Current News

Vermont Business Magazine For the third consecutive year, FreshTracks Road Pitch will take place August 1-5. Road Pitch is a five-day motorcycle tour of Vermont in which a gang of “business bikers” (comprised of investors, entrepreneurs and business advisers) ride around the state and stop in 10 towns to listen to entrepreneurs pitch their business concepts. This year, the tour will stop in Essex Junction (Aug 1), Rutland (Aug 1), Bennington (Aug 2), Brattleboro (Aug 2), Barre (Aug 3), Randolph (Aug 3), St Johnsbury (Aug 4), Lowell (Aug 4), Hyde Park (Aug 5) and Grand Isle (Aug 5).  

Vermont Business Magazine Governor Peter Shumlin today lifted the “Do Not Drink” order for Pownal’s municipal drinking water system, Fire District Number Two. The system had been contaminated with slightly elevated levels of the possible carcinogen PFOA. Results this week show that a new treatment system is effectively removing all PFOA from the town’s drinking water. Governor Shumlin will hold an event on Monday Auugust 1 at 3:30 pm to acknowledge the milestone and community members involved in achieving clean water again. The gathering will be held at the site of the town’s supply well and treatment system at 735 Route 346 in Pownal.

Vermont Business Magazine A new unpermitted sewage discharge has been reported this morning by the ANR – Watershed Management in Poultney. High levels of bacteria were found in a municipal storm drain leading into the Poultney River. Unpermitted Discharge Incidents are discharges of wastewater, industrial process water, dumping or spills into waters of the state either directly or through stormwater-only drainage systems or other conveyance. These discharges have been identified and found that they may pose a threat to human health or the environment

This report by the ANR is auto-filled to show all current incidents that are under review or are working towards a resolution as well as incidents that were resolved in the previous 30 days.

NEWLY REPORTED Incidents

Vermont Business Magazine As part of the South Lake Champlain Partnership, the Poultney Mettowee Conservation District and the Rutland Regional Planning Commission have teamed up to facilitate flood resiliency education, planning and project implementation in the Flower Brook Watershed shared by Tinmouth, Danby, and Pawlet. The watershed approach used in our project, titled Weathering the Storm: Community-Based Planning for Flood Resiliency in Flower Brook , is an important component of flood protection in vulnerable villages and towns, because the effects felt in one town are the accumulation of impacts from upstream. 

In addition to this information sharing and feedback gathered in the three project towns, the Partnership will offer workshops in July and August leading up to a three-town gathering on August 28, 2016 (the 5^th anniversary of TS Irene) from 11-2 at Edie’s Green in Pawlet Village. All events are open to the public.

by Guy Page It rains in Vermont. It rains a lot. And rain contributes to groundwater. Everywhere else in Vermont, groundwater moves subsurface into a nearby rivers or lakes, usually with little or no treatment. But Vermont Yankee is not “everywhere else.” After examining groundwater that had intruded into the lower basements of the facility, Vermont Yankee determined that it contained traces of tritium.  Even though the extremely low radiation level of this tritiated groundwater is approved by the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission to be discharged into public waters, Vermont Yankee made the decision to ship this water to Tennessee for processing.  

Vermont Business Magazine Bringing to light remnants of the past, Castleton University has partnered with the Vermont Archaeological Society, the Natural Conservancy, and the Vermont Division for Historic Preservation for an archeological dig project currently underway at the Nature Conservancy’s Helen W. Buckner Preserve at Bald Mountain in West Haven, Vermont. Titled the South Champlain Historical Ecology Project (SCHEP), the endeavor is designed to examine long-term patterns in human-environment interactions within the southern Lake Champlain Basin.

Castleton University photo

Vermont Business Magazine Friday, July 29th at 1:30pm supporters of Jill Stein 2016, the presidential candidate for the Green Party, will submit 1,500 certified signatures, as well as necessary consent forms to the Secretary of State’s office at 128 Main Street, Montpelier, Vermont. Stein supporters will be there to give comments to the press. Over the past month, volunteers from all over Vermont have collected signatures by canvassing door to door, and at farmers’ markets, concerts and transfer stations. Signatures were gathered from Bennington and Brattleboro to Burlington, and small towns in the Northeast Kingdom. Signatures came in from over 65 towns across the state. The Green Party is running candidates across the country, and in Vermont there is a rebirth in excitement for Green politics, according to the campaign.

​Vermont Business Magazine Forests are the fabric of New England, fabric that is being increasingly shredded by invasive pests and pathogens, as 47 species of non-native tree-eating insects are known in New Hampshire alone. The emerald ash borer, a beetle native to Asia, is presently established around Concord, NH, and can be expected to eliminate ash trees from most of New England within a decade. Once new invasives are established, there is often little that forest managers or property owners can do to limit impacts. The pathway for protecting our forests is to prevent the next emerald ash borer from colonizing North America by strengthening policies that tackle pest introduction and prevention, according to an open access paper published this month in the print issue of Ecological Applications.

Vermont Business Magazine Renewable Energy Vermont in partnership with the Renewable Energy Resource Center, a project of Vermont Energy Investment Corporation, have launched a new resource for Vermonters looking to install solar photovoltaic panels (PV), solar hot water systems, or modern wood pellet boilers. The project was made possible due to funding from the Vermont Clean Energy Development Fund (CEDF). The Vermont Renewable Energy Business Listing (VREBL) located online at www.revermont.org/vrebl/ offers a detailed, one stop listing of experts ready to help homeowners, farmers, and businesses affordably reduce climate pollution and save money with clean energy solutions. 

Vermont Business Magazine Seventh Generation has issued its Corporate Consciousness 2015 Report detailing the company's effort and progress against its 2020 aspirations and goals. Seventh Generation's climate strategy touches all aspects of its operations from offices to product transportation, to the plant-based and recycled materials in the products and packaging. "The carbon tax anchors our greenhouse has reduction strategy in the heart of our business, activating our entire organization in support of our 2020 goal to obtain our energy from non-fossil fuel sources," said CEO John Replogle. "Decreasing our carbon footprint is mission-critical for Seventh Generation in caring for the next seven generations."

Vermont Business Magazine Green Mountain Power’s first customers with Tesla Powerwall Battery got to test the system’s capabilities during recent storms. The cutting edge battery storage technology was used during this weekend’s severe storm to keep the lights on. Three customers in impacted areas were able to use the Powerwall to provide back-up power to their homes for the duration of the outage, meaning they never lost power.

A Tesla Powerwall Battery gets installed at a home in Vermont in May. GMP photos.

Lisman Ad As hardworking, over-taxed Vermonters are driving to and from work, starting tomorrow many will hear a radio ad from Bruce Lisman about Phil Scott’s call for a new mileage tax. Scott called for a mileage tax during a July 19 Vermont Public Television event in Rutland and has not back away from it at subsequent public forums. “A new mileage tax will hurt Vermonters. Residents who drive long distances to work and are struggling to make ends meet, will be punished the most,” says Bruce Lisman in the ad.

The ad will begin airing on Thursday, July 28 and be on many radio stations throughout Vermont.

To hear the ad click: http://www.lismanforvermont.com/radio_ad_vote_for_change.

Here is a transcript of the 60-second ad: