Subject: (Fwd) Update on VT stormwater legislation From: "Kim L. Greenwood" Date: Thu, 06 May 2004 12:41:45 -0400 To: Training.Distribution Not erosion related, but stormwater and Act 250 related. FYI. Subject: Update on VT stormwater legislation FYI - Proposed Vermont stormwater legislation has been approved by the Vermont House Fish, Wildlife and Water Resources Committee (see article below). Also, I'm including a second article discussing another piece of legislation that made some significant changes to the operation of the VT Water Resources Board. --Rebekah -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Run-off plan gets initial OK April 29, 2004 By John Zicconi Barre/Montpelier Times-Argus VERMONT PRESS BUREAU MONTPELIER - After nearly two years of political wrangling, a key House committee on Thursday unanimously approved a bill designed to end the state's storm water run-off crisis. The Douglas administration and business groups hailed the legislation and said the plan will allow stalled development projects in Chittenden County to restart and ensure that property owners with expired storm water permits seeking to sell can transfer clear title to buyers. Environmentalists also support many aspects of the plan, but said it could have gone further to force some of the state's largest polluters to help clean up the state's 17 impaired watersheds. The measure is expected to come to the House floor sometime next week for debate. The Senate must also review the proposal before it can be sent to Gov. James Douglas to be signed into law. "The committee did a fabulous job, far better than I ever would have hoped for," said Jeffrey Wennberg, Vermont's commissioner of environmental conservation. "It provides all the authority and tools we need to both begin issuing storm water permits and protect waterways so development can proceed." Patrick Berry, policy director for the Vermont Natural Resources Council, also praised the committee's work. But he stressed that the legislation is designed to be a temporary fix until the Agency of Natural Resources proposes new storm water rules three years from now. Because the measure is temporary, lawmakers exempted polluters with expired storm water permits from having to clean up their discharges until new, permanent rules go into affect sometime after 2007, Berry said. The committee should have been tougher on these property owners, but instead gave them amnesty for the next few years, he said. The bill only requires those seeking new storm water permits to ensure that no new pollution reaches watersheds, Berry said. Existing development that is already polluting will not have to stop, he said. "Some of the largest illegal discharges have been let off the hook," Berry said. "If we are really serious about cleaning up these polluted waters, let's start sooner rather than later." The Vermont Water Resources Board, which sets storm water policy, brought the issue to a head last summer when it ruled the state was not properly enforcing storm water rules. Vermont law states permits can only be issued once state officials can promise that polluted streams will meet federal water quality standards within five years. Lawmakers said the agreement reached Thursday does that. It also establishes a unique mitigation system that allows developers who cannot contain 100 percent of their storm water runoff to pay for pollution elsewhere in the watershed to be cleaned up instead. Although new development must pollute as little as possible, most storm water systems can only contain about 80 percent of pollutants from reaching nearby streams and waterways, lawmakers said. To achieve zero net gain, which is the legal standard, off-site mitigation is necessary, they said. The bill passed Tuesday by the House Fish, Wildlife and Water Resources Committee establishes a system that allows developers to pay an impact fee relative to the amount of pollution they cannot contain. The money will be placed in a revolving fund that will be used by local municipalities and the Vermont Agency of Transportation to clean up polluting storm water discharges emanating from public property. To jump start the effort, the committee appropriated $1.2 million in general funds. Wennberg said the state has already identified public property in all 17 of the state's impaired watersheds that are discharging pollution. None of those locations requires a permit. The revolving fund will be used to cleanup some of those locations immediately, and the state will keep a log of how much pollution has been eliminated, he said. The quick efforts are necessary because developers who cannot design storm water systems that capture 100 percent of the pollution that runs off of new parking lots, roofs and roads can begin construction only after a public project that matches their pollution load is complete. The fee the developer pays will then be used to cleanup an additional public site that in the future will be needed to mitigate a different project. Environmentalists, business advocates and lawmakers agree the new mitigation system will not only allow development that has been on hold for about a year, but will also help clean up the state's waterways. "It was the only way you were going to get some of the waterways clean," said Frank Cioffi, president of the Greater Burlington Industrial Corp. "The fund will enable storm water projects to get going as soon as possible." Berry agreed, but said the legislation also should require existing developments with expired permits to both improve immediately and pay into the mitigation fund instead of getting a free pass until the Agency of Natural Resources develops permanent storm water rules. "You should have to get a permit," Berry said. "For years some waters have been so polluted you can't swim or fish in them. We are allowing this to continue for another three to five years." ------------------------------------------------ House passes permit bill; it moves to governor By David Gram, Associated Press Writer Boston Globe, April 27, 2004 MONTPELIER, Vt. --The House on Tuesday put the final legislative stamp of approval on changes to Vermont's Act 250 land use review process, ending more than a year of wrangling over the bill. By a vote of 114 to 24, the House voted to accept the version of the legislation worked out by a House-Senate conference committee that had met off an on for more than 11 months. "I'm delighted," said Gov. James Douglas, who has made the legislation a top priority and is expected to sign it into law soon. "This is an important step for creating jobs in our state and moving our economy forward. It will make the process of permitting more predictable, more consistent, expeditious and less costly." The bill consolidates five different venues that now hear environmental appeals -- the principal ones being the Environmental Board and Water Resources Board -- into a single Environmental Court. A major provision, which was not among Douglas' priorities but was added to the bill, streamlines local zoning and development review regulations. Backers said a confusing hodgepodge of rules and laws that had grown up over time would become much more "user-friendly." Vociferous critics of the bill fought it to the very end, saying that it would not create jobs in Vermont, except for the lawyers who would now become more involved in trying development disputes in the Environmental Court. Rep. David Deen, D-Westminster, said he feared the bill might make Vermont's land-use regulations much more onerous for developers, leading to a gutting of Vermont's environmental laws. "This is going to work so badly ... there is going to be an outcry ... to do something, and Draconian measures will be suggested," Deen told his fellow Democrats who caucused on the bill in the early afternoon. Critics complained that the bill focused too much on changing what happens to environmental permits when they are appealed, versus reforming the permit process at lower levels of review. "This is not permit reform," said Rep. Margaret Hummell, D-Underhill. "This is appeals consolidation. We have not dealt with the root problem." Rep. Betty Nuovo, D-Middlebury, said the bill would violate the Vermont Constitution by having the Legislature too closely direct the judicial branch on how the newly expanded Environmental Court will be managed. But backers hailed the legislation, including Rep. William Johnson, R-Canaan, chairman of the House Natural Resources Committee and the bill's principal sponsor in the House. Johnson said the bill "represents the first major change in environmental process since Act 250 (became) effective just over 34 years ago." He said that "not a single environmental standard or any of the Act 250 criteria has been weakened in any way whatsoever." Key provisions include: -- All environmental appeals would go to an expanded Environmental Court beginning next Jan. 31. -- The existing boards would continue to handle appeals only as long as it takes them to finish pending cases. -- While the Environmental Court will handle appeals, a newly constituted Natural Resources Board, with two sub-panels devoted to land use and water resources would handle administrative and rule-making functions handled by the current boards. ------- End of forwarded message ------- If you wish to be removed from this distribution list, please e-mail me and I will do so. Kim-- Kim L. Greenwood, Water Quality Engineer DEC - Water Quality Division 103 S. Main St. - Building 10N Waterbury, VT 05671-0408 Phone: 802-241-3779 Fax: 802-241-3287 http://www.vtwaterquality.org What is an Erosion Prevention and Sediment Control Plan? http://www.vtwaterquality.org/Hydrology/Checklist.PDF