Concerned about wind turbines on ridgelines or chloramine in your water supply?
If so, chances are you’ve heard of Annette Smith, the no-nonsense director of the grassroots organization Vermonters for a Clean Environment. Smith has made a name for herself advocating on behalf of local communities fighting unwanted development, and now her supporters hope that Smith’s name recognition will come in handy in an upstart write-in campaign in the August 28 primaries. They’re urging Vermonters to vote for Annette Smith of Danby as the Progressive Party’s candidate for governor — not so much because they love Smith as because they hate the other guy.
“Too often we’re all in a position of holding our noses and voting for whoever we think might not be as bad as the other guy or girl,” says Stephanie Kaplan, a Calais environmental lawyer organizing the write-in campaign. She says it’s an attempt “to let people who are dissatisfied with Shumlin know that there’s something they can do in the primary election.”
Why the disdain for Gov. Peter Shumlin? Kaplan says she and her cohort are fed up with Shumlin’s “cozy” relationship with big corporations in Vermont, singling out his support for wind developments, the F-35 beddown, smart meters and the Green Mountain Power/CVPS merger as particular points of concern.
Party chair Martha Abbott of Underhill has the Progs’ formal endorsement, which she won at the quarterly state committee meeting last weekend. But Morgan Daybell, the executive director of the Progressive Party, isn’t complaining about the write-in campaign — far from it.
“It’s nice to have a contested primary because it gives people a reason to vote in our primary,” says Daybell.
Smith says that she’s not involved in the campaign in the least. In fact, when Seven Days called and explained that we were “hoping to talk to [her] about the write-in campaign,” Smith responded, “Well, I’m happy to talk about my work.”
The plan arose first as a way to voice dissatisfaction with Shumlin — and Smith, Kaplan says, seemed like a natural person to nominate in the process. “She really would make a great governor,” Kaplan says, though she admits the write-in campaign is more about jumpstarting a discussion than running in earnest.
“If she doesn’t win, fine, we’ve made a statement,” says Kaplan. “If she does win, great. Then … we can have some public discussion.”
Steve Wright last took to the sky in April to capture a series of dramatic bird's-eye photographs of construction at Kingdom Community Wind, the 21-turbine wind project that Green Mountain Power is constructing on a ridgeline above Lowell. He went airborne again on Wednesday this week — in the interest, Wright said in an interview with Seven Days, of documenting the ongoing construction on the mountaintop. "In some years we’ll look back at this and shake our heads," says Wright, a Craftsbury Common resident and outspoken opponent of ridgeline wind development.
"It's continually distressing that we would do this with a mountaintop, but we're moving on to a statewide campaign to make sure this doesn't happen anywhere else," adds Wright, a former commissioner of the Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department. His concerns aren't aesthetic but rather biological. "Humans have a capacity to be able to tolerate looking at just about anything," he says. "That mountain has been forever changed in its hydrology and its entire ecological function."
Wright's photos first appeared on the Mountain Talk blog, where wind opponents post frequent photos, videos and updates. It's been a busy week for activists in Lowell. On Monday, around 45 protesters scrambled to the mountaintop to stage a peaceful protest blocking the main construction thoroughfare at the site, an event that culminated in six arrests. A day after the largely festive gathering (complete with square dancing and chanting), around 30 activists returned for a somber "funeral" for Lowell Mountain.
Green Mountain Power previously said that Wright's aerial photos only present a snapshot of a moment in time and that much of the disturbed landscaped will be re-vegetated after construction wraps up.
UPDATE: This morning, GMP spokesman Robert Dostis added that concerns like Wright's were raised during the extensive permitting process for the wind farm, were "fully vetted," and eventually the Public Service Board deemed the project to be in the public good. Dostis says that construction at the site — where the crew is now finishing the fourth complete turbine — is on schedule for completion by the end of the year.
Dostis also says that while the total "project impact" is 135 acres, GMP has conserved more than 2700 acres to mitigate that environmental impact, and nearly all of the conserved land is protected in perpetuity.
Photos by Steve Wright
Corrected below regarding the Burlington police presence.
What one Occupy agitator had billed earlier in the day as "an awesome action" turned out to be an anti-climactic fizzle on Monday evening. About 30 demonstrators briefly jeered a convoy of New England governors and Canadian premiers exiting the U.S. Coast Guard station on the Burlington waterfront following a cruise on Lake Champlain.
