Senate committee reviews S.124 to align Vermont farm rules with federal CAFO permitting

Senator Ross Ingalls, chair of the Senate Agriculture Committee, told the Natural Resources & Energy Committee on March 21 that S.124 is intended to settle a dispute among the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the Conservation Law Foundation, the Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food and Markets and the Agency of Natural Resources so farmers can plan for permitting and compliance.

The bill, Ingalls said, would conform Vermont law to federal Clean Water Act requirements for concentrated animal feeding operations by changing statutes in both Title 6 (agriculture provisions) and Title 10 (water resources). "All that we are trying to accomplish is to settle this dispute between the EPA, Conservation Law Foundation, Agency of Agriculture Food and Markets, and the Agency of Natural Resources so that farmers can make plans," Ingalls said.

S.124 replaces repeated statutory references to an interagency memorandum of understanding with a requirement that the two agencies issue a document that sets out roles and responsibilities for implementing the federal CAFO permit program and the State’s nonpoint-source agricultural program. The bill would make the Agency of Natural Resources (ANR) the entity that determines whether a discharge requires a federal CAFO permit; if ANR determines a CAFO permit is required, ANR would administer the federal permitting program in Vermont.

Key provisions and clarifications discussed in committee

- MOU replaced: Multiple sections strike language referring to an MOU and instead direct ANR and the Agency of Agriculture to issue a document describing each agency’s…