Etiquette in the age of H1N1

Over the past six weeks, I have three times thought that I MIGHT be coming down with a bug.  On each occasion, I was just a day or two away from some event or meeting in which I felt an urgent obligation to participate.  Twice, I was wrong about the bug, but the suspicious symptoms didn’t pass until the day of the event or meeting. I wasn’t so lucky the third time.  Convinced it was once again a phantom complaint, I blithely dosed my head and body aches with acetaminophen and went about my business.  Around the second hour of the five-hour event, my throat turned scratchy and I knew I’d made the wrong decision.  I quietly left, feeling like Typhoid Mary.

Sound familiar?

As I nurse my tea with honey and lemon and suck on lozenges, I thought this might be a good time to poll this conscientious readership for their opinion: Under the same circumstances, would you have just sent your apologies and stayed home? Yes or no?

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ANR hearing scheduled for  6:00 PM, Dec. 2  at Twinfield Union School in Plainfield.

Before this diary peters out and off the front page, I’d like to suggest that anyone who finds this news disturbing take a couple of minutes to e-mail ANR and tell them so. If AgriMark/Cabot wants to discharge waste over additional lands, why aren’t they simply told to build that sewage treatment plant?  The pertinent ANR address is:   ANR.WWMD.PublicComment@state.vt.us and the permit is BR95-0213  AgriMark/Cabot Waste Water Indirect Discharge

Events like Saturday’s Environmental Action Conference in Randolph provide a much needed “tune-up”‘ to the activist engine, which sometimes begins to falter due to unmet expectation and sheer fatigue.  Perhaps the most important feature of these events is the opportunity they provide for fledgling groups to network and resource for one another.  

It was in this way that I heard some alarming details about the “dairy waste” spraying that Agri Mark/Cabot has been routinely practicing in northeastern Vermont for many years.  Cabot resident, Jill Alexander, attended the Environmental Action Conference as a representative  of Whey To Go, a grassroots group of concerned citizens who are asking ANR to deny Agri Mark/Cabot’s current request to add additional properties to the land over which waste may be dispersed.*** The group contends that the original permit specified whey as the material to be dispersed, and that since whey has been identified as a marketable bi-product of cheese-making, it is no longer the primary material in the sprayings.  Instead of whey, a cocktail of chemicals from production and clean-up predominate in the current mix.  Whey to Go takes the position that this noxious effluent represents a threat to human health and the environment, and that it’s discharge does not comply with the original permit.

(***Please note this is a revision to the original text which read,”…to expand permitted spraying operations from 100,000 gallons per day to 150,000 gallons per day. I have just received the text of the public notice from ANR, which prompted this revision.)

Apparently, there are also three unlined lagoons in Cabot, that were formerly whey ponds but now reportedly hold “polished permeate,”  which I gather is sort of  a generic term that does not actually identify the chemical composition of the liquid but rather the process from which it resulted. Whey to Go says that in the late 80’s, Cabot was granted a land-use permit to build a waste treatment plant in order to handle the material collected in these ponds which had already been identified as problematic to the environment.   The plant was never built and the collection of material in the unlined lagoons and spraying of waste water continues to the present.  Jill reports that there is a high incidence of cancers in the region, and it is believed that among other things, the wastewater contains substances such as benzene, a known carcinogen; and tolulene, a lung irritant.

Seven Days did some in-depth reporting on the situation last year, highlighting ANR’s failure to adequately monitor the spraying operation and providing a little background on the phantom waste treatment plant that never got built:

The current fight over Agri-Mark’s Act 250 permit is not the first time that Cabot’s waste-disposal processes have come under the microscope. In 1986, when the creamery was undergoing a major expansion, the state told the company it must build a sewage treatment plant by 1991, since many of the fields it uses for land application are in the headwaters of the Lamoille, Connecticut and Winooski rivers.

The creamery even received a federal grant from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development to build the plant in Cabot. But, for various reasons, the plant was never built and the funds were diverted to other uses. A few years later, the legislature changed the legal definition of dairy waste so it no longer qualified as “sewage,” eliminating the need for the treatment plant.