The protest would have been a bit bigger, and perhaps more militant, if the dignitaries had not engaged their detractors in a semi-successful game of hide-and-seek. Even so, Monday's demo would probably not have replicated the commotion on College Street the previous day when Burlington police fired non-lethal projectiles. Their target: a few civil disobeyers among an outpouring of 500 law-abiding protesters. The confrontational cadre was trying to block buses carrying the govs and their Canadian counterparts to a dinner reception in Shelburne.
As a followup, a group of 50 or so dissenters had initially gathered at Perkins Pier under a hot sun late Monday afternoon. They waited about an hour, expecting the VIPs to set sail from the ferry dock, as had been indicated in publicity material for the conference taking place at the Hilton on Battery Street. The patient remnant then walked or cycled to a small park adjoining the Burlington Community Boathouse. The Spirit of Ethan Allen cruise ship had docked alongside, leading the protesters to assume that the govs and premiers would actually be setting sail from there.
After another hour-long wait, a few demonstrators suddenly started running toward the Coast Guard station. Some were yelling "Non au Plan Nord!" — a francophone rejection of the 25-year, $80 billion hydro-electricity project that opponents say will shred native peoples' homelands in northern Quebec.
A private, super-size yacht carrying Gov. Peter Shumlin and his guests had been spotted near the breakwater. It was accompanied by three small Vermont State Police craft and, soon, by a canoe from which was unfurled a sign reading "Defend Mother Earth."
Protesters waited outside a locked chain-link fence, chanting in sing-song cadence, "The governors are hiding, the governors are hiding from the people." Inside, a few state troopers with leashed german shepherds watched warily. Soon, the gate swung open and two SUVs with darkened windows drove out, accompanied by marked and unmarked State Police vehicles.
None of the demonstrators attempted to block the convoy, although there were no Burlington cops on hand to haul away — or shoot at — unruly rebels. The governors and prime ministers were gone in a matter of seconds. And then it was just another mild summer evening on the Burlington waterfront. Later, they regrouped for cocktails at the ECHO science center, with a few doughty protesters on hand to taunt the cosseted notables.
Correction:
According to Burlington Police Chief Mike Schirling, the BPD did have officers in the area. This post should have read, "It appeared there were no were no Burlington police in the area." Thanks to reader Ben Buckley for pointing this out.
Photo credit: Kevin J. Kelley
Police fired pepper balls and sting balls at protesters outside the New England Governors and Eastern Canadian Premiers Conference in Burlington yesterday.
Activists from New England and Quebec converged on the Queen City for a day of protests outside the conference, which took place at the Hilton Burlington. The protests centered on Canada's mining of tar sands oil and what environmentalists believe is a plan to ship tar sands oil through the Northeast Kingdom. Protesters also rallied in solidarity with Quebec's student demonstrations and representatives from the Innu First Nation denounced Hydro Quebec.
The rallies were peaceful and non-violent all day long, with protesters numbering in the hundreds. But late in the afternoon, a small group of protesters attempted to block buses believed to be carrying the governors and premiers from leaving the Hilton's side driveway on College Street. It was then that protesters and police clashed and some protesters were shot with "less-lethal" munitions.
From a Burlington Police Department press release:
[Protesters] were warned several more times before a crowd control team of officers with plastic shields and helmets was deployed to walk ahead of the bus following standard procedure to ensure that protestors were not struck and to assist the bus in leaving. As the officers walked forward they were physically confronted by the crowd. Some began pushing back toward the officers, others sat on the ground while at least two others laid down locking arms.
Click here to read the full account of the incident from the police department.
Below are some videos and photos shot by protesters and onlookers.
Other reports on the protests:
If you've got photos, videos or anecdotes from yesterday's protests, post them in the comments below.
Photo courtesy of Elliot DeBruyn/Burlington Free Press
Last night the board of commissioners for the Chittenden Solid Waste District (CSWD) approved a customer-assistance package to provide refunds and some remediation for gardeners affected by trace herbicides discovered in CSWD's Green Mountain Compost. The boarded approved expenditures up to $934,992 to reimburse customers who purchased compost between January 1 and July 13. CSWD voluntarily stopped selling the compost in late June, after first suspecting the presence of persistent herbicides.
