Editorial Comment on Compost: Friday, 2/29/08

http://caledonianrecord.com/main.asp?SectionID=3&SubSectionID=3&ArticleID=38247

What’s Going On Over There?

Last week, we lamented the bureaucratic tunnel vision that threatened hoop-house farming on the Intervale in Burlington. The Montpelier bureaucracy was insisting that hoop house, plastic enclosed spaces used for early planting and harvesting of vegetables are barns, and barns aren't allowed on floodways, even though the hoop houses offer no resistance to spring flooding.

Yesterday, the Intervale Center, the parent organization of not only hoop-house farming, but more importantly, the operator of a very large composting operation for 20 years, is going out of business because they can't afford the hundreds of thousands of dollars that they have already spent in a futile effort to get permits that Montpelier says they need. To stay in business, they will have to come up with even more money than the $200,000 that they spent in the last year on permits that are uncertain to say the least.

What's going on over there? Chittenden County and Burlington, its capital, is the most liberal, PC, tree-hugging center of Vermont. It is entirely counter intuitive for Montpelier, the center of the tree-hugging world, to inflict paralysis-by-bureaucracy upon the Holy Grail of liberal Vermont. Last year, the Intervale Center turned 18,169 tons of yard waste, wood chips, manure and food waste into marketable compost. After 20 years, official Montpelier has said, "That's enough," and the Intervale Center has responded, "It sure is, and we're done."

For once (and mark the calendar), we are in full agreement with the tree-hugging, PC crowd. Turning that many tons of garbage into usable compost each year is not only admirable, it is a showcase operation. Rather than be permitted-out-of-business, it should be replicated wherever it can be, floodway or not. The question begs to be asked: is this operation stepping on the toes of some powerful politician(s)? We suspect that, and we counter with the strong suggestion that some other powerful politician (the governor, perhaps?) step on the bureaucrats who mindlessly are putting something of real value out of business.