Whey to Go is holding a public informational meeting at 6:00 PM on November 16, at Cabot Commons, 36 Glinka Rd. in Cabot, and they really hope people from all over the affected region will make a point of being there.  Contact Jill Alexander: 4reiki@fairpoint.net with any questions.

The ANR public hearing concerning AgriMark’s request to expand the volume of spraying will take place on December 2 at 6:00 PM at the Twinfield Union School, 106 Nasmith Rd. in Plainfield.  It is vitally important to have a strong public showing at the hearing in order to send a clear message to ANR that clean-up of the Cabot operation is a public priority.

Chances are pretty good that if you don’t live in one of the towns that have been exposed to the spraying, you do live near one of the affected streams, brooks and rivers.  I am adding a long list of the affected communities and waterways at the end of this posting.  Have a look and try to be at the ANR Hearing if you can’t make it to the November 16 pre-meeting:

Affected Towns: Plainfield, Glover, Marshfield, St. Johnsbury, Lyndon, Sheffield, Barton, Craftsbury, Cabot, Hardwick, Peacham, Walden, Danville, East Montpelier, Greensboro, Albany, Wolcott, Calais, Barnet, Wheelock, Barton, Brookfield, Stannard, Irasburg, Morristown

Jill has just sent me some additional information that I thought I would share with you:

…there are three ways Agri-Mark disposes of waste:

1.  The non-sewage dairy wastewater is sprayed onto fields via trucks.

2.  This same non-sewage dairy wastewater is trucked to farmer’s manure pits and pumped into them so the farmers can spread it “wily nilly” without restrictions at all.

3.  The so called polished permeate is pumped from the Agri-Mark main building to three unlined lagoons where it is stored.  They claim this stuff is “pure water” but aren’t allowed to put it into the river directly.  (Does that tell you that it isn’t “pure water” or what!)  Then it is pumped UPHILL for about a quarter of a mile.  This stuff is Not ALLOWED to be land applied anywhere else except on my old family farmstead and a small field below it.  There are huge sprayers, we counted around 20 but I never wanted to go near enough to physically count them, that solely spray this junk onto the same areas from something like May-Nov. 1 EVERY DAY in hopes that it will “evaporate” and become airborne.  Naturally since I live due East of these sprayers, I am bound to get some residues.  The remained of the “permeate” water runs downhill and makes it’s path wherever water does with the Winooski river nearby.  At a District 5 environmental commission site visit, I insisted that we visit the fields, lagoons.  Pecolar (AGri-Mark) insisted that there were no sprayers in the beautiful old hayfields on our old farm.  I rather forced them to stop and walked the entire commission and citizens out into my old field  (which Agri-Mark had purposely turned the sprayers off that day probably in fear that this might happen,) and showed them that there were INDEED many, many sprayers located there and discovered even more of them on a steep slope on a field below that one. (I would estimate at least 20 sprayers)   I also pointed out areas where cinderblocks were placed to slow down the flow of these waters and apparent erosion clear to me and Jessica Miller to be the result of water flow that had been taken place.  I also noted that our beautiful hayfield had turned to moss.  Agri-Mark announced that they were going to have it planted to winter rye but had been letting my neighbor grow pumpkins commercially there for the past couple of years.  The upper part of that same field has been seen to also receive “non-sewage dairy waste” sprayings as well.  No pumpkins were planted this year at all so apparently things didn’t grow that well there as my neighbor reported across the street.  On that same site visit, District 5 Environmental, Agri-Mark, party status members present, I asked Agri-Mark’s Pecolar why the backhoes were down making repairs on these lagoons several times if they were so secure.  He at first denied this and then when I reported that I SAW them there several times he offered up that the Muskrats had made holes in the sides of the embankment causing the ponds to “leak” on many occasions.

I just  received the most offensive phone solicitation from the NRA on this of all days!  Even as the FBI was attempting to secure the site of today’s mass shooting in Orlando, and the victims and families touched by yesterday’s horrific armed rampage in Texas mourn their dead and struggle with a world that will never be the same for them,  the NRA’s first instinct was to aggressively promote their anti-gun-control agenda.  That’s cold; really cold, and put me in mind of their Columbine strategy.

