COUNTING ON VERMONT

Author: [no author name found]

15
Acres of wooded area in Burlington's New North End requested by Green Mountain Habitat for Humanity in order to build four homes and two duplexes for low income families. The nonprofit housing organization is appealing a ruling that would require them to receive an Act 250 permit under Vermont's development control law. Act 250 permits are required for anyone building more than 10 units in a five-mile radius in less than a five-year period, which are guidelines set by the District 4 Environmental Commission. The Vermont Environmental Board is currently considering Habitat's building proposal.


$160 million
Total cost of the Circumferential Highway, a 16-mile stretch of road through Chittenden Country that, if built, would connect Interstate 89 in Williston to Essex. The road was proposed in the early 1960s and has continued to go through federal review and environmental assessment. Federal environmental studies are being conducted to determine the suburban highway's effect on the surrounding area, delaying the construction of the highway yet again until at least next fall.
25
Number of stream segments in Vermont that are so polluted by stormwater runoff, which includes rainwater swept off city streets, rooftops and parking lots, that the streams do not meet the state's minimum standards for water quality. A controversial House bill is being discussed that would authorize a program to manage collected stormwater runoff. Environmental groups are critical of the bill due to their fear that it would increase development as opposed to clean polluted streams.


$1 million
Amount federally granted to researchers at the University of Vermont to study environmental and economic activity in the Northern Forest, which includes 26 million acres in Vermont, New Hampshire, northern Maine and New York. The research will be aimed at finding the most efficient way in which plants, wildlife and people can all live together.

Statistics courtesy of The Rutland Herald and The Burlington Free Press and compiled by the Local News Editor.