Editorial
Thursday, May 27, 1999
ANNOYANCE FACTORS
The state Environmental Board's refusal to allow
the OMYA marble company to double its truck traffic
between Middlebury and Florence ought to serve as a
warning to state policy makers that the state's
transportation infrastructure is at the breaking
point.
The key finding of the Environmental Board was
that the addition of 170 truck trips through Brandon
village would "tip the balance" toward the degradation
of the village.
In reaching that conclusion the board weighed
competing values: the aesthetic and historic value of
a beautiful Vermont village versus the demands of
commerce. The board considered the fact that traffic
in Brandon is already heavy but concluded that beyond
a certain point traffic would become too heavy.
This decision was made easier for the board
because of two factors. OMYA had said that, contrary
to previous statements, it might not need all 170
trips it had requested and denial of the expansion
would not jeopardize its existing operations. In
addition, the board found that OMYA had not fully
explored alternative routes for shipping marble.
In reaching its decision the board went further
than the District 9 Environmental Commission. The
district commission did not find that the increased
truck traffic would damage the aesthetics of Brandon
village. The commission ruled only that OMYA had not
done enough to explore alternatives.
The Environmental Board, on the other hand, found
that the aesthetic harm would be significant, as would
harm to the historic value of the village. The board
went into much detail about what it called "annoyance
factors" - the noise, fumes and exhaust that make life
difficult in downtown Brandon. The Brandon Inn, for
example, has had to curtail outdoor dining because of
the traffic on Route 7.
The board's ruling was gratifying in some
respects and troubling in others. It was gratifying
that the board was willing to stand up in defense of
the values associated with the traditional Vermont
village. Making Vermont's villages uninhabitable
corridors for the continuous rumbling of truck traffic
is not acceptable.
The Dean administration has not yet been willing
to grapple with the harm to our villages caused by
traffic. On the one hand, Governor Howard Dean
supported OMYA's application and generally supports
expanded business. On the other hand, the policy of
the Agency of Transportation under his administration
is to avoid building new highways. The result has
been that expanded businesses are forced to confront
an inadequate highway system. The victim has been the
Vermont village, not only in Brandon, but in Woodstock
and elsewhere.
Much emphasis has been placed on the need to keep
Vermont's electronic infrastructure up to date so that
the state can reap the benefit of new high-tech jobs.
But Vermont remains a rural state, and part of our
economy depends on agriculture and on the use of our
natural resources, including marble. For that reason
the physical infrastructure of the state must also be
maintained.
The Environmental Board's ruling was troubling in
one respect. It is hard to see how its estimation of
"annoyance factors" was other than arbitrary. There
was a great deal of evidence concerning decibel levels
and other annoyances, but the board somehow found that
present annoyance factors were acceptable while
proposed annoyance factors were not.
Ultimately, the board's ruling was based on the
premise that it is possible to overwhelm our villages
with excessive traffic and that Act 250 can be used to
prevent that from happening. It may be that the line
determining what is excessive will always seem
arbitrary. The fact that the line has been drawn in
Brandon ought to wake up the Dean administration to
the fact that much work remains figuring out how to
facilitate commerce without destroying our towns.