ANR unveils corrective-action plan to address EPA concerns over farm discharge permitting

Julie Moore, secretary of natural resources, told the Vermont House Committee on Agriculture, Food Resiliency, & Forestry on April 1 that the Agency of Natural Resources (ANR) submitted a corrective-action plan to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency after an EPA review found deficiencies in Vermont’s regulation of potential concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs).

Moore said the matter began when the Conservation Law Foundation, the Natural Resources Council and the Lake Champlain Committee filed a “dedelegation petition” with EPA in 2022 alleging Vermont was not meeting Clean Water Act obligations; EPA reviewed the petition and, after inspections and file review, opened settlement negotiations in summer 2024. Moore said EPA’s September 2024 letter identified multiple deficiencies and that ANR has been negotiating specific corrective steps with EPA and stakeholders since then.

The corrective-action plan ANR submitted establishes a four-year implementation timeframe and includes commitments that ANR says are intended to align state practice with federal Clean Water Act requirements. Key elements Moore described include: ANR will serve as the lead inspector on potentially jurisdictional medium and large farm inspections and will conduct at least 10 such inspections in the coming field season; ANR will review nutrient management plans before inspections; ANR will take the lead in determining whether a farm requires CAFO permit coverage; nutrient management plans for farms subject to CAFO permits will be placed on public notice; ANR will revise CAFO-related rules and the medium-farm general permit (now proposed as S124) to conform with federal requirements; and ANR will file an annual report to EPA tracking progress toward the four-year timeline.

Moore provided operational details: ANR currently has two staff dedicated to CAFO work and the governor’s FY2026 recommended budget would convert one existing position into the CAFO program and add two new positions, bringing the proposed program total to five. Moore said ANR told EPA it would reassess staffing needs after two summers of inspections and report back in December 2026.

Moore said the agency will “bolt on” access to the Agency of Agriculture’s data-management system so inspection and permitting records are centralized, and that funding for that IT work is included in the governor’s FY2026 recommendations. Moore said EPA described ANR’s corrective-action drafts as “directionally correct” but requested more detail; ANR submitted an updated draft in March, and EPA issued a generally supportive letter on April 1.

Committee members pressed for clarifications about what a CAFO permit means for farmers. Moore explained that state agricultural permits are currently “no-discharge” permits, while Clean Water Act CAFO permits allow discharges only in limited circumstances (for example, runoff tied to an extreme rainfall event such as a 25-year, 24-hour storm) and can include negotiated compliance schedules when immediate correction is not feasible. “The Clean Water Act doesn’t provide a window to come into compliance. If a farm has a discharge that can’t be immediately corrected, they need to have a CAFO permit,” Moore said.

Representatives on the committee asked about the effects on farm technical and financial assistance and whether oversight would duplicate or shift workload between ANR and the Agency of Agriculture. Moore said the corrective-action plan does not change the Agency of Agriculture’s leadership role on technical and financial assistance programs and that, during the transition period, the Ag agency will still have substantial inspection and permitting responsibilities for operations that do not require CAFO coverage. She also said the stakeholder engagement process is intended to resolve how roles and responsibilities will be coordinated in practice.

Moore told the committee ANR has met with a range of farming organizations during plan development, including the Champlain Valley Farmers Coalition, Farmers Watershed Alliance, Connecticut River Valley (or Connecticut watershed) farmer groups and the Vermont Dairy Producers Alliance, and that the stakeholder process will address farmers’ concerns about public access to nutrient management plans and handling of confidential business information.

No committee vote or formal legislative action occurred during the meeting. Moore warned that if the proposed statutory and Title 10 conforming changes in the bill before the committee do not pass, it would complicate ANR’s ability to meet certain first-year corrective-action commitments to EPA. She said the committee’s timing and passage of related legislation will affect ANR’s path to retain delegation for Clean Water Act permitting authority.

Moore and ANR general counsel Catherine Gessing answered questions throughout the discussion; no final decision on the draft corrective-action plan was reported to the committee during this session.