The caller said they wanted a response to a single “survey” question.  Curious, I told her to go ahead and she played the recorded pitch which went something like this:  The UN is trying to eliminate worldwide gun-rights with the specific intention of harming the U.S.  There was a lot of hyperbole and invocation against Nancy Pelosi  and Congress and I don’t remember what all else.  Then a male NRA member cut in live and posed the survey question to me which was something like, ” Do you think that foreign dictators should be allowed to take away your guns, etc., etc.?”

I told him how inappropriate I found his phone call to be; what an oddly warped effort at damage-control.  He thanked me for my time and hung-up.

Duh?

When I got past my indignation and thought about it, it was funny that, in my case,  they had so completely missed their “target.”  That reminded me of a letter my husband recently received from the Republican Party. It must have been generated by the same misguided engine that identified our household for the NRA.   I saved it because it was absolutely priceless:  

“Dear Mr. Prent,”

it read,

” Strengthening our Party for the 2010 elections is going to take a massive grassroots effort all across America…Enclosed is your official 2009 Congressional District Census registered Code #…in your name as a representative of your area…Because of your high level of political involvement and commitment to the Republican Party, your personal input on the questions presented in your Census Document is critical to our Party’s future.”

 It goes on in that manner to solicit a donation from this presumably staunch Republican, and is signed by Michael Steele.  Naturally, the enclosed “Census Document” is full of leading questions about trusting Obama and the Democrats and all of the favorite Republican soapbox standards…a regular right-wing stem-winder. The only problem is that my husband is neither Republican, nor a right wing sympathizer.  In fact, my husband is not even a citizen!  He’s one of those horrible people known as “immigrants;” and even worse, he’s from that dangerously progressive neighbor to the north, CANADA!

This is a tough topic to write about, but someone’s got to do it.  All those happy Holsteins cracking-wise in the California cheese commercials aren’t telling the whole truth.  Dairy has a darker side.

The only way that the more or less continuous milk production necessary for a profitable dairy operation can occur is if the cows calve frequently.  Female calves increase the productive herd, but male calves are routinely culled and end up as hot dogs and luncheon meats.  That’s the simple reality; and even if your diet is primarily vegetarian, if you drink milk or eat milk products (and I do) this is the system from which we derive our food.

That is why the news of repeated violations against the humane treatment of animals by Bushway Packing of Grand Isle, so very close to home, is  deeply and profoundly disturbing to me.  I could barely make it through descriptions of the abuses committed against infant cattle at the facility, let alone the video footage compiled by the Humane Society of the United States who investigated the plant.  If these animals must be killed so that dairy farms can maintain their already marginal profitability,  there is absolutely no excuse for mistreatment of the calves on their way to slaughter.  

I have no doubt that dairy farmers who care for the animals they raise find this as appalling as I do; but it does force the question once again of whether or not we are devoting too much of our resources to raising animals for food and not enough to growing sustainable food crops.   When our food systems get really far out of whack is it really so surprising that the ethical and social fabric of human decency begins to fray from neglect?

Anyway, visit the  Humane Society website for the full story…if you can bear it.  

“State’s attorney finds no individual at fault.”  That was the headline in today’s St. Albans Messenger.

It’s  a sad little story, that of 23-year old Ashley Ellis who went to jail for “careless and negligent operation of a motor vehicle” and died two days later when she herself was carelessly and negligently denied medication for a known health condition; and apparently no one is to blame, at least not in the narrow legal sense.  What that says about the way we deal with sick and troubled people in this country speaks volumes.  There are, we are told, a higher percentage of people in jail in this country than in any other country on the globe, with an average of 701 people out of every 10,000 individuals, currently imprisoned.  The lion’s share of these incarcerations apparently represent drug-related crimes of possession and petty trafficking; people who might be better and more economically dealt with through effective intervention and rehabilitation programs.  But we have allowed a selective puritanism and Byzantine sense of justice to morph into the dog-wagging tail that is our twenty-first century penal system.  Inevitably, jailing people has become big business, too;  really, REALLY  big business with contractors, subcontractors and a netherworld economy  as much dependent on a steady stream of “customers” as IBM or AT&T.  

