TimesArgus.com - We Are Vermont

New composting bill advances, with doubts

A Bobcat loader is used to mix product for potting soil at Vermont Compost Company in Montpelier. The Vermotn House has passed a bill setting out regulations for large-scale composting operations. STEFAN HARD/TIMES ARGUS FILE

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MONTPELIER – Lawmakers are continuing to struggle with legislation that regulates large-scale composting operations, especially the question of when composting is part of a farm and when it is a business.

That distinction matters to neighbors of composting operations and to farmers as well, because the proposed new law would apply a different regulatory scheme depending on which category the composting operation falls into.

The issue has been front and center in Montpelier, where Vermont Compost's successful business turns huge amounts of food scraps and waste agricultural products into useful compost, but has antagonized residential neighbors, especially because of a large population of crows attracted by food waste.

Last Thursday the House passed a composting regulation bill – which will now go on to the state Senate – but it received 46 no votes when it was being amended into final form, indicating lingering concerns about the regulatory issue. By Friday those doubts had – to some extent – been allayed and in the end no members of the House voted against it when the measure received final approval.

A key issue is that farms have always been exempt from the jurisdiction of the state's Act 250 land use law, but under the proposed bill some composting operations could find themselves facing Act 250 review. Farmers, both those in the Legislature and some outside it, were worried about how the bill makes a distinction between commercial composting operations and farmers who also compost manure and other materials – in part because it gave Act 250 regulators some say over whether a composting operation was trying to circumvent the rules.

Despite the House's unanimous approval, Jackie Folsom of the Vermont Farm Bureau says there are still concerns about whether the legislation would eliminate long-standing protections for farm operations, she said. Farmers have been and should continue to be regulated by the Agency of Agriculture, not Act 250 boards or other entities, Folsom said.

Will Stevens, a farmer and Independent representative from Shoreham, also admits some worries remain about the effect of the bill on farms, although he ultimately voted for it.

"My concerns about it had to do with the jurisdictional gray areas between farmers' right to farm and neighbors right to sue," he said.

Rep. David Deen, D-Putney, chairman of the Fish, Wildlife and Water Resources Committee, said the bill was carefully crafted so as not to hit farmers by including that it applies to those composting food scraps.

"We were very, very careful to make it apply only to those situations where people are using food residuals," he said.

Vermont Compost may may be affected by the new bill if it goes through the Senate and becomes law.

Karl Hammer, who owns the composting operation, has been in a sometimes-heated debate with his neighbors and regulators over his composting company. One thing about the bill that concerns him is that, in part, it judges whether to regulate a business as a compost company or as a farm by how much income is made from each part of the operation. That could interfere with the state's "right to farm" law protection for farmers, Hammer said.

"It reaches into right-to-farm in ways that it seems to me inappropriate for Act 250," he said. He hopes the bill – which he is not sure will apply to his operation – will be changed in the Senate, Hammer added.

"We await the end of the legislative process," he said.

Barbara LaRosa, who lives next door, said she and other neighbors have a simple goal for the legislation. "Anything that will get the food waste off our property and keep it on his property will be a step in the right direction," she said.

"I don't think Act 250 is as bad as everyone makes it out to be," LaRosa added. "If it is the right thing in the right place, you will get your Act 250 permit."

Rep. Tony Klein, D-East Montpelier, chairman of the House Natural Resources and Energy Committee, said the bill is not aimed at any one operation, including Vermont Compost, which is already in the review process.

"If the bill was directly aimed at Vermont Compost we would have been better off with no bill," he said.