Issue Position: Clean Water

Issue Position

In 2015, the Vermont General Assembly passed the Vermont Clean Water Act (VCWA). As Chair of the Senate Natural Resources and Energy Committee, I was responsible for the Senate's work on this comprehensive blueprint for protecting and cleaning up all the waters of the state. In Vermont, water is held "in the public trust," meaning it is owned by all of us in common. Every citizen has the right to expect clean water, and likewise, every citizen has an obligation to do their part in protecting and cleaning up our waters.

As we developed the VCWA, the theme was "Everybody In." And as I walked that bill from Senate Natural Resources down to Senate Finance, I revised that theme--with the broad support of others--to "Everybody In. Everybody Pays."

This obligation to protect and clean up our waters resides in both state and federal law. Beyond the law, I believe that this work is our moral obligation: we have been "gifted" a beautiful natural environment upon which all living things depend, and in our lifetimes, we have a stewardship duty to protect it.

Let us acknowledge, as did the Secretary of the Agency of Natural Resources this past spring, that in Vermont "our water quality generally continues to decline." We can and must do better. And we can and must fund a program adequate to turn around our water quality problems.

If re-elected, I will again introduce a bill to raise the necessary dollars based on the "everybody in, everybody pays" philosophy. My proposal last year raised $14.4 million by asking the owners of each parcel of land to pay approximately 10 cents per day. This creates a strong, broad-base revenue for our water quality work. I hope others bring alternative proposals; I will carefully review each with an open mind. A categorical "no new fees" will not solve the very real and present task we are confronting.

Given adequate funding, how do we spend the money well?

Over the last three years, we have developed detailed plans for improving water quality based on science -- tailoring our work to reflect the sources of pollution, region by region. Here in Addison County, 53% of the phosphorus that helps create algae blooms and grow weeds like milfoil comes from agricultural land; therefore, our largest clean-up efforts will be farm-based. We also need to address the other major sources (in declining order: forest land, stream banks, developed land, and wastewater treatment plants). When we turn our focus to other pollutants, such as the bacteria E. coli, found in fecal matter, then the science tells us to shift our focus to storm water and waste water treatment plants.

Regardless of the pollutant, we must use science to measure the sources of pollutants and their impacts on water quality; then we must prioritize our clean-up work to make the most progress as quickly as possible by selecting the most cost-effective projects first. This is precisely what we are doing now.

We must commit to this essential work, which when rightly viewed, is a decades-long infrastructure investment that will pay dividends in tourism, health, and quality of life.

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