I don’t know any of the details about Ashley Ellis’ short life of “crime.”  This little girl probably should have been deprived of her driver’s license long ago, both for her own and other people’s safety.  She certainly needed a lot more intervention than just potassium tablets could provide; but that was the very least that the Northwest State Correctional Facility health service contractors should have done for her; and for neglecting that responsibility, they most certainly should be held accountable.

In light of recent efforts on the federal level to have the privilege of “person-hood” bestowed upon corporations, I found  advocate Barry Kade’s comment that he doesn’t “know how you would go about charging a corporation with criminal negligence” to be food for thought.  The parties seeking to assert person-hood for corporations are doing so in order to secure first amendment rights for corporations so that they might have broader  influence on elections. Even the ACLU is reluctantly admitting that this argument may have some merit.  Wouldn’t it be ironic if corporations won person-hood  only to be exposed to an endless barrage of criminal negligence cases on behalf of victims like Ashley Ellis whose lonely health struggle just got lost in the disinterested shuffle of corporate efficiencies?

I am not without an axe to grind over Walmart’s land use practices since I am an active member of the grassroots group Northwest Citizens For Responsible Growth; but the latest target of Walmart’s greed-grab is taking place in cyber-space.   As you have no doubt heard, Walmart.com is making a play to monopolize online booksales in a price war with Target and Amazon.  It doesn’t matter which behemoth wins the war, because it will be us, the readers and writers, who are the real losers.

In the 1970’s, I worked for a time at two huge book retailers in Canada, “W.H. Smith & Sons,” and “Classics.” Classics died in its own grab for dominance, and W.H. Smith has been reduced to the newspaper stand from whence it came in England.  Those were still pretty good years for publishing, with lots and lots of niche publishers and legions of independent book sellers.  However narrow your audience, if the material was good, you could sooner or later find a publisher for it; and we, the reading public were all the richer for the bounty of small editions that were available to us.  It was during the decades before  Barnes and Noble went national that some of the greatest American literature found its way from obscurity into print.

At some point, someone in marketing heaven came up with the brilliant idea of planned “remainders.”  A “remainder” is a book that remains in stock after demand at retail has subsided.  That book would normally  be marked down in price and moved  to a sale table.  The idea of planned remainders was to deliberately print huge overstocks of a book in the first edition. That way, while the book was still “hot” a large number of copies could be sold at retail;  but an even larger number would be expected to sell afterward at the slashed “sacrifice” price. This way far more copies would be sold and by cost-averaging, the expense of publishing, advertising and distributing the volume would be more than handsomely offset by the return.  This practice inevitably became so common that we now have a situation where sale books sometimes seem to outnumber full priced ones at booksellers, and only the pound-foolish run out and buy a new release at the cover price.

It would seem, on the face of it, like readers had fallen into a vat of cream, thanks to such marketing schemes. Cheaper books must mean more to read for everyone!  What’s not to like?  The answer to that is “plenty.”  Have you noticed how many great books you look for now that are “out of print?”  And have you noticed that what IS in print is mainly picture books and bestsellers?  That’s because the small independent publishers who fostered great writers with niche audiences have all but vanished due to the pressures of a bottom-line driven marketplace.  Stacy Mitchell explains this dynamic much better than I ever could in her landmark expose on mass marketing, “Big Box Swindle.” In fact, she devotes most of a chapter (“Monopolized Consumers”) to the demise of independent publishing and bookselling in America.  It’s well-worth the retail price, if you can ever lay your hands on it:

…Publishers may also self-censor books they believe the chains would dislike.  More than one publisher rejected this book on those grounds.  “I thought this was an excellent proposal,” one editor replied by e-mail. ” Genuinely fascinating, and there was interest in the meeting but the problem is the obvious one: the exposure of Barnes & Noble (sic).  Our publisher shut it down immediately -didn’t want to bite the hand that feeds it, etc.  I hope you’re able to find someone willing to tough this one out; as I say, it seems like a fine and important book.”  “Big Box Swindle” by Stacy Mitchell  Beacon Press 2006

What Stacy will no doubt find herself writing into future editions (should there ever BE any future editions) is an epilogue on the final defeat of American literature at the hands of the marketing geniuses who started this latest price war.  Having driven small publishers out of business in their zeal to corner a new discount audience, Barnes and Noble and Borders will now witness the final devaluation of bricks and mortar bookstores;  and of the printed word, itself.  Cheaper and cheaper editions of only  “bestseller” material (and fewer and fewer of those) will become the publishing priority, with all else falling to self-publishing and the blogosphere.  There is a an odd kind of symmetry to this,  like the destruction of the monasteries that ushered in the Dark Ages.