The early suspicions of customers and CSWD staff about the contaminated compost were spot on: As Corin Hirsch reported earlier this month, further testing revealed the presence of two persistent herbicides — clopyralid and picloram — in Green Mountain Compost. CSWD marketing coordinator Clare Innes says that, so far, 470 gardeners have contacted the district to report possible damage from the contaminated soil, and that number is rising daily.
The newly approved customer-assistance package needs final legal approval before CSWD can start writing checks. Assuming they get the go-ahead, the assistance package will likely include:
CSWD is asking potentially affected customers to report abnormal plant growth online; the 470 who've already done so do not need to take any additional action.
Green Mountain Compost is still trying to unravel the mystery of how the two herbicides ended up in its compost. Clopyralid is little used in Vermont, and picloram is tightly regulated. Some manure from horse farms that went into the compost has since tested positive for herbicides — a fact that Innes says was as surprising to the farmers as it was to CSWD. One theory is that farmers had to look out of state for hay and straw after Tropical Storm Irene wiped out some crops last year. While sellers are required by a labeling law to inform customers that a crop has been sprayed, Innes says that information may not have been passed along the chain of custody.
"There are a lot of steps between the person who has decided to spray this particular product on their fields and the person who is feeding this to their horse," she says. "The system is not working."
Since Cary Giguere, the section chief of the Pesticide Program at the Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food and Markets, says the agency is still looking into other possible sources of contamination. Samples of feed, hay and bedding from all area horse farms that send their manure to compost facilities is now at the lab for further analysis. Clippings from homeowners' lawns also tested positive for both herbicides, but no culprit has been identified. The agency ruled out local golf courses, which have a permit for the chemicals, because none send their clippings to compost facilities, and are now looking into local lawn-care companies.
"There could be sort of a rogue lawn-care company out there that’s misusing a pesticide," says Giguere, adding that none has a permit to use picloram.
The Agency of Agriculture has also received a handful of complaints from concerned customers using MooDoo, although plants grown in that compost aren't exhibiting the same classic signs of herbicide exposure, so far. However, because several compost facilities share the same inputs — meaning a farm might send out manure to multiple facilities — Giguere says they're testing for herbicides and pesticides in soil from other compost facilities.
Innes says that reactions to Green Mountain Compost's new customer-assistance program run the gamut from gratitude to dissatisfaction.
The money for the refunds and remediation will be coming from a stockpile of funds earmarked for improvements to CSWD's materials-recovery facility, where the district sorts recyclable items. Innes says that the withdrawal "by no means cripples that program," but may delay some of the capital upgrades to the sorting and recycling system.
Meanwhile, five CSWD field techs are out talking to customers and evaluating gardens; as of yesterday, they'd visited 132, and hope to hit another 200 in the next week. About two-thirds are showing signs of contamination, which have so far included curling, wilting and cupping in plants.
Though the health department initially advised against eating produce grown in the contaminated compost, they've revised that advice after further testing to say produce likely won't cause any human harm. The two herbicides are only present in trace amounts in the soil — less, in fact, than the amount permitted to be sold on produce in the supermarket, according to Innes.
Photo courtesy of Tom Riddle
More than a dozen protesters from Quebec's Innu First Nation are due to arrive in Vermont this weekend to protest the Conference of New England Governors and Eastern Canadian Premiers, being held in Burlington. They are protesting against the construction of a new hydroelectric dam on the Romaine River by Hydro-Québec, which they say would destroy their entire way of life. Vermont purchases the vast majority of its power from the Canadian utility giant and Gov. Peter Shumlin currently chairs the New England Governors' Conference.
This new dam is but one aspect of a much larger development project in the region known as Plan Nord. According to the Québec government's official website, Plan Nord is "one of the biggest economic, social and environmental projects in our time." The 25-year, $80 billion project will create or consolidate an average of 20,000 jobs per year, the Québec government says.
The Innu people — not to be confused with Canada's Inuit people — come from the community of Mani-Utenam, near the city of Sept Iles. They are an indigenous population from northeastern Quebec and Labrador who claim they have never ceded their rights to the land to the Québec or Canadian governments.
In March of 2012, members of the Mani-Utenam community, which numbers roughly 4000 people, erected a blockade along Québec's Highway 138, the main artery along the north shore of the St. Lawrence River. The blockade was a protest against Plan Nord and dams being built along the Romaine River, about two to three hours northeast of their community. Highway 138 is the only way, except by boat, to access the inland areas along the north shore. It's also the only road into this part of Québec, and facilitates most of the industrial development that happens in this region.
