Senate transportation members push priority funding for covered salt and sand sheds

Senate Transportation Committee Chair Rich Westman told the Natural Resources & Energy Committee on March 14 that transportation committee members will offer an amendment to prioritize funding for covering municipal salt and sand stockpiles.

Westman said the amendment would ask the Agency of Natural Resources to make covering salt and sand sheds a priority in its first-year funding decisions and to return in a year with statewide data and a recommendation on what annual appropriation would be needed to meet the coverage timelines in the bill.

The amendment responds to data ANR supplied about the Lake Champlain watershed: "roughly two thirds of all of the salt and sand piles were covered within the Champlain Watershed," Westman said, adding ANR did not provide comparable figures for the rest of the state. He told the committee that small and medium-sized towns often lack the funds to pay for the structures and that many transportation programs face flat funding or cuts in the current budget.

Westman and others said the transportation committee’s amendment is intended to create a funding pathway for smaller towns rather than impose an unfunded mandate. "Our amendment," he said, "instruct[s ANR] in the first year ... to make covering salt and sand sheds a priority, and coming back in a year to us and giving us the full picture of what's covered and what's not around the whole state with a report back to us about that and a recommendation on what they feel each year the appropriation should be." Committee members present expressed no formal objections during the discussion.

The committee noted the amendment will be offered by five members of the Senate Transportation Committee and that the issue will not return to Natural Resources & Energy for further action unless required. No formal vote or ordinance language was recorded during the meeting; the exchange focused on framing the amendment and its intent.

Committee members asked staff to coordinate with ANR and transportation committee leadership as the amendment is finalized. The committee did not set a final timetable for the amendment’s filing or for the ANR report; Westman said the amendment envisions a one-year follow-up.

Context: The change aims to address EPA and state-level water-quality and road maintenance considerations by reducing direct exposure of salt and sand piles to precipitation and runoff. The committee flagged that transportation bond constraints and cuts to town assistance programs make up-front construction costs a major barrier in smaller municipalities.

No formal vote was taken on the amendment during the Natural Resources & Energy meeting; members signaled general agreement to the approach and asked staff to coordinate legislative language and stakeholder outreach.