Shumlin Relaxes Environmental Rules For Flood Clean-Up

(Host) Governor Peter Shumlin says his administration has relaxed environmental rules to allow work crews to quickly rebuild roads destroyed by floodwaters.

(Shumlin) "You still need to call ANR to get approval. But we have asked all levels of state government to relax regulations where necessary to get us through this crisis. And the example is: we have literally highways and roads that have washed into rivers. And it makes the most sense to extract that gravel and extract that fill and put it back into the roads."

(Host) Under normal circumstances, contractors are not allowed to dig gravel from streams.

Permits under the Act 250 land use law have also imposed limits on extracting material from gravel pits.

But the state Natural Resources Board said this week that the state will not enforce minor Act 250 violations associated with emergency gravel extractions.

The notice says the Agency of Natural Resources still has to approve removing gravel from streams.