Among the activists coming to Vermont is Elyse Vollant, an Innu grandmother who in June was arrested at the blockade, along with several others from the community. After the blockade was removed by dozens of riot police and Surete du Québec (Quebec state police), the Innu erected an encampment alongside 138.
Many Innu feel that the Charest government has ignored their concerns and traditional right to the land. While some tribal councils have signed on to the Romaine project, other Innu view these councils as colonial forms of government that were set up by the Québec government without much consent from Innu decades ago.
According to Vermont activists working with the Innu, Mani-Utenam has not signed any agreements around the Romaine project. However, Hydro-Québec has started clear cutting swaths of forest near their community for the transmission lines that will will carry power from the dams. For more on the Innu protests from earlier this year, check out this piece by Alexis Lathem in Toward Freedom.
Seven Days spoke with Vollant last weekend by phone in advance of her trip to Burlington. (French interpretation courtesy of Andrew Simon.)
SEVEN DAYS: Under Canadian law, do the Innu people have any legal rights or say over how this land will be used?
ELYSE VOLLANT: In general, First Nations have the right to a say over what happens in their territory. The communities affected held two referenda and said no to the dam being constructed. Hydro-Quebec, even after the referenda, has continued their construction work, putting in pylons for the dam... We have a right to determine what goes on in our territory and Hydro-Québec is not really listening to us when they continue the construction.
SD: Are the Innu people divided over the Plan Nord or are they speaking with one voice on the project?
EV: The Innu people are very divided. There are people who are very much against it and are trying to keep the territory intact for future generations. There are other people who are willing to consider it for a certain price. And then there are other people who are very much in favor of it because of the development it will bring. The tribal councils are very corrupt. Lots of them have said they're against Plan Nord but then went and signed with various companies to go ahead with the construction. When we asked where the money went [from those contracts], they've said, "Oh, we don't have any more money." So, we are very curious where the money has disappeared to.
SD: What kind of destruction has already taken place as a result of Hydro-Quebec's work?
EV: The pylons that they put in for the dam have already made animals disappear and run away. They have cleared the land. We did a march along the river and we noticed both how beautiful it is and how much has been destroyed. Why would they want to destroy this beautiful land?
SD: Obviously, Vermonters cannot vote or have much influence over the Canadian or provincial government. What do you hope Vermonters can do to help further your cause?
EV: Whether it's in Canada or the United States or Europe, we want people to preserve the environment for future generations. People need to wake up and see what's going on and take care of the land for their children and grandchildren — and ours.
SD: Talk about the significance of this area. Are there sacred areas that will be destroyed?
EV: The whole land is in danger. You cannot live as an Innu if the land is destroyed. That's why we're fighting this fight. Our way of life is connected to the land.
SD: How do the non-indigenous Québecois feel about this project?
EV: We walked from Mani-Utenam to Montréal and we encountered a lot of Québecois who are against the Plan Nord and want to preserve the environment, whether it's in our land or in the city.
SD: Is the Charest government's position different from the previous government's?
EV: Charest has gone to Europe and elsewhere and said that the Innu were for the Plan Nord. We are circulating a petition to show how many people in our Nation are against it. I feel that — whether it's our Nation, the students in Montreal or other parts of Quebec — Charest is not paying attention to what the people want.
SD: Do you feel your message will be well-received in Vermont, which receives quite a lot of its electricity from Hydro-Quebec?
EV: Even though some people [in Vermont] might be against what we're saying, I think people will support our desire to protect the land for future generations.
SD: Are you prepared to continue with civil disobedience and perhaps even get arrested to stop the construction from going ahead?
EV: Certainly there will be more civil disobedience because it's the only thing that makes [Hydro-Québec] see us. When we do blockades and speak up, that's when they come and talk to us.
A Community dinner and Alternative Voices presentation highlighting Innu resistance to Hydro-Québec and Plan Nord is scheduled for Sunday, July 29, from 6-9 pm at the Unitarian Universalist Church in Burlington.
Photos courtesy of Will Bennington at Red Clover Climate Justice.
Ira Powsner spent part of his 26th birthday in the back of a police cruiser today after a protest at the construction site of a 21-turbine wind installation in Lowell sparked an exercise in civil disobedience.
