By Guy Page
Vermont’s popular county fairs will go out of business if forced to pay the $500,000 – $1 million each necessary to comply with state water runoff regulations, Jackie Folsom, Lobbyist for the Vermont Fairs and Field Days Association told the Senate Agriculture Committee Wednesday, February 21.
The Three Acre Stormwater regulations, created by legislation, have been implemented in a phased-in process that began in 2020. According to a September 2020 statement issued by the Agency of Natural Resources, Vermont must reduce stormwater runoff from commercial, industrial, residential and institutional properties by roughly 20 percent to meet clean water goals.
The Three-Acre Stormwater Permit was adopted as a statewide solution to runoff polluting Lake Champlain and other state waters. It requires landowners with more than three acres of ‘impervious surfaces’ such as roofs, driveways and parking areas, to develop and implement projects to treat runoff to remove phosphorus, sediment, and other pollutants. These plans require expensive – Folsom says prohibitively expensive – upgrades.
The impact on county fairs will be disastrous, Folsom said.
“They’ll all go out of business,” Folsom said [as quoted in the Caledonian-Record].
“There’s no way that any [of the state’s county fairs] can come up with that kind of money,” Folsom said. “Schools can raise property taxes. Wal-Mart can raise prices. But most of the fairs are non-profit, they are open 50 days a year, and they do not have the ability to go out and mortgage their grounds, and get a $500,000 to $1 million loan for something they can never repay. You just can’t make that kind of money up at the fairground.”
At present, three fairgrounds are subject to the rule: Addison County Fairgrounds, Champlain Valley Expo in Essex Junction, and Rutland’s Vermont State Fairgrounds. Folsom said other, smaller fairgrounds – such as the Orleans County and Caledonia County fairgrounds – likely will soon be subject to the rule as well.
The stormwater permit regulations do provide applications for grant funding to come into compliance.
Senate Ag committee members expressed sympathy and promised to seek a solution – but made no promises. Folsom said plans to meet with Gov. Scott.
“We’re going to try to get it resolved sooner rather than later, because the fairs are starting to spend an enormous amount of money on these projects,” Folsom said [as quoted in the Caledonian-Record]. “I really don’t think they want 14 fairs to close on their watch, and that’s exactly what’s going to happen.”
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Categories: Agriculture, Environment
no more fair for you//// you might get together and talk about the crooks in the state house///
subdivide the properties into 2.9 acre parcels
Exactly why our Forefathers intended there be a small, limited government. So much over reach at the statehouse. They’ve written laws that violate their own laws. They’re so overwhelmed they can’t look a common citizen in the eye on statehouse grounds, without scowling. Must be the China flu, or is that China fear?
The usual response: “Senate Ag committee members expressed sympathy and promised to seek a solution – but made no promises.” When will everyone realize they’re doing the bidding of activists with agendas and don’t give a crap about Vermont or Vermonters.
Cathy, you let the cat out of the bag. The demo-prog legislators do the bidding of the VNRC, VPIRG, CLF and other eco-lobbyists by imposing expensive, inconvenient and generally ineffective policies, even on individual homeowners (like their attempt to double the drink container deposit and expand it to more products). The lobbying organizations then put it in their promotional material that “your contribution went to strengthen Vermont’s ……. laws, see how effective we are at saving the planet”?
And then their donors send them more money. It’s a vicious cycle. The social services expansion organizations like the Public Assets Institute use the same tactics. The way to end it is to stop voting for these jackass legislators and stop donating money to these groups that hate decent, productive, responsible people.
No worries, we can all just start going mini burning man events at a state legislator’s place instead. I mean sure, there may be an occasional overdose, cough, ahem, I mean medical event, but hey it’s all good.
Well, you elected these inept mindless fools, all they know is an agenda and to stick to the script to make it happen. These country fairs have been around forever, and now they are a major problem, the only problem we have is the inept fools who are
in charge…………………… wake up people !!
They hate you and your way of life, something not on their agenda.
“It requires landowners with more than three acres of ‘impervious surfaces’ such as roofs, driveways and parking areas, to develop and implement projects to treat runoff to remove phosphorus, sediment, and other pollutants.”
That’s all you residents with “impervious surfaces” of any size, coming soon. It will be added to your RE tax. Seen it done in other states.
Oh, and remember Redlining? Look it up.
Today, they are using “environmental justice” as a way to continue what was done under redlining. This entire environmental BS needs to go before the US Supreme Court b/c it is completely un-friggen-just.
Property owners in Shelburne and So. Burlington, regardless of impervious surfaces on their land pay an annual fee for general stormwater mitigation projects that the eco-bureaucrats like to refer to as a “utility”. They sure have a way with words…
Remember the good old days in Vermont when stormwater used to be called rain, and wetlands were referred to as swamps?
The swamp actually has been re-imagined inside the Dept. of Environmental Conservation. Stormwater became en vogue, with the predictable reactionary legislation emerging from the legislature- and requiring a new bureaucracy to develop and administer the legislative intent. So, a jobs program inside an un-needed environmental program. DEC is still figuring things out, requiring massive fees just to review the mandated new permits. The level of incompetence is astounding, both in the DEC and the legislature- as neither deems it nessecary to go after the large municipal polluters. Burlington’s continued discharges into lake Champlain- of both stormwater and sewage receive only lip service from the legislature, yet So. Burlington was required to form a utility to address the issue.
Frank Bammo: Thanks, all so true. Actually the legislature sees Burlington as a huge septic tank, and lake Champlain as a leach field. Like the school testing, it’s too expensive to remedy. So, to hell with it!
Correct headline: these stupid regs will put everything out of business