Once again, the St. Albans Town Selectboard is attempting to have its cake and eat it too.  In May, we learned that the Town joined Swanton in refusing help from the Conservation Law Foundation who were awarded  a $25,000. federal grant from Clean and Clear to develop a comprehensive plan for stormwater management for the area. According to the May 15 Messenger, Town Manager Christine Murphy feared that:

Any plan for the Exit 20 area had the potential to grow ‘regulatory legs’ because of the likelihood that the town will be required to obtain a Municipal Separate Storm Sewer System (MS4) permit.

Now we learn, also through the Messenger (no link available, of course), that the Town has denied the U.S. Geological Survey’s request  to install a gauge to measure stormwater run-off into Stevens Brook.  

Town manager Christine Murphy expressed concern that the gauge might detect a stormwater impairment…If a stormwater impairment was detected and the town is required to get an MS4 stormwater permit… the town could become liable for the $15,000. a year in maintenance costs on the guage under the permit, according to Murphy.

Oh, really? And is that the only concern here?  As noted in the Messenger piece, it has just been revealed that there has been an increase in erosion in Rugg Brook along Nason St. below the site of some recent development.  The town has apparently “asked” engineer Sam Ruggiano to come up with a plan to stabilize the bank, at a cost estimated to be at least $20,000.  Mr. Ruggiano can be found connected with just about every major development in the area and always seems to be the go-to guy for the Town Selectboard as well.  Whatever happened to competitive bidding?  

If you follow the bouncing ball, you will discover that both Rugg Brook and Stevens Brook are currently classed as impaired by agricultural run-off.  This has been raised as an issue with regard to the proposed Walmart at Exit 20 of I-89, another project for which Mr. Ruggiano is the engineer.

The Walmart project neatly skirted the stormwater permitting process, largely because Stevens Brook, located in its watershed, is currently classed only as impaired due to agricultural run-off. Should there be an official measurement of stormwater run-off, as would be yielded from the USGS gauge, it would almost certainly indicate significant impairment due to development and potentially be a limiting factor for future development in the Town’s “designated growth center” at Exit 20.  

C’mon, Town Selectboard, sooner or later this will all catch up to you or to your children.  How about doing the right thing right now for a change?  Instead of turning your back on planning and just winging-it in the hope that the tax revenues from sprawling development will somehow make despoiling our environmental heritage worthwhile, why don’t you take the opportunities extended to you, and look before you leap?  On the one hand we have seen how committed the Town Selectboard is to maximum exploitation of their “designated growth centers” and on the other, how unwilling they seem to be to shoulder the responsibilities that go with that exploitation.  Witness how reluctant the Town has been to install sidewalks in one of the most rapidly expanding residential communities in Vermont.  They want the rapid growth and the tax revenues they smell on that horizon, but somehow they don’t like the idea of having to maintain infrastructure like sidewalks and monitoring stormwater to ensure the health and sustainability of the local environment.

This is a great example of why we need effective statewide environmental protections.  The federal efforts may be frustrated so easily at the local level where special interests take the field in a sort of regulatory equivalent of the wild west.  You think the engineers that work with developers can be depended on to “do the right thing?”  Why should they, when failure to properly identify erosion potential can mean a $20,000.+ opportunity to do some repairs!