Legislative panel debates narrowing S.45 to nuisance protections, clarifying new-farm rules

A Vermont legislative working group considering S.45, a proposed change to state law on agricultural nuisance protections, debated whether the bill should focus strictly on nuisance claims and how to treat new or long-dormant farms.

The committee’s conversation centered on several recurring questions: whether changing crops or farming methods should disqualify a farm from statutory nuisance protections; whether a multi-year threshold (commonly discussed as five or 10 years) should be used before new or reactivated farmland receives protections; whether the bill should explicitly exclude trespass and water-diversion claims; and whether the statutory process should require mediation and offer arbitration before court action.

“We’re onboard with the certainly existing nuisance protection and clarifying that and expanding it to the extent that if you are . . . maybe within some limits, want to change the type of operation you do, that that’s okay,” a committee member said, summarizing the direction of the discussion.

Members raised concerns about granting broad new protections that could be used to override municipal land-use controls or to shield conduct that would otherwise constitute trespass. “I think we should go back to we just remove all…