what you're recommending is the same language and what are you recommending for a number?

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Clerk)]: So I would be okay with the

[Peter Collier, Commissioner of the Vermont Department of Motor Vehicles]: $2.50. That'd be if we stuck with what we had on target last year of 256, that'd be a delta of 24,000 what we have budgeted now. If 300 cars get towed by end of fiscal year, we'd have a delta of 35,000. And then 400 vehicles in total, there'd be delta of 60,000 between what we have budgeted in our recommended budget. So what you're recommending in here is the exact same language as we have Yep.

[Jens Hilke, Conservation Planner, Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department]: But moving the numbers to two fifty. Yes. Okay. Go ahead.

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Clerk)]: Would you but you wouldn't change your budget? So you would just kind of expect rather deficit in there? Yeah. Okay.

[Peter Collier, Commissioner of the Vermont Department of Motor Vehicles]: I think yes. Because I I I'm curious to see what would happen. Because f y '24, we had one fifty seven. Last year, we had two fifty six. And, again, when I went through and and went through a lot of the applications that were coming through on I'm trying to figure out why. A lot of the checkboxes are barfed. No. So I What do you mean

[Bob Allney, President, Lamoille Towing Association]: out of every

[Peter Collier, Commissioner of the Vermont Department of Motor Vehicles]: So when when the when the when the form when the form comes in and it hasn't been for the vehicle, the police report number is this is only for public right of way, not for private abandoned vehicles. If if all those match, when you're working on the form, there's a checkbox that said, would you like to be reimbursed or for 1.5? I'm

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Clerk)]: not sure

[Jens Hilke, Conservation Planner, Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department]: of the exact

[Peter Collier, Commissioner of the Vermont Department of Motor Vehicles]: language, but it says, reimburse at 1.5 for the towing fees, and it's a yesno box.

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Clerk)]: And this is something that the tow company

[Peter Collier, Commissioner of the Vermont Department of Motor Vehicles]: Yep, these are what the tow companies fill out and submit to us. And all the boxes are checked no. The numbers that you have

[Unidentified AOT Director (Emergency Management, Safety, Hazmat & Homeless Encampments)]: So the ones we actually paid out. Less?

[Peter Collier, Commissioner of the Vermont Department of Motor Vehicles]: Yeah, or less than what we have budgeted for the 400 on the this year, we had to

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Clerk)]: put your 400 at the 1.5, so It could be that they got the money from the person that owns the vehicle.

[Peter Collier, Commissioner of the Vermont Department of Motor Vehicles]: Right? I I'm not sure. I I

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Clerk)]: would but that would be one reason why they wouldn't ask for reimbursement. Yeah. The person came and picked up the car, and they they paid us.

[Peter Collier, Commissioner of the Vermont Department of Motor Vehicles]: But this is Who? They wouldn't pick up the car because they're still going for the they're this is a abandonment only for me to get the title. To get the title.

[Sen. Rebecca “Becca” White (Vice Chair)]: Just to follow-up on that, so could it be that they don't agree with the amount that they would

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: We're going to ask them to come in.

[Unidentified AOT Director (Emergency Management, Safety, Hazmat & Homeless Encampments)]: So Do

[Andrew Wright, Environmental Policy Manager, Vermont Agency of Transportation (VTrans)]: you have a sample of that?

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: We're we we are short on time, but we are gonna I am gonna ask them to comment. Okay.

[Peter Collier, Commissioner of the Vermont Department of Motor Vehicles]: And when we send these numbers, I can send the sample for what the blank form Great.

[Jens Hilke, Conservation Planner, Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department]: Looks like. Thank you, Michelle.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: So are you going to hand us a new draft with the two fifty end? Or should we just request that Damian do that, and can you make sure that he knows that it's coming? Yeah.

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Clerk)]: Yeah, that'd be Yes. Okay, so if

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: you would send to Damien that, you've heard everything. Could you just state your name and give us a comment? What do you think?