Powsner, 26, of Ira, Vt., (pictured in red hat) was among dozens of protestors at Green Mountain Power's Kingdom Community Wind project who stepped onto Route 100 this morning to physically block a tractor trailer carrying a section of a massive wind turbine onto the construction site. The protest held up traffic along the highway for two hours, backing up cars between two and five miles in either direction. Photos from the day's action are up on the Lowell Mountain Talk blog.
Protestor Steve Wright of Craftsbury Commons says demonstrators had planned a roadside rally — similar to one that took place last October — to draw attention to what Wright calls "the bad energy policy that ends up blowing up Vermont mountains."
By 9 a.m., more than 100 protestors had flocked to the roadside. And when the truck showed up, Powsner says, a murmur went through the crowd. Wright was among the first to step out into the road, carrying a Vermont state flag, and he was quickly followed by Powsner and his younger brother, 21-year-old Jacob Powsner.
"I was feeling frustration and anger, and that I was left with nothing else to do but a symbolic act," Wright says.
As an organizer with Energize Vermont, Ira Powsner had been leading the chants that echoed from the crowd, and felt compelled to join the movement into the road. When a law enforcement officer told Wright to move from the road, he moved — but the Powsner brothers stood their ground. Both brothers were arrested and issued citations for disorderly conduct, with a summons to appear in court in September.
All in all, between 20 and 25 law enforcement officials responded to the scene — including officers from the Lamoille and Orleans county sheriffs' offices, the Vermont State Police, the Department of Homeland Security, and other agencies. "All of whom came in separate vehicles, so they need their own climate change consultant to work with them," quips Wright.
Despite the arrests, protestors are calling today's action a success, and say the large turnout is proof that dissatisfaction with industrial-scale wind power is mounting in Vermont.
"I think this is what the decision makers, who continue to try to cram these things down local folks' throats — this is what they’re going to see," says Wright.
Dorothy Schnure, a spokesperson with project developer Green Mountain Power, called the protestors' decision to disrupt traffic "unfortunate," adding that the Lowell wind project has been reviewed in great detail and was ultimately granted state approval. Despite the disruption, she says that GMP is on budget and on schedule to finish the ridgeline wind project by the end of the year.
As for the birthday boy? Powsner says he "felt like (he) needed to step up," and he's glad he did. "My feelings are immediately that if you have 50 to 100 people in the road blocking the truck, you have to revisit the policy that created this wind power industry," says Powsner, who works with a group that encourages "community-scale" energy projects in Vermont while fighting industrial developments. He's grateful the protest was peaceful. As for spending his birthday in a police cruiser? "It couldn't have been any better," Powsner says.
Photo of Powsner from the Lowell Mountain Talk blog.
It was two weeks ago that Tom Moreau, the general manager of the Chittenden County Solid Waste District, noticed his tomato plants were curling and wilting. That compelled him to alert the public that soil and compost from CSWD's Green Mountain Compost might be toxic. He suspended sales and sent off samples for testing.
Now that lab tests have confirmed that both bulk and bagged soil and compost from GMC is laced with two persistent herbicides — clopyralid and picloram — the fallout is broad. As CSWD scrambles to do damage control, the state is trying to pinpoint where the de-listed substances came from. Gardeners, meanwhile, are salvaging what they can of their plants.
Both compounds kill broad-leaf weeds such as thistle and clover, though clopyralid was de-listed for use on lawns a decade ago. Picloram — which is sometimes used to manage grasslands, such as those on horse farms — requires certification for purchase and use. Yet the two compounds were found at levels between 1.7 and 15.3 parts per billion in some of the eight soil and compost samples that GMC had tested, which mystifies both GMC and state officials.
“Based on our records, there’s very little use of clopyralid, and picloram is restricted and not available to homeowners,” says Cary Giguere, section chief of the Pesticide Program at the Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food and Markets. “We’re very confused as to why it’s shown up in lawn clippings. We're investigating illegal uses.”
GMC collects scraps and clippings solely from within Chittenden County, and how the herbicides ended up at their Williston facility is a puzzle. "I think what's most bothersome for us is the source," says Moreau. Though he suspects that clopyralid is being used at one local high school, picloram is essentially banned. "We thought, 'Oh my God, who is using picloram?'" A matrix of test results supplied by CSWD shows even higher levels of the two herbicides in a few samples of horse manure and grass clippings that the district also had tested.
