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Vermont faces EPA scrutiny over agricultural water-quality permitting
Summary
Legislative counsel said advocates petitioned EPA over Vermont’s agricultural permitting and that EPA warned the state to enforce farm discharge permitting or risk corrective actions or loss of delegated Clean Water Act authority.
Michael Grady, legislative counsel, told the Senate Agriculture Committee that a 2022 petition from Clean Water advocates prompted U.S. EPA to raise concerns about whether Vermont’s Agency of Natural Resources is adequately implementing agricultural permitting under the Clean Water Act.
“EPA can only . . . require a permit when there's an actual discharge,” Grady said, explaining a central legal distinction: the federal program authorizes permits for point-source discharges, while much farm runoff is treated under different exemptions when farmers follow approved nutrient-management practices.
Grady said the Vermont Agency of Natural Resources has the delegated authority to administer federal water permits in the state but has rarely used its authority to require KFO (Clean Water Act) permits for farms with actual discharges. He said EPA’s letter required a proposed corrective action plan. In response, ANR submitted a multi-year plan that, according to Grady, would add inspections, review nutrient-management plans and require permitting for farms with actual discharges over a three- to four-year timeframe if EPA approves it.
He said the policy question before the legislature will be whether to shift broader program responsibilities between ANR and the Agency of Agriculture — advocates are pushing for a larger transfer, while ANR has proposed limited statutory tweaks to keep the regulatory focus on actual point-source discharges.
Grady cautioned that if EPA determines the state will not take sufficient corrective action, it could order remedial steps or, in the extreme, withdraw the state’s delegation for some or all Clean Water Act permitting — an outcome he described as unprecedented for a full withdrawal but not impossible in theory. He noted Wisconsin previously faced a delegation review, which was ultimately resolved without complete withdrawal after a long corrective process.
Committee members asked procedural questions about when a corrective-action clock would start. Grady said the timeline depends on EPA approval and potential litigants; he also noted the dispute is likely to move across multiple legislative committees because it touches on environmental regulation, agriculture and statute changes.
The committee did not vote on statutory changes. Grady said ANR’s proposed corrective action depends on some statutory adjustments and that the legislature may need to consider policy trade-offs about inspection and permitting authority going forward.
