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Vermont Business Magazine Governor Phil Scott and Agency for Natural Resources Secretary Julie Moore toured the Royalton Water Treatment Facility today to see the major investments secured this year in water, sewer and stormwater infrastructure and climate resilience.
Additional details can be found in the transcript of Governor Scott and Secretary Moore’s comments below.
Governor Scott: Good afternoon and thanks for the introduction, Theron.
Thank you for being here today. It’s great to be here in Windsor County to talk about the most important infrastructure investments we’ll be making this year.
First, I want to start by thanking legislators for working with me and my team to invest hundreds of millions of dollars in key areas this year. No doubt this will benefit the government for years to come.
Last year, after learning how much we were getting in ARPA funding, I outlined my vision for dividing the more than $1 billion into five buckets that would allow us to better serve Vermonters.
About $250 million for housing. More than $200 million to fight climate change. $200 million for water, sewer and stormwater infrastructure projects. $250 for broadband. More than $170 for economic development.
Understandably, there was a lot of focus on the housing investments we made this summer and the broadband rollout that started.
But we’re here today to talk about water, sewer and stormwater infrastructure projects that will give communities across the state more opportunity.
We delivered the package we did because we wanted these initiatives to complement each other to make the difference that ARPA has given us, a once-in-a-generation opportunity.
When communities have better infrastructure, they can support business growth and more housing.
One does not work well without the other.
And after we build and improve traditional infrastructure and connect more places to broadband, we can attract another generation to our country by connecting them to 21st century jobs.
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It is also important that we provide clean drinking water to Vermonters.
Much of our infrastructure is decades or even centuries old, and the investments we’re making this year will help ensure these commitments are sustainable into the future.
Secretary Moore will go into more detail in a few minutes, but updating this infrastructure now will save us in the long run.
We know the climate is changing and will include more extreme weather events, so investing in climate resilience now can help reduce the impact of extreme storms and the flooding that comes with them.
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Water, sewer and stormwater infrastructure projects can breathe new life into our state’s rural areas, and my administration is committed to ensuring that these projects and other investments we are making will benefit all of Vermont’s 14 counties. Northwestern part of the state.
I know legislators share that commitment, so I want to thank them for their work and thank our federal partners at EPA for their continued cooperation and commitment to Vermont.
Let’s take over Secretary Moore.
Secretary Moore: Water infrastructure is the backbone of our life and livelihood. From opening the faucet to wash in the morning, from preparing the food we eat, to the proper drainage of our roads and parking spaces on rainy days, and to having sufficient clean water and waste water filtration capacity to support local businesses and institutions.
It’s all water infrastructure!
And in many Vermont communities, water infrastructure is the most valuable asset the community owns and uses—more than the local school and often more than the city’s network of roads.
The challenge is that because water infrastructure is generally out of sight and out of mind, the pace of investment in these assets has not kept pace with demand.
We estimate that over the next 10 years in Vermont, more than $2 billion will be needed to invest in drinking water, wastewater and stormwater systems. .
We also know that Vermont’s aging and rural population is particularly vulnerable to the costs associated with maintaining, upgrading and replacing aging water infrastructure, and to keeping consumer prices affordable.
Fortunately, we are in a unique time where an unprecedented source of finance is available to invest in water infrastructure. These include:
· The Clean Water State Revolving Fund Program is an EPA partnership that provides low-cost funding for a variety of water quality infrastructure projects to the public. And
· Vermont’s commitment to provide discretionary funding for nearly a quarter of its federal American Recovery Plan – or ARPA – funds for drinking water, wastewater and stormwater infrastructure projects.
All told, over the next five years, in partnership with community partners and homeowners, Vermont is preparing to invest nearly three-quarters of a billion dollars in water infrastructure projects.
The Royalton Water Treatment Facility project is a great example of both the type of investment required and the infrastructure investment it offers.
The overall objective of this project is to upgrade the Royalton Water Treatment Plant, which is rapidly reaching the end of its useful life and is becoming increasingly difficult to operate.
The project will enable Royalton’s water system to provide its customers with an adequate and reliable supply of clean drinking water in a changing climate and will provide additional capacity to support future growth.
Royalton’s water systems are one of the few in Vermont that use a river — the White River — as its primary source of supply.
The ongoing investments will enable the water system to provide consistent quality drinking water to users and to cope with different conditions in the river, such as low water flow during drought or conditions in many situations. One of the major rain events in the Northeast now negatively impacting water quality.
This is an exciting, important and impactful investment, combining federal, state and local resources to maximum effect.
I want to thank the Royalton Fire District 1 Vigilance Committee, Dufresne Group, Kingsbury Construction and the team at DEC’s Drinking Water and Groundwater Protection Division and Water Investment Division, including Cindy Parks, for their hard work joining me today. Give recognition and respect to the project so far and the efforts to complete the construction.
I look forward to seeing the completion of this project as we continue to invest in our communities, Vermont’s core infrastructure, and strengthen our resilience to climate change.
8.30.2022. Royalton, Vt. – Governor www.vermont.gov
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