Vermont Tile Drain Report Doesn’t Go Far Enough

LCC and six other environmental groups sent a joint letter to the Vermont Agencies of Agriculture and Natural Resources commenting on an interim report on the impacts of agricultural tile drains released by the Agencies. The letter called the report “an important though insufficient step” towards developing policies to address pollution from tile drains, and <link learn news item tile-drain-advocacy>repeated calls for a moratorium on tile installation until required agricultural practices are developed for them.

“If the Agencies do not act to impose minimal yet crucial tile drainage requirements on farmers, then the resulting economic impact will fall on everyone else,” the letter warned. “Under Vermont’s Total Maximum Daily Load (TMDL) Implementation Plan, municipalities will be responsible for water pollution cleanup ... The magnitude of these needed investments reaches tens of millions of dollars per year, based on the Agencies’ own estimates. The Agencies' failure to note these costs as offsetting any economic benefits to agriculture from the use of tile drains is an obvious and major shortcoming of the Report.”

A final report is due to the legislature in January 2017. The Agencies have promised that a working group will be created in the next year to assist in the development of the final report, including recommendations. The final report of subsurface tile drainage will include the status of current scientific research relating to the environmental management of subsurface agricultural tile drainage; recommendations regarding how best to manage subsurface tile drainage; and contributions of tile drainage potential to nutrient pollution of surface waters.