Though picloram is available through online retailers, a special license is needed to purchase and apply it in all 50 states, and by law it must carry the word "Caution" on the label. Moreau says CSWD is working with the state to gather information on possible sources, and the state has already sent an inspector out to one local horse farm.
Though GMC tests each batch of compost for heavy metals and other pathogens before they're sold to the public, they didn't test for two compounds they thought were not in use. "You always beat yourself up with woulda, coulda, shoulda," says Moreau. "I've beat myself up plenty. But we're getting hit by something that's legally not supposed to be there."
Perhaps it's cold comfort that the substances were found in such trace amounts that the Vermont Department of Health says it is safe to eat produce from affected plants. “The models we use to assess the risk are very conservative,” says Sarah Vose, a toxicologist with the VDH. The levels of herbicides would need to be increased “thousandfold” to justify a health warning or to urge people not to eat the produce from their garden, she adds.
Still, it was enough to cause curling, wilting and cupping in plants for the hundreds of GMC customers who have gotten in touch so far. Since last year, GMC has sold roughly 24,000 bags of compost, 10,000 bags of potting soil, and nearly 5,000 bags of topsoil, as well as 3196 cubic yards of bulk compost. Any compost sold in bags this year was bagged at GMC's former Intervale location last summer, which means the herbicide use goes back to last season at least. Though not all of it is contaminated, its reach is far and wide.
In Winooski, Tim Riddle grows most of his own food each summer in a 1300-square-foot patch at his home. He hadn't used Green Mountain Compost for about eight years — he bought compost directly from farmers — but this year visited their new facility in Williston to check it out for himself. "I asked a ton of questions," he says, before he purchased one yard of compost at the end of May and spread it in his garden.
Very soon, he noticed leaf curl and "real slow growth" in some of his tomatoes and other broad-leaf plants. A gardener most of his life — the Riddles' garden won Organic Garden of the Year in 2005 from Gardener's Supply — he was confounded by the plant's distress, until he saw the press release from CSWD about two weeks ago. "For about five days, I couldn't even go into the garden," he says, adding that is wife was close to tears. "[The garden's] too much work and too much effort to essentially, literally be undermined at a root level."
Jason Wolstenholme of Burlington was also mystified by cupping on his tomato plants until news of contamination emerged. “I was battling my tomatoes curling. I only had a couple of blossoms, and everything else stayed shriveled,” says Wolstenholme, who adds that his peas looked “horrible.”
Wolstenholme says he purchased three yards of compost and four yards of topsoil from Gardeners’ Supply in May, which he spread on his organic home garden. After he found out about the soil’s possible toxicity, he pulled his tomatoes to find “really tiny root balls.”
Despite the health department’s green flag, Wolstenholme, a chiropractor, plans to remove all the vegetables in his garden and replace the soil. “It looks like one of the pesticides [picloram] is absorbed into the plant,” he says. “I’m not a big fan of toxic stuff.”
Wolstenholme says at the least, he would appreciate recompense for the compost they purchased. “I would like to get my money back for delivery. If I bought a spoiled product, I would bring it back to the store,” says Wolstenholme, who has been doing his own research into compound half-lives to determine how long it might take for the herbicides to break down in his garden.
Moreau is also consulting with experts and colleagues nationwide to pinpoint how fast the herbicides might break down, so the company can pass on the most accurate information to customers. He has already noticed recovery in his own garden. “We’re trying to determine, what’s the longevity of this in the soil? That’s critical.”
So far, the soil contamination does not seem to have spread to commercial farms, which would have a higher bar to meet in terms of selling affected produce to the public. Giguere says he hasn't heard from any commercial growers yet. A call to the Intervale revealed that none of the growers there were affected. Mara Welton of Half Pint Farm says she avoids compost drawn from such a wide source as Chittenden County, which can be "unreliable for germination. The result is very inconsistent from a grower's perspective."
The compost has impacted at least one school garden, though. Smilie School in Bolton used a $7,300 grant designed to fight childhood obesity to build its first-ever garden. School officials, too, noticed plant wilt this spring. "We were just heartbroken," says principal Mary Woodruff, who says that most of the plants, including the new raspberry patch, will probably need to be pulled out and the soil replaced. "But then you just have to say, what are we going to do next? The plan is to get this [soil] out of there and get new soil in and salvage what we can."