[Bob Allney, President, Lamoille Towing Association]: Yeah, so Bob Allney, President of the Lamoille Association, is doing a sign over there.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: You can sit there and

[Bob Allney, President, Lamoille Towing Association]: We did meet with them. The numbers are for abandoned motor vehicles in regards to a public right of way. As the law is written, one of the classifications is a public right of way. So I think some of these boxes that aren't checked, a PNH truck stop calls a towerer because a vehicle was left in their parking lot, they call the towerer directly, they wouldn't be eligible for the reimbursement because there was a price on a property tow. If the police call and they have a police incident number, they would be eligible for the reimbursement. And so, and currently in 02/1951, the definition of abandoned motor vehicle reimbursement, one of them is any, we had this put in there three years ago. Says, A law enforcement officer has requested that the vehicle be removed by a tow business. So it doesn't have to be a vehicle that has been left on the side of the road to somebody who's living in it or something of that nature. It could be somebody who was in an accident, fled the scene, nobody knows who owns it. We towed the vehicle to police requests, and nobody's coming clean to it. Those were all incidents of abandonedness and how it was written. Those numbers are 1,400, 1,100 to 1,400 over the past several years. Towers have only been reimbursed for approximately 400, which is on state right of way. So that's not how it was ever intended, I think Jane Kitchell was here at the time, Senator Kitchell. Yeah. And there was a concern that the budget would go over at the $125 and she said, We will figure that out, but it's not fair that the toller, the $4.00 1 toller doesn't get paid because the budget rent, so to say. I'm not sure how this even got, why this is even in the section 13 about, like whose idea was it to put this in there or why it

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: was put in This came to us from DMV. That's why we're asking DMV what they're recommending.

[Bob Allney, President, Lamoille Towing Association]: So, yeah, so it's kinda odd, we're thinking, right? Like, why would we wanna change this section? If it does, then it's gonna declassify what is the abandoned motor vehicle for state police calls, which the majority of the tows are through state police. So that's where a lot of this is stemming from. We did talk with fire departments because as the language is written, we're gonna build a fire department or the agency that called us and they're gonna build a state. The fire departments are not interested in doing that at all. Not even a little bit. Again, I'm not sure what the thought process was.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: So are you opposed to this?

[Bob Allney, President, Lamoille Towing Association]: Yeah, yes. I think we are. Mean, it's essentially what you have here in 2,151 to 2157, except now you're gonna bill the requesting agency. And it's gonna actually change the definition of what we have in there now, so we'll only be able to collect on fees that are on state regulations in the state colonies. So if we're left with a vehicle from state police that was called for an accident, we're not getting reimbursed regarding this. Which we're not getting paid now, anyway, because for some reason.

[Sen. Rebecca “Becca” White (Vice Chair)]: I think he's trying to fix that problem, I thought was the point of the bill, was to actually resolve that exact issue, so that if you had something in a parking lot that's under ANR, I don't know.

[Bob Allney, President, Lamoille Towing Association]: So yeah, in the parking lot ANR, This is exactly what this is

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: directing towards. But your concern is would narrow it down to only that and everything else would be left behind. Correct. Understand that.

[Bob Allney, President, Lamoille Towing Association]: And state police have a hard enough time getting a record now because when we're stuck with $125 then we're not getting it most of the time.

[Andrew Wright, Environmental Policy Manager, Vermont Agency of Transportation (VTrans)]: You didn't come to an agreement then.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: That is what I'm hearing from you. And

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Clerk)]: the $2.50 doesn't fix the problem because you're changing the definition of foot door. Right.

[Bob Allney, President, Lamoille Towing Association]: With with Chris Herrick's, you know, the the RV situation, that's a whole different situation that he's he's handling internally at this department.

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Clerk)]: Do you feel like the language would you would you would be calling to people that aren't in the right of way, but you're still getting the call? Sure. And then those ones wouldn't be part

[Bob Allney, President, Lamoille Towing Association]: of the program? Correct. Would be stuck with a car who could still apply for a man and get the title and then scrap it.

[Jens Hilke, Conservation Planner, Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department]: But you wouldn't be, you know. Okay,

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: thank you. Doctor. Luke, you can comment, but we're gonna move on from this.

[Peter Collier, Commissioner of the Vermont Department of Motor Vehicles]: Yeah, absolutely. Real fast, apologize for the confusion because we hadn't met. This was news. I think the best way to move forward on this, and this was an agency proposal between to help Chris and his endeavors, is we just narrow it to state agency, and we'll keep the rest the same. And that way, when Chris is down working and have a difficulty finding record, he can pay, you know, give us the authority to reimburse. So we need some clear language that's that would alleviate their concerns and and would narrow in on his Yes.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: We'll get that. A second. And if you could run that language by the Towers so we know that we've got general agreement across the board, that would be helpful. We can do that. Thank you.

[Unidentified AOT Director (Emergency Management, Safety, Hazmat & Homeless Encampments)]: Next. Just

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: Don't have an automated payment. Would anybody mind? No. No. Thank you.

[Andrew Wright, Environmental Policy Manager, Vermont Agency of Transportation (VTrans)]: Thank you. We're gonna take a break from

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: your daughter after Great. And and

[Jens Hilke, Conservation Planner, Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department]: then