Anyway, that’s why I personally receive the news of Walmart.com’s price war with Amazon and Target.com like the Angel of Death to American literacy.

Anyone who has ever struggled to pay the bills with minimum wage jobs can relate to the predicament so many Vermonters are in when they or their kids get a cold or the flu.  Taking a couple of days off and keeping the kids home just makes good sense, but not if it means there won’t be a paycheck at the end of the week.

As we contemplate the threat posed by the H1N1 flu virus, could anyone doubt that it serves the public good for sick people to stay home from work? Yet, many Vermonters have no choice but to work through an illness because less than half of all private sector employees are entitled to paid sick leave.  Those without this benefit are generally the least able to afford losing a paid day, and are often from the service sector where they necessarily come in contact with the public the most.  So we all suffer as a result of their inability to take paid sick leave when necessary.  And what about the children of those workers who have no paid family leave?  When a child gets sick or should visit  a healthcare professional, how often does the parent have to choose between caring for the child’s immediate healthcare needs and a very necessary pay check for the entire family?  Any parent can tell you that infections brought home from school are the plague of every family with school age-children.   Furthermore, with an aging population that is less and less likely to be able to afford assistance outside of the family, it is more important than ever that we begin to build into employment  some level of mandated family leave so that workers can meet the most basic needs for assistance of their elderly parents.

The impact of neglected illness and family stress on productivity is pretty universally recognized. Still, we haven’t yet made it mandatory that every full-time worker be entitled to a reasonable number of paid sick days and/or family leave. A bill that is currently before the Vermont House (H382) would go a long way toward correcting that deficiency.  Have a look at the bill and see if you don’t think that we should be able to do this much for our fellow Vermonters.

It has been brought to my attention that perhaps I should precede this diary with the following disclaimer which I already inserted further into the text.  I am an active and vocal member of the Northwest Citizens for Responsible Growth, and have been for almost six years.  

I think most readers may have heard that a proposal for the largest Walmart store in Vermont, to be located in St. Albans, has been wending its way through the permit system for a number of years, steadfastly opposed by several entities, including a lion-hearted band of Franklin County residents, The Northwest Citizens for Responsible Growth, and the owners of Hudak Farm.  They have been joined and supported in this historic challenge by the Vermont Natural Resource Council. What you may not know is that the St. Albans Walmart struggle represents the longest continuous opposition to a store on a single site.  This dubious distinction came to light recently through the good offices of the  Boston Globe who did a pretty fair job of chronicling the epic struggle to date.  A smaller Walmart was first propsed for the site in 1993, but later denied an Act 250 permit by the Supreme Court of Vermont.

Some salient points that may have been buried in the length of the article bear repeating (after the fold)…

1)  There is a significant  family produce farm (Hudak’s) located just three-tenths of a mile north of the propsed site.  This is not, as the developer is fond of characterizing it,  merely a “farm stand.” The family actively farms both sides of Route 7 and has a thriving business.  The beauty of the farm makes it an attractive tourist destination, and the family contributes much to the local community.

2)  The current developer, JLD Properties of Williston, first optioned, and then purchased the property specifically for the purpose of building a Walmart store on the site even though he was fully aware that the previous developer had been denied an Act 250 permit for that purpose.  Mr. Davis is fond of presenting himself as the helpless victim of an unfair permitting process that continues to frustrate his attempt to profit from his investment.  He conveniently overlooks the fact that his arrogant insistence on a previously denied project puts project opponents in the position of having to waste time and resources to fight something that should be excluded from possibility, simply as a matter of settled law.

