State Resources by State
Brownfield Contacts
Email: Sarah.Bartlett@vermont.gov
Phone: 802-249-5641
VT Brownfield Programs
VT Department of Environmental Conservation Brownfields Main Page
State Funding Program: VTDEC provides technical and financial assistance for all aspects of site investigation, cleanup and planning. As of March 2021, the program is out of funds, but accepts applications to put in a queue.
Liability Relief: BRELLA, the state brownfields reuse and environmental liability limitation program provide relief for persons who own or plan to purchase a property and did not cause or contribution to the contamination.
Brownfields Inventory
The Vermont Department of Environmental Conservation maintains two online databases, the Environmental Research Tool (ERT) and the ANR Atlas, both located under the Contaminated Sites webpage. ERT features several lists of sites under different programs, including a searchable Brownfields site list. The ANR is a GIS-based tool that includes a layer with 125 brownfield sites across the state.
Regulatory Framework
Chapter 35 of the VT Environmental Protection Rules governs the investigation and remediation of contaminated properties. The DEC Laws and Regulations page provides a comprehensive list of all environmental regulations in the state.
Planning Documents
The VT Municipal and Regional Planning and Development Act defines how local, regional and state land use planning will occur in Vermont and establishes a framework for regulatory and non-regulatory implementation. The Planning Your Town’s Future page includes a wide range of resources, including links to municipal plans.
VT has 11 Regional Planning Commissions which provide technical support on a variety of fields, including brownfields.
State and Town Data
The Vermont Open Geodata Portal provides a wide variety of GIS layers and links to data sources.
Vermont Indicators Online provide information on demographic, economic and limited geographic indicators at the county, town and village level.
The Public Health Data Explorer is a platform for the related datasets.
Public Health Data
The VT Environmental Public Health Tracking Network provides a variety of relevant data at the county level, for several years and in certain cases disaggregated by gender and race.
The Healthy Vermonters 2020 Data Explorer is a platform for public health data at three geographic levels: county, district office and Hospital Service area. The data is generally olders, as they were meant to capture goals up to 2020 and therefore typically not very useful for brownfields grants.
Specific categories of interest to brownfield grants:
Asthma
The VTEPHTN data portal includes data for emergency department visits and hospitalization rates; data is available at the county level.
Asbestos
The Mesothelioma Center is an advocacy group that provides free information about environmental safety and asbestos health. There is helpful information and data on their website regarding asbestos in Vermont. They have also created guides on risk factors and limiting environmental exposure.
Cancer
The CDC National Environmental Public Health Tracking Network includes a map in the Data Explorer Tool by census tract for two cancer indicators: crude prevalence of cancer among adults and number of breast cancer cases for a 10-year period. These are NOT actual cancer rates; they are modeled on the basis of survey responses and the PLACES project (Population Level Analysis and Community Estimates).
The United States Data Statistics website includes data visualizations with actual cancer rates, which are available at the county and congressional district level.
You can access sub-county cancer data through the Vermont Profile on the CDC website.
Birth Defects
The only dataset available nationally for birth defects is through the CDC National Environmental Public Health Tracking Network and it provides data at the county level for 11 different types of birth defects.
Lead Poisoning
The Childhood Lead Poisoning page includes data; as of September 25th, 2022, the data is not available due to reports being reworked. If you need childhood blood lead data in the meantime, please contact AHS.VDHVTEPHT@vermont.gov .