High winds in October and March blew down many solar panels in a field in Shaftsbury, Vt., and regulators are now looking into the potential environmental impact of the damaged panels.

This is one of the first times in Vermont that large swaths of damaged panels containing lead and silver have raised the specter of environmental contamination and prompted the state to examine the issue. In this case, concerns grew partly because the fallen panels weren’t immediately cleaned up, state officials said in a recent filing, causing regulators to investigate potential environmental impacts.

In a recent filing to the Public Utility Commission, an Agency of Agriculture, Food and Markets staff attorney wrote that the agency is looking into options for testing the soil to determine if contamination is a concern.

“In general, it is important to protect agricultural soils,” an agency spokesman, Trevor Audet, wrote in a statement. “We are not aware of broken solar panels being a common issue in Vermont, but our knowledge is imperfect under the current reporting framework and we are working to learn more about any potential impacts.”

The damaged panels have caught the attention of environmentalists in the area. Among what they are seeking is pre-testing of soil near solar developments, so there will be a baseline to measure against for possible contamination.

Shaftsbury resident and farmer Jesse McDougall wrote to the Public Utility Commission expressing concern about whether Vermont’s acidic, low pH rain, winter snowmelt and spring showers could compound environmental contamination onsite. McDougall also alleged there were two fires after the October blowdown event.

“I want to see the right steps taken,” McDougall said in an interview. “There were hundreds of panels down, many of them smashed and broken, and on the ground for six months through a Vermont winter and two giant wind events and two fires.”

The solar array is near another controversial planned solar site in Shaftsbury approved by the commission last October, though neighbors to the project appealed the decision to the Vermont Supreme Court.

Approved by the Public Utility Commission in 2022, the broken solar array, called ER Waite Cemetery Solar LLC, is licensed for 2.2 megawatts, the largest energy development allowed under a state program that facilitates long-term contracts and sets rates for renewable energy developments in Vermont.

Encore Renewable Energy planned and received a permit for the solar project, which Fusion Renewable then purchased. Fusion Renewable is now responsible for remediation at the site, wrote Jeffrey Polubinski, attorney for ER Waite Cemetery Solar.

The owner said the delay in site cleanup was due to the lag time in insurance approval. Then Fusion Renewable needed to pause any project work until April due to a deer wintering area near the site, according to a May 8 filing by the Department of Public Service.

The regulatory filing raised questions about work on the site, and the Department of Public Service filing included requests for information about the damage and remediation to see if there is more work to be done, if the owner violated terms of the contract or if there were impacts to rate payers.

An Agency of Natural Resources filing to the commission stated that the owner must dispose of panels as hazardous materials, given the silver and lead inside them.

In addition, the Agency of Agriculture, Food and Markets said it is investigating options for agricultural soil testing in areas the state has designated as important farmland, according to a recent filing to the commission. In his statement, Audet wrote that the remediation method will depend on the scope and type of potential contamination found.

Meanwhile, some research on the environmental impact of damaged solar panels says that the impacts are likely to be minimal, but stronger standards and practices for solar developments may be necessary.

Annick Anctil, a Michigan State University civil and environmental engineering professor, said in an interview that pre-testing soil before construction can help determine whether broken solar panels have caused increased levels of heavy metals in the soil.

Annette Smith, executive director of Vermonters for a Clean Environment, said that, in addition to pre-testing soil, she wants more state-level tracking of solar array failures to prevent this type of situation from happening in the future.

“We could have all of the solar projects in Vermont fail, and I don’t know that there would be any ramifications,” Smith said.

For the solar owner’s part, Polubinski wrote that the owner is working with the state to dispose of the solar panels, and they plan to detail the damage, the current and future remediation of impacts from the wind damage and subsequent fires.

Peter Sterling, executive director of the trade association Renewable Energy Vermont, maintains that the state has more than 100 solar arrays and that solar array failures are rare. Still, Sterling said the state’s examination of the issue shows “the process is working, which is good.”

