Current News

Vermont residents now have access to a free prescription assistance program. The statewide program, called Vermont Rx Card, is scheduled to officially commence today. Vermont Rx Card is being launched to help the uninsured and underinsured residents of Vermont gain access to significant savings on prescription medications at local pharmacies.
The Vermont Medical Society (VMS) is working to generate support for the program by encouraging their physician members to offer the program to their patients. VMS works closely with Vermont Rx Card to educate all clinics, hospitals, county health departments and urgent care clinics throughout the State about the program. Additionally, VMS is working directly with physicians and hospitals across Vermont to distribute hard cards to anyone in need.

US Senator Patrick Leahy (D-VT) announced Tuesday that Vermont has secured more than $9.2 million in federal grants from the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to help with prevention and preparedness.
‘Preserving our national security starts with prevention and preparedness,’ said Leahy. ‘First responders in Vermont are on the front lines each and every day, protecting our communities, securing our borders and ports of entry, and keeping our citizens safe. Governments from Washington to local communities in Vermont are all tightening their fiscal belts, but these grants are an investment in our safety and security. They will help Vermont ensure our borders and our communities are safe and secure.’
Vermont will receive grant awards under seven different DHS programs:

Dealer.com (www.dealer.com), the global leader in automotive internet marketing solutions, was today recognized by Inc. Magazine as one of America’s fastest growing companies for the fifth year in a row. With a three-year sales growth of 390 percent, Dealer.com placed No. 800 on the fourth annual Inc 5000 list, and also ranked No. 57 in the Business Products and Services category in the United States.
‘Making the Inc. 5000 list for the fifth year running is a strong testament to our innovative products, incredible growth, strong client relationships, and dedication to our employees,’ said Mark Bonfigli, Founder and CEO of Dealer.com. ‘We are honored to be listed among such excellent company, and look forward to continuing to grow Dealer.com for years to come.’

Gifford Medical Center’s sixth annual Last Mile Ride held on Saturday, Aug. 20, attracted a record 219 motorcyclists, 23 cyclists and raised $48,000 for end-of-life care.
The charity motorcycle ride was the Randolph hospital’s sixth annual. Since it’s start in 2006, rider numbers and money raised have climbed significantly. That first year just 74 riders turned out and $7,000 was raised.
The leap in participation is due to word of mouth and support for the cause, according to hospital organizers. Gifford offers special care in a garden-side suite for patients at the end-of-life. The ride supports extra services for these patients and their families and also helps patients in advanced illness or choosing to die at home with special needs and last wishes.
The steady climb in dollars raised for the cause is due to the support of sponsors, including many area businesses, and riders’ fund raising efforts. Riders who raise the most win prizes.

The Pew Charitable Trusts announced the launch of the Cultural Data Project (CDP) in Vermont, giving nonprofit arts and cultural organizations state of the art technology to help them strengthen their management capacity and demonstrate their impact across Vermont. The project’a web-based data collection tool for arts and cultural organizations and their advocates’launched with funding from the Vermont Arts Council, The Vermont Community Foundation and The Kresge Foundation.
‘As cultural organizations navigate a challenging economic climate with limited resources, the CDP provides the information they need to track programmatic, operational and financial trends,’ says Neville Vakharia, CDP director. ‘Arts and cultural organizations in Vermont will be better able to understand their financial condition, improve management practices and plan for the future.’

Vermont citizens and news media can now readily find out the names of vendors selling goods and services to state government, and the purpose and amounts of the transactions involved. The Vermont Transparency site (www.vttransparency.org) now allows viewers to quickly sort through over 121,000 vendor transactions occurring over the first three quarters of FY 2011 (through March 31, 2011).
The site now reveals, for example, that in fiscal 2010 Vermont spent $25 million to provide heating fuel assistance, almost $24 million to rent heavy equipment and other construction machinery, and $22.5 million in interest on state bonds.
As other examples, the site shows that Newcomb Studios of Montpelier, run by cartoonist Tim Newcomb, received six payments from state agencies, totaling $9,238, for graphic arts work. The Vermont Natural Resources Council, with seven registered lobbyists, received one payment of $9,181.

Tritium has been detected for the first time in water taken at the shoreline of the Connecticut River. The Vermont Department of Health Laboratory has confirmed that samples of water taken on July 18 and July 25 from the river at the point where contaminated groundwater flows from the shoreline into the river measured 534 and 611 picocuries per liter, just above the lower limit of detection.
‘We have been tracking the plume of tritium-contaminated groundwater as it moves slowly toward the river, and this new finding confirms that the tritium has traveled from the Yankee site to the Connecticut River,’ said Health Commissioner Harry Chen, MD.

Governor Peter Shumlin issued this statement in response to the new finding:

Secretary of State Jim Condos announced today that the Vermont State Archives and Records Administration (VSARA) ‘ a division of the Secretary of State’s Office ‘ has been awarded a grant of $118,078 from the National Historical Publications and Records Commission (NHPRC) to preserve and make more accessible archival court records. The Vermont project is one of nineteen archival projects from around the country that the NHPRC awarded funding for this year.

Reebok-CCM Hockey US, Inc (formerly known as Maska US, Inc) and Reebok-CCM Hockey, Inc, have settled a claim by the Vermont Attorney General that they failed to conduct required groundwater testing in 2008 at a property they own in Bradford. They will pay $40,000 to resolve the matter.
The Reebok-CCM companies were required under a 1996 agreement with the Attorney General to conduct quarterly groundwater testing at a property in Bradford that was formerly used to manufacture hockey equipment. The manufacturing process involved perchloroethylene, commonly known as ‘perc’ and regulated as a hazardous waste under Vermont law. While Maska owned the site, perc was released there, and when Reebok purchased Maska it succeeded to Maska’s obligations to monitor the groundwater at the Bradford site for perc.

The Vermont Department of Labor has announced that the seasonally-adjusted statewide unemployment rate for July 2011 increased by two-tenths of a percent to 5.7 percent. Although this reflects the third month in a row that Vermont experienced an increase in the statewide rate, the Vermont July 2011 unemployment rate is .4 percent lower than in July 2010, and 3.4 percent lower than the national unemployment rate. Total employment showed a similar pattern, with numbers down from June 2011 but up from July 2010 (sse table below).

Waterbury. The Vermont Agency of Natural Resources today announced the release of five environmental permits to Green Mountain Power, Inc., for the construction and operation of a wind powered electric generating facility on Lowell Mountain in Lowell, Vermont. The project, known as Kingdom Community Wind (KCW), includes the installation of an access road and 21 wind turbines along the ridgeline, and the upgrade of a related transmission line.

Under an $11-million grant from the National Institutes of Health (NIH), Dartmouth Medical School (DMS) will lead a network of northern New England institutions in recruiting, training, and supporting young quantitative biologists to teach and conduct research into the ways that genes and the environment work together to trigger and prevent disease.
With computational geneticist Jason Moore, PhD as principal investigator, DMS will establish an NIH Center of Biomedical Research Excellence (COBRE.) Dartmouth scientists in several disciplines will join forces with colleagues at the University of New Hampshire, the University of Maine, the University of Vermont, Harvard University’s national center for biomedical computing, the University of Southern Maine, Maine’s Jackson Labs and Mount Desert Island Biological Laboratory, and Maine Medical Center.