3)  The Northwest Citizens for Responsible Growth have never opposed an appropriately sized and located Walmart in Franklin County.  In the name of full disclosure, I have to mention that I am an  active member of the NWCRG.  We oppose this project because its size and location make it a threat to the local economy, the environment, and to the social fabric of Franklin County. We would oppose a store of this size and in this location no matter whether it was Target, Sears, K-Mart, or Fred Meyer.

4)  The so-called “designated growth center” for which this  Walmart is proposed is merely a fiction of the Town fathers, who are not qualified planners and have arbitrarily concluded that both exits ofI-89 should be designated growth centers for the Town.  These designations are contrary to the intent of the Vermont statutes governing growth centers.   The actual traditional village center of the Town is located at St. Albans Bay,  about as far away from both highway exits as physically possible within the confines of the donut-shaped Town.

The current status of the Walmart application for Act 250, is that it has been approved by the District 6 Commission and that approval has been appealed by the NWCRG, the owners of Hudak Farm,    and the Vermont Natural Resource Council; all acting as a single voice.  It has also been appealed in a separate and different action by the owners of the Highgate Shopping Center and of Maplefield’s.  Judge Durkin of the Environmental Court heard arguments in those appeals this past June, and we are now awaiting a decision.  Still outstanding are complaints we have raised regarding several instances of conflicts of interest in the local and state permit  process, but Judge Durkin has declined to address those at this point.  Could this application go all of the way to the Supreme Court, as did the last one?  Quite possibly.

Stay tuned for updates.

Act 250 is once again under attack.  This time, it’s the language protecting archaeological evidence from permanent loss.  Already the developer’s best friend,  Jim Douglas is well on his way to adding another label to his dubious legacy: Governor Eraserhead. Why, he’s practically a deskset.

Under the current language of the law, any project that comes under Act 250 review and has the potential for archaeological significance, must be investigated for evidence before development begins. The cost of that preliminary investigation is assumed by the developer.  In another bid to weaken the law and strengthen the developer’s position in the process, the Governor proposes to change that language so that unless a site has already yielded evidence of archaeological significance, no matter how great the potential, no investigation will be required.  Furthermore, the cost of such investigation, should it be required on the basis of previous evidence,  would be shifted from the developer to a state pool funded by a levy on all development.  

The Governor’s argument is that this would direct resources to archaeological investigations where there is the greatest likelihood of positive results.  Except in rare cases,  this alteration would effectively eliminate the criteria from  developer’s requirements.  In reality, it would also mean that any important archaeological site that has not already been found, never would be found and would potentially be damaged beyond recovery in the development process. The Vermont Professional Archaeologists Association (VPAA) also points out that a state pool funded in the manner the Governor suggests might well run out of resources leaving a site unexplored, and the developer would not be required to contribute further.

While everyone stands to lose when archaeological evidence is destroyed, the significance of the proposed change must be particularly bitter for the Abenaki, since so much of their history in particular remains undiscovered in the earth.

In a statement released today, the VPPA announced it’s intention to raise the proposed change to Act 250 in the upcoming gubernatorial election.  

Rob Ingraham, Co-Chair of the (VPAA) had the folllowing comment:

“Perhaps the best way to understand the changes being proposed to Act 250 is to examine the work conducted in Vermont by multiple cultural resource management

groups.  Under the new rule changes, sites would only be eligible for investigation if they were previously registered with the state as a historic site.  Simply put, the rule changes would be a ‘no new site’ policy.  Exceptions would be made under ‘exceptional’

circumstances and the projections for annual investigations under these criteria drops

dramatically.  The opportunity for truly significant and informative sites to undergo study would be lost; sites like the eleven-thousand year old hunting camp (one of the few in the state) at Okemo would have been lost to irresponsible development.”

The entire VPPA statement  follows the fold.

Montpelier, VT- Governor Jim Douglas is advocating radical and regressive changes to Vermont’s Act 250 process, specifically changes in the wording  surrounding archaeological investigations within the state.  These changes are being touted by Douglas and

his representatives as semantically void.  This is simply not the case.

