Planning Commission Weighs in on Turf Project

Town board says groundwater protection is of highest concern in Hinesburg, asks for community involvement in process

(Editor’s note: The Hinesburg Planning Commission becomes the latest town board to express concerns about the artificial turf field proposed for CVU. Previously the Hinesburg selectboard and the Hinesburg Conservation Commission have written the CVSD board to voice concern and a desire for discussion with town leaders.)

To: Champlain Valley School District School Board

Dear Members of the Board:

The Hinesburg Planning Commission writes to share concerns about the proposal to install a privately funded artificial turf athletic field at Champlain Valley Union High School. Our concerns center on a single, serious issue – the protection of Hinesburg’s groundwater and drinking water – and are grounded in the 2026 Hinesburg Town Plan (pages and maps referenced below).

We recognize that the CVSD board is not a municipal body and is not bound by the Town Plan in the way that the town’s own boards are. We offer the plan’s provisions not as a legal constraint on the board, but because the plan is the town’s adopted statement of community priorities, developed through an extensive public process, and because it speaks directly and specifically to the risks this proposal raises. We ask the board to weigh these adopted community priorities carefully as it deliberates.

Protecting groundwater is one of the Town’s highest adopted priorities.

The Town Plan elevates groundwater protection to the short list of townwide priority goals – items the plan identifies as addressing critical issues that require a timely response. Goal 5.G reads: “Protect the town’s groundwater resources from pollution and depletion (p. 7)” and is restated in Chapter 5: Natural Resources as “Protect the town’s groundwater resources from pollution sources and depletion (p. 75).” General Strategy 4 likewise commits the Town to “enhance and protect the surface and groundwater resources of the Town (p. 18).” A project that may introduce a recognized contamination pathway into our water supply runs counter to one of the plan’s foremost commitments.

The proposed site lies within a mapped Source Water Protection Area, which the plan identifies as among the most contamination-sensitive land in town.

The plan explains that Source Water Protection Areas (SWPAs) are mapped around Hinesburg’s public water supplies precisely because they are the recharge areas “in which contamination is most likely to impact the well (p. 79; see map 8).” It warns that “aquifer recharge areas are particularly sensitive to contamination because they allow toxic substances from the surface to quickly, and in a relatively undiluted form, reach the aquifers, and thus our drinking water (p 79).” The plan’s direction on these areas is toward greater protection, not new risk, as described in Action 5.26 which commits the Town to examine state regulations “for potential zoning regulation amendments that address groundwater source protection areas (p. 76).”

The plan specifically names PFAS as a water-quality threat, in a town with an unresolved PFAS history.

The Town Plan identifies PFAS (per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances) among the pollutants threatening Hinesburg’s water, noting they “are now known to be present in many pesticides as well as innumerable consumer products (p. 78).” This is not a hypothetical concern for Hinesburg: the plan documents ongoing semi-annual PFAS monitoring at the closed town landfill, where wells and the drinking water of properties on Forest Edge, North Road, and Beecher Hill Road are tested for PFAS (pp. 79, 120). Introducing a new potential source of PFAS – a class of chemicals commonly associated with artificial turf systems – into a Source Water Protection Area, in a community already managing PFAS contamination, is difficult to reconcile with the plan.

The benefits of this proposal would be shared across five towns, but the groundwater risk falls entirely on one.

This is the Planning Commission’s central governance concern. The decision before the board will be made by representatives of the district’s five member towns – Charlotte, Hinesburg, Shelburne, St. George, and Williston – and the recreational benefits of a new field would be shared across all of them. The risk, however, is not shared. Champlain Valley Union High School sits in Hinesburg, and it is Hinesburg’s groundwater, Hinesburg’s wells, and Hinesburg’s residents who would bear the entire burden of any contamination – including the public-health consequences and the potentially catastrophic financial liability of remediation. We ask the board to give this asymmetry the weight it deserves; those who would carry the risk are a minority of the body making the decision.

If the CVSD board elects to proceed despite local concerns, all applicable permits must be obtained in a public and transparent process.

Should the CVSD board vote to enter a memorandum of understanding with the donor and move forward, the commission asks that the project complete every applicable local, state, and federal permitting process before any installation, including but not limited to:

• Act 250 land use review, to the extent the project meets applicable jurisdictional thresholds;

• DEC stormwater permitting, including any applicable construction, operational, and “three-acre site” requirements under the Vermont Clean Water Act (Act 64) and General Permit 3-9050; and Page 2 of 4 Hinesburg Planning Commission;

• Local zoning and Development Review Board approval under the town’s land use regulations.

We note that the Town Plan is expressly designated as “a standard for review under local, regional and state regulatory proceedings (including Act 250 and Section 248 reviews) (p. 10).” The plan’s groundwater and source-water protection provisions are therefore directly relevant to any Act 250 proceeding, and we would expect them to be addressed in that review.

A note on public process.

While the school district board is not a municipal body, transparency and meaningful public engagement remain core community values in Hinesburg. The Town Plan’s vision is explicit that the Town’s work “will be guided by community engagement, input, investment and support (p. 8),” and the Town consistently makes consequential facility decisions through open, public processes.

The proposed gift of an athletic turf field to the school may have different public process requirements than a conventional school district project. However, in light of the community involvement that has been demonstrated thus far, the Planning Commission strongly encourages and expects the board to establish a project-based public engagement plan if the proposal is accepted and the project moves forward into preliminary designs and public hearings.

As part of a transparent process, we request that the school board publicly acknowledge and respond to each substantive question and concern submitted by the public, including but not limited to:

• requests for independent testing of the field material and infill before the project moves forward;

• an accurate budget estimate for the net revenue, annual maintenance costs, and costs related to the turf field that accounts for replacement, material removal costs, and inflation, to be presented to CVSD residents;

• a report on the tax implications across the school district if the revenue generated falls short of expectations and/or if remediation of ground water is necessary;

• a risk assessment report that includes consideration of liabilities from litigation; and

• making the hydrogeology and toxicology reports public at least seven days before a vote on an MOU, and pausing the vote if the report is not available in time. (Editor’s note: Report was made public five days in advance of the board’s planned discussion and potential vote.)

Conclusion

The Planning Commission does not oppose a quality athletic field for students and we share the goal of excellent recreational space. But the Town Plan makes groundwater protection a priority goal and identifies Source Water Protection Areas and PFAS as precisely the risks at issue here. For these reasons, we urge the board to prefer a natural-turf solution, and [if] it nonetheless considers moving forward – to ensure that the proposal undergoes full local, state, and Act 250 permitting, with the Town Plan’s water-protection provisions given their due weight.

We hope this information and the related concerns provide helpful information to the board as it continues to consider its alternatives for the CVU campus. We would welcome the opportunity to discuss these concerns with the board in connection with the Planning Commission’s charge of managing long-term community planning. Thank you for your consideration.

Respectfully,

Town of Hinesburg Planning Commission

cc: Hinesburg Selectboard; Hinesburg Conservation Commission, CVSD Superintendent Adam Bunting