Current News

Vermont Business Magazine FEMA’s Disaster Recovery Center in Barre, Washington County will close early, at noon, Saturday, September 9 and will reopen at 8 a.m., Monday, September 11.

Vermont Business Magazine The Vermont Community Foundation and the organizing committee for the Con Hogan Award for Creative, Entrepreneurial Community Leadership have announced that HB Lozito will be honored with this year’s award. Lozito is the executive director of Brattleboro-based Out in the Open, which is working to build a multi-issue, multiracial social justice movement of rural LGBTQ+ people.

Vermont Business Magazine Governor Phil Scott and mental health professionals today urged Vermonters to check in on themselves and on others, and to learn about the many mental health supports and resources available throughout the state. September is also National Suicide Prevention Awareness Month, a time when we can focus on helping ourselves and others to navigate stressors and difficulties, and recognize the warning signs that someone is in crisis. In 2022 there were 127 suicide deaths among Vermont residents. This is a slight decrease from 2021.

Vermont Business Magazine Burlington Electric Department (BED) issued a peak alert for today/Wednesday, September 6 part of its Defeat the Peak program launched during summer 2017, encouraging members of the Burlington community to reduce their energy usage from 5:00-8:00pm today.  The purpose of the Defeat the Peak program is to reduce our energy costs by reducing usage during a peak event. Burlingtonians can lend a hand by taking the following steps on what is projected to be an unusually hot summer day:

Vermont Business Magazine The Cabot Disaster Recovery Center will close permanently at 6 pm, Thursday, September 7, 2023. The center is currently open 8 am to 6 pm Monday through Saturday. Other recovery centers remain open 8 am to 6 pm Monday through Saturday (closed Sunday).

Vermont Business Magazine The University of Vermont set a record for the fourth consecutive year in total external support for its rapidly growing research enterprise, inspiring discovery, innovation, and creativity across its full scope of scholarly disciplines. Research at UVM funded by federal and state agencies, corporate partners, foundations, and individual donors reached nearly $263 million in the fiscal year ending June 20, 2023 – only the second time the figure has soared above a quarter-billion dollars. 

Vermont Business Magazine Casella Waste Systems, Inc (Nasdaq: CWST), a regional solid waste, recycling, and resource management services company, announced that it completed the acquisition of the collection, transfer, and recycling assets of Consolidated Waste Services, LLC and its affiliates (dba “Twin Bridges”) on September 1, 2023. The purchase price of the acquisition was approximately $219 million and was funded through proceeds from the Company’s equity offering completed on June 16, 2023. The acquisition includes two hauling operations, one transfer station, and one material recovery facility in the greater Albany, New York market, and is expected to generate total annualized revenues of approximately $70 million.

Vermont Business Magazine The Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) and VEIC have released a report on Vermont’s Electric School and Transit Bus Pilot Program. As a part of this pilot, three schools and one transit agency replaced a total of eight diesel-powered buses with electric buses, yielding significant cost savings and reductions in harmful air pollution, including nitrogen oxides (NOx) and greenhouse gases compared to conventional buses. The pilot was funded with $4 million of Vermont’s $18.7 million allocation of the Volkswagen (VW) Environmental Mitigation Trust fund. The settlement fund was created with the goal of achieving reductions in NOx emissions after VW violated the federal Clean Air Act.

Vermont Business Magazine US Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack has approved Governor Phil Scott’s request for a Secretarial Disaster Designation in response to July’s historic flooding, which impacted thousands of acres of Vermont farmland. This comes on the heels of a widespread frost event in May, and is the second disaster declaration, emphasizing the difficult growing season that Vermont’s farmers have faced this year. This Secretarial disaster designation from USDA makes farm operators across Vermont eligible to be considered for Farm Service Agency (FSA) emergency loans, provided eligibility requirements are met. Farmers in eligible counties have eight months from the date of a Secretarial disaster declaration to apply for emergency loans.

Agency of Commerce and Community Development The SBA is extending its deadline for Physical Damage loan applications to October 12, 2023. That’s a one-month extension. This is for businesses that suffered physical damages in Caledonia, Chittenden, Lamoille, Orange, Orleans, Rutland, Washington, Windham, and Windsor Counties.  Damages must have occurred between July 7 and July 17. Disaster survivors with insurance should not wait for their settlement before applying for an SBA loan. Learn more online or visit one of Vermont's three SBA Disaster Recovery Centers. FEMA is also extending its deadline until October 12. 

Vermont Business Magazine The Larner College of Medicine at the University of Vermont has announced that their Translational Global Infectious Disease Research Center (TGIR), Center of Biomedical Research Excellence (COBRE) has received Phase II funding from the National Institute of General Medical Sciences (NIGMS), National Institutes of Health (NIH). This award provides an additional five years of further funding for this successful research program, which began in 2018. The $11.5 million award supports the research career development and research projects of a growing cohort of junior faculty focused on globally important infectious diseases impacting human health. These faculty receive mentoring, academic support to develop their research expertise, and skill development to advance their research careers. 

Vermont Business Magazine Governor Phil Scott and the Agency of Natural Resources announced today that approximately $10 million in funding is available to help manufactured housing communities in Vermont address water infrastructure issues. This is the second round of funding allocated by the State using American Rescue Plan (ARPA) funding. Communities are invited to apply by October 17, 2023. Examples of eligible activities include assessing communities’ water infrastructure needs, designing and permitting projects to address these necessities, connecting to municipal water or wastewater, retrofitting stormwater practices, installing drinking water or wastewater projects, and more.