Currently the Act 250 process requires, under limited conditions, developers to contract with professional archaeologists in order to make sure unregistered historic and prehistoric sites, such as Native American burial grounds, are not damaged during the construction process without first being excavated and studied. Land forms are required to undergo testing if they meet the criteria of scientifically proven predictive models, such as proximity to water, lack of slope, etc.. Presently less than three percent of Act 250 applications require such testing. When such phase one testing is required, the average cost to individual developers is $5000-10,000. Douglas is seeking to eradicate this process.    

Rob Ingraham, Co-Chair of the Vermont Professional Archaeologists’ Association says,  “Perhaps the best way to understand the changes being proposed to Act 250 is to examine the work conducted in Vermont by multiple cultural resource management

groups.  Under the new rule changes, sites would only be eligible for investigation if they were previously registered with the state as a historic site.  Simply put, the rule changes would be a ‘no new site’ policy.  Exceptions would be made under ‘exceptional’

circumstances and the projections for annual investigations under these criteria drops

dramatically.  The opportunity for truly significant and informative sites to undergo study would be lost; sites like the eleven-thousand year old hunting camp (one of the few in the state) at Okemo would have been lost to irresponsible development.”

The Vermont Professional Archaeologists’ Association, representing the majority of working archaeologists across the state, has fully reviewed the proposed Act 250 rule changes and flatly condemns the Douglas administration’s proposals concerning

cultural preservation as short sighted and against the common interest of Vermonters. The VPAA does not accept the administration’s assertion that the changes will not weaken cultural preservation, or interfere with the investigation of Abenaki prehistory. The VPAA holds that public statements made to that effect by a Douglas appointee Deputy Commissioner of the Department of Economic, Housing and Community Development Tayt Brooks are politically motivated fabrications aimed at misleading Vermonters.

“It is no mistake that the only archaeology folkthat you see supporting these rule changes are appointees of the Governor and state officials with a vested interest in towing the line. Administration cheerleaders aside, working archeologists are united

in their opposition to these rule changes,” said VPAA Political Director, David Van Deusen.    

At issue is the Douglas proposal to drop the word “potential” from the 250 criteria as it relates to required archaeological investigations prior to development; a move that professional rank and file archaeologists charge would result in the end of all

meaningful archaeology reviews prior to major development projects, as well as catastrophic job cuts in their profession.

In addition, the VPAA is questioning the Douglas proposal to shift the funding source for archaeology surveys from the private developer, to a statewide funding pool. Douglas appointees are currently proposing that a tax be placed on all major development projects at the level of 50 cents for each $1000 of projected value, and that money be made available to any and all developers who are required to perform basic, “phase one” archaeological surveys. While the VPAA is not opposed to the spirit of this

funding shift, they are concerned that this fund would be small, subject to reallocation by the Legislator, and could spell the end of archaeological testing when it inevitably runs dry.  

“What the VPAA needs to see is an agreement, in writing, that states that if and when this fund runs dry, any further archaeological field testing, as required by Act 250, be paid for by the private developer. This is how the system currently operates, and we need this guarantee so that we know that Douglas is not trying to underfund us out of

existence,” said VPAA Co-Chair Jeremy Ripin, a resident of Moretown.

In addition to defending their jobs, the VPAA contends that it is fighting on behalf of all Vermonters who believe our common past is something with intrinsic value.

“The underlying history of Vermont is unchanging, but our basic understanding of that history relies on field studies. Without systematic archaeological studies, as required by Act 250, our ability to understand our past (be it that of the Green Mountain Boys or the Abenaki) runs the risk of being forever destroyed by irresponsible development. As a professional archaeologist, and as a Vermonter, I understand the proposed rule changes to amount to the end of field studies, the end of our profession, and the end of the road as far as understanding our past is concerned,” said VPAA Co-Chair Jeremy Ripin.

Mr. Ripin continued, “Working Vermont archaeologists will fight back against the gutting of our common cultural heritage by building a grassroots, broad-based movement of concerned citizens. We have already gained the support of the United Staff at UVM, and have talked with the Vermont Workers’ Center. We will continue to reach out, not

only to organized labor, but also to the hundreds of local historical societies across the state, and all Vermonters who believe our common past is something that we need to preserve for future generations.”