This story was republished with permission from VtDigger, which offers its reporting at no cost to local news organizations through its Community News Sharing Project. To learn more, visit vtdigger.org/community-news-sharing-project.

As the weather gets warmer, it’s almost time to return outdoors to some of your favorite summer attractions, including beaches, festivals and theme parks.

Two empty seats 

The leaders of both the Vermont House and Senate will not be running for reelection. So who will fill their shoes? 

Senate Majority Leader Kesha Ram Hinsdale, D-Chittenden Southeast, said she’s running for Senate president pro tempore. 

Ram Hinsdale has served in the legislature for 14 years and is the first woman of color to serve in the Senate. 

“I have seen so many types of leadership, so many tools in the toolbox that you can use to move people in the same direction,” she said. 

While spending more than a decade in the Legislature, Ram Hinsdale said she’s lived through many crises and charted the state’s path through them. She was a lawmaker during the Great Recession, the Covid-19 pandemic and two years of record breaking floods. 

With multiple long-serving legislators retiring this year, Ram Hinsdale said she thinks she will bring needed institutional knowledge and experience, along with a willingness to rally new people. 

Along with Ram Hinsdale, lawmakers have eyed Sen. Andrew Perchlik, D/P-Washington, who currently chairs the Senate Appropriations Committee, as a future pro tem. 

Perchlik said Friday that he’s considering running for the position, though he didn’t want to definitively say until after the primary election in August. 

“I’ve been approached by many senators asking me to do it,” Perchlik said. And he said he thinks it makes sense, given his past leadership roles as the whip for the majority party in the Senate and his former role as chair of the Senate Transportation Committee. 

Perchlik has chaired the appropriations committee for the last two years, receiving bills from every committee and managing the state’s funds. That role has allowed him to work with lawmakers across the chamber and different parts of the executive branch, he said. 

“You get a really broad picture of the entire government,” Perchlik said. 

Just a day after House Speaker Jill Krowinski, D-Burlington, surprisingly announced that she won’t seek reelection, a handful of likely Democrats to succeed her said they were mum on their plans to run for speaker. 

House Majority Leader Rep. Lori Houghton, D-Essex Junction, said it’s too soon to say if she will run, though she didn’t rule out the possibility. 

“She just announced yesterday,” Houghton said, adding that she’s trying to focus on finishing out the session. 

Rep. Emilie Kornheiser, D-Brattleboro, who chairs the House Ways and Means Committee, similarly said she’s considering running, but right now she’s focused on finishing legislative work, too. 

Rep. Charlie Kimbell, D-Woodstock, said, “I haven’t made up my mind about it.” Kimbell previously ran for speaker in 2020 before dropping out of the race to endorse Krowinski. He also ran for lieutenant governor in 2022 before losing in the primary. 

Rep. Laura Sibilia, I-Dover, who challenged Krowinski for speaker at the beginning of 2025, said, “I have not ruled it out.”

In the know

At the eleventh hour, lawmakers let the law enforcement masking bill supported by immigrant rights activists, S.208, die. 

“I’m very disappointed with what has happened to S.208,” said Sen. Nader Hashim, D-Windham, the bill’s lead sponsor, on the Senate floor Friday. 

The decision comes after a committee of lawmakers from the House and Senate agreed on a version of the bill that would have largely banned all law enforcement operating in the state — including federal agents — from wearing masks or failing to visibly identify themselves. 

Committee members decided to make that provision of the bill go into effect March 15, 2027, rather than upon passage, reasoning it would give the state time to see how similar laws in other states play out in the courts. 

The bill the committee approved would have given the Vermont attorney general’s office the responsibility to enforce it, bringing a civil lawsuit if officers violated the law. 

Upon passage, the bill also would have required a Vermont law enforcement board to create a statewide policy on masking and identification for local and state police. 

