Current News

by Anne Galloway vtdigger.org Opponents of a natural gas pipeline say Vermont Gas is using a legal maneuver to subvert the regulatory process in order to reap double digit rate increases. The utility and the Vermont Department of Public Service forged an agreement earlier this month that caps ratepayer liability for the pipeline project at $134 million. Governor Peter Shumlin lauded the memorandum of understanding, but lawyers for several groups say the agreement is a “bad deal” for ratepayers and doesn’t reflect the total cost of the project. AARP and the Vermont Fuel Dealers Association have described the agreement as a “PR stunt” that puts political pressure on the quasi-judicial Vermont Public Service Board to bless the project with rate increases baked in.

Vermont Business Magazine The Oryza Group has announced that the firm has reached a new, five-year collective bargaining agreement with workers at the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service's Vermont Service Center in St. Albans. The agreement, struck early this morning between Oryza and leaders of Local 208 of the United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers of America, next moves to a ratification vote by the bargaining unit's approximately 350 workers.

Leland Rice, President of Oryza, praised negotiating teams on both sides for bargaining intensively but respectfully.

"This agreement strikes a good balance between the need for fiscal responsibility in a time of economic challenges and our employees' desire for fair wages and benefits," Mr. Rice said. "Most importantly, the agreement enables us to provide long-term stability and continuity of service to the immigrant population that relies on us."

Vermont Business Magazine The Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets (VAAFM) has announced grants totaling $255,475 for eight projects to benefit Vermont fruit, vegetable, hops, maple, and added-value producers and increase consumer access to locally produced food. These grants, funded through the USDA Agricultural Marketing Service’s Specialty Crop Block Grant Program (SCBGP), were awarded to six agricultural organizations to undertake a range of research, education, promotion, and program-building projects. The grants will leverage an additional $300,000 in matching funds.

Vermont Business Magazine Greenbacker Renewable Energy Company has announced it has purchased the rights to construct two additional ground mount solar systems located on leased property in Proctor and Hartford. Electricity produced by these sites will be sold under long term contracts with two Vermont municipal entities. The Proctor facility was developed and is being constructed by Green Lantern Capital while the Hartford Landfill facility was developed and is being constructed by groSolar; two leading players in the Vermont solar marketplace.

With the addition of these systems, Greenbacker's Green Maple portfolio will own and operate seven solar systems in Vermont. In total, these systems comprise 5,469 kW of generating capacity which is expected to produce enough electricity to power approximately 902 homes for one year of typical use.

Vermont Business Magazine As debate roils over EPA regulations proposed this month limiting the release of the potent greenhouse gas methane during fracking operations, a new University of Vermont study funded by the National Science Foundation shows that abandoned oil and gas wells near fracking sites can be conduits for methane escape not currently being measured. The study, published in Water Resources Research on Oct. 20, demonstrates that fractures in surrounding rock produced by the hydraulic fracturing process are able to connect to preexisting, abandoned oil and gas wells, common in fracking areas, which in turn can provide a pathway to the surface for methane.

A recent paper published in the Proceedings of the National Academies of Science showed that methane release measured at abandoned wells near fracking sites can be significant but did not investigate the source of the gas.

by Alyssa B Schuren, Commissioner, Vermont Department of Environmental Conservation The Vermont Clean Water Act has passed. The draft Lake Champlain cleanup plan has been released. The "all-in" message from the past two years remains and now resonates, with each sector beginning to roll up its sleeves to address phosphorus pollution that runs off our roads, farms, forests and developed lands, to achieve clean water results.

Municipalities are engaged in the early phase of clean water implementation. They manage the vast majority of Vermont roads, operate our wastewater treatment facilities, and own large swaths of developed lands. The Vermont Clean Water Act requirements are new and the costs are significant. Most municipalities enter the implementation process short-staffed and under-resourced. They are understandably nervous.

Vermont Business Magazine Wireless LINC announces a recent expansion that offers fast and reliable broadband services to large sections of Franconia, Easton and Littleton. Through this solution, many can now access state-of-the-art performance that delivers high speed downloading and uploading capacities. These capabilities make Wireless LINC an ideal platform for residents and businesses relying on internet access for professional purposes, as well as households choosing to stream online video from services such as NetFlix.

US Census Bureau Throughout the decades since the oil embargo of 1973, increasing research and development has gone into renewable sources of energy. Some of the results are seen atop windswept hills and plains across America — large electricity generating windmills. While the concept sounds very modern, the first practical wind turbine generator goes back 74 years. According to the US Census, it was on this October 19 in 1941 that Palmer Putnam of Vermont demonstrated his device. His wind turbine had blades 66 feet in length, and in over 700 hours of operation, produced almost 300,000-kilowatt hours. In the U.S. today, there are over 2,700 electric power generating establishments producing 4.1 million megawatt hours. Wind power provides about 4.5 percent of the country's electricity production.

Vermont Business Magazine Vermont Gas Systems today announced that it has reached right-of-way agreements with 94 percent of landowners in the right-of-way corridor of the Addison Natural Gas Project. This marks a significant increase in landowner agreements since last winter, up from 80 percent in January 2015. Vermont Gas is still waiting for a decision by the Public Service Board on whether it will reopen the Certificate of Public good process regarding the completion of the pipeline. Eminent domain procedures for properties with whom Vermont Gas has not come to agreement also must wait for that decision.

Vermont Business Magazine Mayor Miro Weinberger, joined by Burlington Fire Chief Seth Lasker, members of the Burlington Fire Department, and members from the University of Vermont Medical Center, today announced a paramedicine program for the Fire Department and the City of Burlington. The goal of the paramedicine program is to send a paramedic to every medical call in the City in an effort to provide the best pre-hospital medical care and pain management in transport to the UVM Medical Center. A City of Burlington paramedicine program sends a strong message to the citizens of Burlington – that during an acute medical or traumatic emergency, they will have available to them, in the critical transport time to the hospital, a pre-hospital professional of the highest quality and most exhaustive training.

Vermont Business Magazine Localvore Today has officially released a free iOS mobile app into the iTunes App Store. The app was created to make purchasing and redeeming offers and event tickets easier, to eliminate the need for printing, and to provide all the information you need about a local business right at your fingertips.

In tandem, Localvore Today closed a $700,000 Series A investment round in a private offering this month. Localvore Today has recently expanded to Portland, Maine and now reaches an audience throughout New England numbering more than 50,000 subscribers. For business owners, the company is offering several new services for digital marketing including event ticketing, marketing strategies for new and existing promotions, sponsored content on their in-house blog, and managed email marketing.

Additional Information

Vermont Business Magazine Governor Peter Shumlin issued the following statement after news that President Obama has issued a memorandum calling for increased training for professionals who prescribe opiates and a call for greater access to treatment for those suffering from prescription drug and heroin addiction. (President Obama's full plan is presented below.)

“I am incredibly encouraged by the steps President Obama is announcing today, especially his efforts to further the conversation about how we deal with pain management in America. The opiate crisis affecting this country is linked to the vast over prescription of pain medication going back to the approval of OxyContin in the mid-1990s. Since then, painkillers have been handed out like candy. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, doctors in the United States prescribed enough painkillers in 2010 to ‘medicate every American adult around-the-clock for a month.’