Maryann Beaupre, 65, a resident of the Northeast Kingdom, member of the Morgan Historical Society, and firm supporter of the VPAA said,   “As a member of a Vermont Historical Society I believe that it is important to maintain the cultural heritage of the

state.  I support the ideals of the VPAA and their campaign to protect Vermont’s history.”

The VPAA intends on endorsing candidates for Governor and LT Governor based on the candidates commitment to preserving archaeology and historic preservation as a core element of the Act 250 process. As part of this process, the VPAA will also be looking to back candidates that are supportive of the Abenaki cause.  

“While we recognize that folks will be voting for Governor based on many issues, we contend that thousands of Vermonters care very deeply about the preservation of our Abenaki and colonial past. This is a serious campaign issue. Therefore we intend to

inform the one hundred plus historical societies, the many members of the amateurVermont Archaeology Society, and other interested persons as to which candidates are opposed to preserving Vermont history, and which are supportive of Vermont history. It is our intention to have a small hand in electing who our next Governor is,” said VPAA Political Director, David Van Deusen.

To date the VPAA has been in dialogue with democratic candidate for Governor Deb Markowitz, as well as Progressive David Zuckerman, a Burlington Representitive to the VT House, and possible candidate for Lt Governor.  While the VPAA has yet make any official endorsements, leaders in the organization state that Zuckerman has been very

supportive of their cause, and has said that he would be willing to make a public statement of support if asked. The VPAA intends to open dialogue with other campaigns, including Brian Dubie and the various Democratic contenders, as early as this week.

I spent the weekend with a bunch of other environmental activists up in Maine.  We came from a lot of different places with a number of different concerns, but one consistent theme was conflict of interest in the permit and regulatory processes.

We’re regarded as “lucky” here in Vermont, in that we have at least the semblance of citizen interface within the regulatory process.  However, as we all know, political appointees, cronyism and an absence of consequences for exercising conflicts of interest weaken even our relatively progressive system.

It’s time we demand of our legislators that they apply themselves to the task of crafting specific criteria for assessing conflicts of interest.  Those criteria must not just reflect the traditional relationships of family and employer; but must be designed to include the less traditional relationships  such as life-partnerships.  No one who holds a decision making role on behalf of the public good should be allowed to waiver from those strict criteria.  A specific responsibility to punish violations of Conflict of Interest must be assigned to the Secretary of State, and significant punitive measures must be put into place.   If  a conflict of interest comes into play,and the public decision-maker in question does not recuse him or herself from the process that violation can be easily established and a truly consequential punishment administered, that will serve to deter others from similar behaviors.  

I doubt that many Vermonters are even aware of the fact that, when Gov. Douglas took office, he revised the ethics policy of his administration. It now appears to reflect a certain tolerance for  conflicts of interest.   Here is a link to the entire revised policy.

Note especially this passage and the qualification “irreconcilable” added to “conflicts.”

WHEREAS, it is also essential to the proper operation of government that those best qualified not be discouraged from serving as public officers by requiring them to relinquish totally the opportunity to further their own interests, at least where such interests do not create irreconcilable conflicts with their official responsibilities; and

Even when the policy has been violated, the Governor’s ethics policy offers little in the way of enforcement.  Here follows the entire section devoted to enforcement:

V. Enforcement

The purpose of this Executive Code of Ethics is to provide guidance to gubernatorial Appointees covered herein, and during such appointment, except as otherwise required by law, only the Governor or his designated agent shall have the power to sanction any violations hereof. Nothing in this code shall create a right to continue state employment. The remedy for a violation of post-employment restrictions set forth in Section III(B) shall rest with the Public Body before which the former Appointee appears and, barring unusual circumstances, shall result only in disqualifying the former Appointee from appearing or participating in the particular matter.

The public good is only well-served in the permit and regulatory process if those assuming the mantle of decision-making are held to the highest possible standards of conduct and impartiality.  It’s time for our legislators to demonstrate their commitment to that ideal by establishing strict definitions , responsibility for enforcement, and meaningful consequences with regard to conflicts of interest in the permit and regulatory system.