All members of the conference committee signed on to support the newest version of the bill except the committee’s lone Republican appointee, Sen. Chris Mattos, R-Chittenden North. During a committee meeting Thursday, Mattos said he was unsure he could support the bill because the committee hadn’t heard from the attorney general’s office about whether it was on board to enforce the policy. 

After the conference committee approved the bill, it sat on the House’s calendar Friday but was not taken up on the House floor. 

For the bill to pass before adjournment, lawmakers would have needed three-quarters of the House to suspend legislative rules, which would allow lawmakers to speed up the legislative process. That would have required Republican support.

Lawmakers on the Senate floor decided to adjourn around 5:50 p.m., giving up on the idea of receiving the bill from the House. 

“It was barely a year ago that I watched Mohsen Mahdawi be taken by masked men in unmarked vehicles,” said Sen. Becca White, D-Windsor, expressing her frustration that the bill didn’t pass. 

— Charlotte Oliver

Lawmakers on the House floor Friday made a failed attempt to override the governor’s veto of a bill, H.727, that would have set strict guardrails for any future huge data centers in Vermont. 

The bill contained provisions that would prevent any large data centers in Vermont from increasing electricity costs for average ratepayers. The bill also contained provisions that would restrict how data centers discharge chemicals and use water to stay cool in an attempt to limit environmental impacts. 

Gov. Phil Scott vetoed the bill Thursday. In his letter to lawmakers, Scott said he believes Vermont’s existing regulations would prevent harmful impacts from data centers. 

Lawmakers voted 83-52 in favor of overriding the veto, but they needed 90 votes to do so. 

— Charlotte Oliver

On the move

Vermont’s House and Senate budget writers reached a deal Thursday night on a state spending package for the upcoming fiscal year, which starts in July.

Agreement on the budget bill, H.951, came with likely just a day left in this year’s legislative session. Overall, the joint House and Senate conference committee’s version of the budget totals $9.38 billion, close to the amount of spending Gov. Phil Scott proposed at the start of the session in January.

The bill was expected to get a final sign-off on the House floor Friday after weeks of both public and closed-door negotiations. The conference committee signed off on the bill around 11 p.m. Thursday.

Among the last pieces of the nearly 150-page legislation to get resolved in the committee was a controversial plan to take money out of a state-run college scholarship fund to help pay for a long-stalled athletic complex at the University of Vermont instead. The fund, called the Higher Education Endowment Trust Fund, saw a historic infusion of cash last year from Vermont’s tax on the estates of high-wealth individuals.

Read the full story here.

— Shaun Robinson 

Say cheese

“A crime has been committed, and we do need justice by the end of the day.”

Rep. Conor Casey, D-Montpelier, told his colleagues on the floor Friday morning that he was set on getting to the bottom of a putrid predicament that has been vexing him and other members of the House Corrections and Institutions Committee for weeks.

As he told it: Casey walked into the committee room a couple of months ago to “a rancid smell.” After weeks of searching high and low, he realized that the desks making up the committee’s table had small drawers underneath that he had never noticed before. He opened his drawer, only to find “a moldy, disgusting, offensive glob of cheese,” with a note that read, “say cheese.”

Casey is well known around the Statehouse for pulling pranks on his colleagues, so the cheese may have been an effort to get back at him before he steps down from the House. He then pulled open the drawer of his seat-neighbor, Barre Town Republican Rep. Gina Galfetti, to find yet another glob of cheese. 

“It was a bipartisan cheesing, Madam Speaker,” he exclaimed Friday. 

If the person who lodged the offending dairy did not come forward by the end of the day, Casey said, he would subject his colleagues to a full recitation of James Joyce’s mammoth novel, “Ulysses,” on the floor. Coming from the man who recited part of a play he wrote during a floor session last year, that seemed far from an empty threat.

As of this newsletter’s deadline, at least, the mystery remained unsolved.

“The craven still hides in the shadows,” Casey wrote in a text. “But rest assured they will be brought to justice. The session may end, but my lust for vengeance will endure…”

— Shaun Robinson