Moreau says that GMC will begin doing bioassay tests, or growth trials in each batch of compost, before releasing it. For now, however, all sales are suspended, and CSWD is feverishly working out remediation strategies, trying to balance the relatively low level of contamination toxicity with damage to customer's gardens.
“We’re asking, what’s fair to people?” says Moreau. “Do we rebate the cost [of compost]? How do we compensate for plants? Then, we have to deal with our insurance company.” All options — including monetary compensation — are still on the table, according to Moreau, and the company has sent out another batch of samples for testing.
He adds that he feels victimized. "To put this in perspective, first and foremost, our customers bought a product that they thought was healthy for their soils, and it wasn't," he says. "We've invested $2.3 million in a public facility, and for a regulated product to make it into our soil....perhaps we're not as much as a victim as the poor homeowners and gardeners, but we're just frustrated."
Though Moreau plans to eat the produce from his own garden this summer, the jury is still out for Riddle. "I'm assuming everyone's yields will be way down. We'll wait and see," he says. He usually produces hundreds of pounds of produce for consumption throughout the year. "This is supposed to be a relaxing time of year where garden's in, everything's great, and we soon start harvesting. We're hoping for the best. We need to eat."
Photo courtesy of Tim Riddle
Got tires? No, not that set of four bald radials gathering dust in your garage. We're talking about big, eyesore-sized tires piles, the kind that spawn mosquitoes, become nesting grounds for snakes and rodents, block out the sunlight and — worse-case scenario — can potentially catch fire and take firefighters weeks to extinguish.
If you've got one of those tire piles — or more likely, know of a neighbor who does — the Vermont Agency of Natural Resources wants to hear about it.
A bill signed into law earlier this year requires ANR to inventory problem tire piles around the state and then estimate the cost and time required to get rid of them. The law was prompted by a years-long battle with the owner of an unmitigated tire pile in Milton and the desire to identify other problem piles around the state.
What does the state consider a "problem?" Any pile with 100 or more tires.
This week, ANR's solid waste management program launched a month-long survey to try to identify how many of these illegal or undocumented tire piles there are in the state. Once the survey is complete, the inventory, including the estimated number of tires and the projected cleanup cost, will be reported back to the Legislature when it reconvenes in January.
"There's always been this interest in scrap tires and whether it's a big problem. Some people seem to feel it is a problem, others don't," says James "Buzz" Surwilo in the solid waste management program. "So, this is an effort to finally answer that question."
Earlier in the legislative session, environmental lobbyists tried to get the tire legislation to impose additional fees on the purchase of new tires in order to pay for the cleanup of rogue tire piles, but lawmakers put the brakes on that idea. Instead, this year's legislation allows ANR to disperse money from its solid waste management assistance fund as a "last resort" to getting these problem piles cleaned up.
"Of course, people need to take responsibility for their own situations," Surwilo adds. "If we find illegal disposal of tires, or any other waste, it's really up to them to clean it up."
Much of the public concern about scrap tires was sparked by the decades-old legal battle to force the closure and cleanup of Vermont's largest tire pile, which is in Milton. Gilbert "Gil" Rhoads, owner and operator of ABC Metals and Rhoads Salvage, has spent years fighting state officials and defying court orders to dispose of the estimated 200,000 tires on his property. In addition to the environmental and public-safety concerns about the pile, as well as decades of scrapyard salvage operations that have left the soil contaminated with heavy metals, Milton's fire chief has warned that if the tire pile ever caught fire, Vermont wouldn't have the firefighting equipment or expertise to put it out.
Rhoads is due back in court July 10 on a contempt of court charge, according to Barb Schwendtner in the solid waste program. Previously, a judge issued Rhoads an order to clean up the tires within 90 days and conduct a lead soil contamination study and clean up whatever is necessary; he failed to do both. Simultaneously, next week the solid waste program will begin removal of $75,000 worth of scrap tires — or about 82,000 tires — all on the state's dime. "So, it'll be a dent," Schwendtner says, "but no where near the whole pile."
How many other tire piles are believed to be cluttering up the Green Mountain State? Surwilo says that the state probably already knows about the biggest ones, most of which can be found at auto and scrap metal yards.
"I'd be surprised if we find these huge, well-hidden, clandestine tire piles that nobody has reported to us in the past," he says. "I think we may find a few hundred or a few thousand in the woods somewhere...But we really have no idea what we're going to find."
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Photos by Robflint/Dreamstime.com and SEVEN DAYS file.