Senate Judiciary discusses S.29 to curb road salt runoff; agency urges BMP rulemaking and certification

The Vermont Senate Judiciary Committee on April 17 continued consideration of S.29, a bill that would promote best management practices for winter salt application and provide limited liability protections for qualified applicators.

Bethany Sargent, deputy director of the Watershed Management Division at the Agency of Natural Resources, told the committee that rising chloride concentrations are documented statewide and have reached levels that can harm aquatic life. "We have 8 surface waters that are impaired as a result of excess chloride," Sargent said, and her office's GIS analysis estimates that "state roads make up roughly 19% of the impervious surfaces that we would salt... municipal roads would make up about 26%... and other impervious surfaces... make up about 55%."

The EPA-designated Sunnyside Brook and work done for Colchester were cited as examples: Sargent said commercial paved surfaces account for more than 70% of pavements in some impaired watersheds, and that the state lacks reliable data on how much private commercial applicators spread each season. "The commercial applicators... we don't have any ability... to know how much they're putting on," she said.

A representative of the Vermont Agency of Transportation (VTrans) described current practices used by state snow-and-ice operators. The witness said operators are trained in the field and through agency onboarding rather than a formal external certification program, and that VTrans monitors salt use with post-plow inspections and vehicle telemetry. "We do have GPS in the trucks... we actually track all of our salt usage," the VTrans representative said, adding that some municipal contracts include geofencing and automatic reductions when entering sensitive watersheds.

Committee members focused on the bill's liability language and on how to create incentives for private and municipal applicators to adopt BMPs. Several senators questioned whether programs in other states have measurable reductions in chloride. Senator Hovski said she had been told New Hampshire has no clear data on program efficacy: "I too want to solve the problem, and no one can tell me this works," she said. Sargent and other witnesses noted variability across winters makes it difficult to show a consistent statewide drop in salt use, but argued that BMPs aim to reduce over-application while maintaining safe road surfaces.

Members discussed alternate legal approaches. One senator proposed replacing the bill's limited-liability provision with an affirmative defense or a rebuttable presumption tied to certification and compliance with BMPs; that approach would allow defendants to show they met specified elements without providing blanket immunity. Legal counsel explained the difference: under an affirmative defense the defendant bears the burden to show they completed certification and followed BMPs, while under the current limited-liability language plaintiffs would have opportunities to show the harm was not solely from snow-and-ice application or that gross negligence occurred.

Committee members agreed to work on drafting clearer statutory elements for any liability protection. One senator said she would "work with Eric" (identified in committee remarks as a staff or counsel) to develop alternative language; the House version of the bill under consideration would adopt BMPs by rule (with public process) by mid-summer and delay any liability provision until a later effective date to allow time for training.

No formal motion or vote on S.29 occurred during the hearing; the committee left the record open to further drafting and stakeholder engagement.

Ending: Committee staff and members signaled follow-up work to refine the liability language and the rulemaking timeline; stakeholders including VTrans, ANR, municipal officials and commercial applicators were identified as parties to be involved in drafting the BMP certification program and compliance requirements.