Burlington, Vermont - October 14, 2011
After Tropical Storm Irene, the work began to restore and rebuild Vermont's waterways. Some people started immediately on the work, fixing and rebuilding riverbeds. And the state didn't stop that effort-- that is until now. The Agency of Natural Resources began issuing stop work orders this week for those fixing the waterways.
"In order to do work in the river not only do you need permission from the river engineer, but you need it in writing. So we got folks out there who are talking to people who are working in the river to make sure they're doing it with permission," said Deb Markowitz, the secretary of the Agency of Natural Resources.
Buck Adams of Westminster is working on stream restoration in the Saxton River with an onsite engineer, but Thursday his company, Adams Trucking and Excavating, received a stop work order.
"An enforcement officer from ANR stopped on one of our job sites and told us we had to cease work until we had actual written permission rather than verbal," Adams said.
Recently, the Shumlin administration has been facing pressure from sportsmen and environmental groups like the Conservation Law Foundation to step up enforcement fearing long-term damage to the environment.
"You need someone with expertise who can say if you do it this way it's going to cause more damage, you gotta do it this way," Markowitz said.
Reporter Gina Bullard: Were these projects given advanced notice that this was going to happen?
Deb Markowitz: Oh yes, we made it public we were in this new phase and not allowing people to work in the river without written permission.
But Adams says this came out of the blue and he never received any warning.
"There's been a lot of speculation and rumor but nothing official from anybody with any importance that we had anything to worry about," Adams said.
Now Adams wonders when he will get permission to continue this time-sensitive project.
"The problems with that are obviously we're bracing for the weather right now, the cold temperatures coming and certain things really need to get done and they're not getting done right now and we're certainly running short on time," Adams said.
Markowitz is not sure how long it will take for people to get approval. She says in some cases it could be just a day, with priority going to town projects. But Markowitz says other projects might get approval later, causing them to have to wait to start work until the spring.
Markowitz said she does not know how many stop work orders were handed out, but the Natural Resources Agency had to call in help-- Fish and Wildlife game wardens and biologists were also deployed to deliver the stop work notices.
