From: pra@vtlink.net
To: vincentilluzzi@hotmail.com
Subject: ANR procedures
Date: Mon, 26 Oct 2009 14:37:53 -0400
Dear Senator Illuzzi:
I am writing you, because I believe it is important to correct the way the Natural Resource Department and Agency of Natural Resources are processing information. ANR now wrongly characterizes water as a hazard to health instead of a critically valuable resource. Civil engineers are being taught to think of water as a pollutant. This is a serious mistake. If President Obama puts the National Environmental Policy Act and the EPA back on track, it may help correct federal mandates. For forty years, administrations in Washington have been marketing atomic energy and chemicals derived from fossil fuels. The resulting damage is now global.
Fossil-fuel derived fertilizers are polluting the Missisquoi River killing fish in Lake Champlain. Phosphorus from fertilizing genetically modified corn is causing more chemicals to have to be bought and put into our water resources to treat sewerage. Soils washed by rain over treeless farmlands are clogging drainage systems. Wells in mountain valleys are being polluted by their water becoming mixed with storm water. Clean mountain springs in the mountains release water to the valleys below, this is good drinking water, but the water needs to be piped to stay clean. Small hydro power systems are starting to be considered to finance piping and/or repiping municipal water systems.
The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission was set up in 1978 to administrate energy generation. Jeff Cueto is out of step with FERC guidelines. FERC requires states to file projects with the commission before a state rules on them. Jeff is discouraging projects by prejudging them, and driving up pre-filing costs. Jeff may not realize he is doing this. He and his colleagues have been kept from ruling on big hydro projects and discouraged from approving small ones by federal executive orders for 30 years.
To enable the Natural Resource Department to protect Vermont’s natural resources, it must recognize what is going on. It must stop thinking this is just about protecting spawning fish. It must realize lethal chemicals are being subsidized by federal and state governments in the United States. The chemicals that Monsanto is using to genetically alter the fertility of kernels of corn are altering plant, animal and human fertility all over the world. They are poisoning the food we eat, interfering with healthy human, plant and animal growth, destroying the vegetation America’s great plains need to preserve soil and absorb storm water. They are causing flooding, wild storm systems and global warming.
All the information about Vermont’s natural resources, topography, subsoil conditions, plant life, surface and subsurface conditions, species, forestry, farm activities and other ecological statistics needed to accurately analyze watersheds is public information collected by the state on file in Waterbury. There is also social and economic information showing family and community economic problems resulting from the misuse of natural resources. Each project does not require new project by project data collection. What is needed is a major change of attitude and focus, to stop interfering with good development, and start using accurate science. Big dams damage ecologies downstream and are very expensive to operate. Small dams do not damage ecologies downstream. They are vitally protecting Vermont’s watersheds and deserve to be respected for this and used to store and distribute clean energy.
I appreciate your support of Greensboro’s Small Hydro Project. I assume it will take legislative action and time for ANR to change its focus.
Yours Sincerely,
Peter Roudebush
(Greensboro Small Hydro Project)
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