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Lake Champlain Committee urges stronger CAFO enforcement, cites EPA findings
Summary
A Lake Champlain Committee representative told the Agriculture, Food Resiliency, & Forestry Committee that S.124 improves CAFO oversight but falls short of EPA recommendations; he read out parts of an EPA Sept. 9 letter documenting inspection and enforcement gaps and urged statutory changes to make ANR the primary compliance authority.
Jared Carpenter, of the Lake Champlain Committee, told the Agriculture, Food Resiliency & Forestry Committee that S.124 is a “good start” but does not fully meet changes EPA required after reviewing Vermont’s CAFO enforcement program.
Carpenter read passages from a Sept. 9 EPA letter and summarized the agency’s findings: “ANR’s delegated obligations regarding the enforcement and compliance monitoring of the CAFO program are not being met. In general, ANR fails to conduct sufficient and timely inspection and fails to [take] appropriate enforcement actions to deter and mitigate violations.” He said EPA found that ANR relied heavily on the Agency of Agriculture, Food and Markets (AAFM) for on‑the‑ground inspections and that referrals and complaints were often unresolved.
The EPA records cited by Carpenter showed 113 complaints from February 2021 to January 2023, with 26 (23%) unresolved, 51% concluded as “no violations found” despite documentation, and only 7% noted as Clean Water Act violations. Carpenter said EPA conducted independent inspections in…
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