Vermont news

• Leahy touts ‘key victories’ in appropriations bill

  23-11-2017 21:20 via vtdigger.org
  A federal appropriations bill released Monday includes money to bolster Lake Champlain cleanup and other conservation efforts, as well as improvements to historic downtowns across the state, according to Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt.
  The money is part of an Appropriations Committee bill on the Interior, Environment and Related Agencies, for the 2018 fiscal year, which began in October. House and Senate versions now must be reconciled in negotiations before going to the full Senate for a vote.
  Though
  
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• Privacy is newest worry about potentially troublesome toys

  23-11-2017 21:02 via vtdigger.org
  Adam Maxwell, field director at the Vermont Public Interest Research Group, speaks about toys the group says present a risk to children. Photo courtesy of VPIRG
  Toxic toys are stocked on retailers’ shelves, along with dolls that violate children’s privacy and other playtime products that can block youngsters’ windpipes, according to a report released this week by the Vermont Public Interest Research Group.
  The advocacy group issues a similar report every year.
  VPIRG used the oc
  
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• Broadband quest spurs some success, much frustration

  23-11-2017 20:51 via vtdigger.org
  A state map shows the spotty nature of high-speed internet service in southern Vermont. Red indicates underserved or unserved addresses, while blue shows addresses with access to broadband speeds of at least 4 megabits per second for downloads and 1 Mbps for uploads. Photo by Mike Faher/VTDigger
  DOVER – Southern Vermont’s broadband coverage maps bear a passing resemblance to a Jackson Pollock canvas, with splotches and streaks of color representing various speeds and types of service
  
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• Walt Amses: Meditations on a hummingbird

  23-11-2017 19:05 via vtdigger.org
  Editor’s note: Walt Amses is a writer and former educator who lives in Calais.
  When I encounter a hummingbird in Vermont, I usually think it’s a big insect because the humming I presume provided its name is really more like a buzz, say of a gigantic bee. Listening to upwards of 50 at the same time is like being just the other side of the hill from a motorcycle race. Watching them flit about is even more intriguing, splashes of iridescence that can just as easily stop on a dime in mid
  
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• Alexis Lathem & Shay Totten: Megadams and the flood of lies

  23-11-2017 19:00 via vtdigger.org
  Editor’s note: This commentary is by Alexis Lathem and Shay Totten. Lathem, who has paddled 200 miles of the Lower Churchill River to Muskrat Falls, has reported on hydroelectric development in Quebec and Labrador since the mid 1990s. Her story on Hydro-Quebec’s Romaine River project — “Rage on, Sweet Romaine,” — appeared in Canada’s Alternatives Journal. Totten lives in Burlington and is the communications director for Rights & Democracy, a bi-state
  
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• Mark Skelding: Repeal and ‘erace’

  23-11-2017 18:30 via vtdigger.org
  Editor’s note: This commentary is by Mark Skelding, of St. Albans, a retired educator who most recently was a faculty member for Southern New Hampshire University’s Graduate Program in Education. He previously worked at Food Works/Two Rivers Center for Sustainability.
  Those who’ve been following the right wing’s desperate attempt to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act have no doubt seen through it from the start. Why would Republicans and libertarians be so vindict
  
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• Closed for three years, Santa’s Land to reopen Saturday

  23-11-2017 17:15 via vtdigger.org
  David Haversat, the new owner of Santa’s Land in Putney, stands on the carousel that was donated by Coney Island’s Astroland. Photo by Kristopher Radder/Brattleboro Reformer(This story by Harmony Birch appeared in the Brattleboro Reformer on Nov. 22, 2017.)
  PUTNEY — Santa is returning to his rightful home in Putney.
  On Saturday, David Haversat, of Oxford, Connecticut, is officially opening the doors to a park that’s been closed for three years. Santa’s Land will be
  
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• Wired for Safety: Avoiding fraud is one more reason to celebrate

  23-11-2017 16:39 via vtdigger.org
  Editor’s note: Wired for Safety is a weekly column on cybersecurity and other tech issues. Duane Dunston is an assistant professor of cybersecurity and networking at Champlain College. He received his bachelor’s and master’s of science from Pfeiffer College. From 2001 to 2011 he worked in cybersecurity for NOAA. He is a doctoral student at Northeastern University. His other activities include “You Have A Voice,” a project to develop an electronic screening assessmen
  
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• Margolis: An unnatural need for more hunting

  23-11-2017 16:19 via vtdigger.org
  An adult white-tailed deer buck. U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service photo
  (Jon Margolis writes political columns for VTDigger.)
  Want to reduce your carbon footprint? Are you interested in eating healthy food produced locally and naturally without artificial herbicides, pesticides or chemical fertilizer?
  Try hunting. Venison is leaner than that marbled hunk of beef you’re likely to buy at the supermarket. The deer you shoot was not penned up in a feedlot, and the meat was not trucked from hundr
  
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• Vietnam veterans hope to refurbish helicopter for monument

  23-11-2017 01:53 via vtdigger.org
  Members of the Bennington area Vietnam Veterans of America chapter are trying to refurbish this Vietnam War-era Huey helicopter for a monument to those who served. Photo by Jim Therrien/VTDigger
  BENNINGTON — John Miner, who was recently commended for his three decades of service to veterans, still has a few goals he hopes to achieve. Among those is to see a Vietnam War-era Huey helicopter installed at the Morse State Airport as a monument to those who served.
  “This is still on my age
  
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• Group suspends dog rescues from Puerto Rico over disease concerns

  23-11-2017 01:38 via vtdigger.org
  Aimee Goodwin steps over a barrier used to keep four rescue puppies from Puerto Rico and her own dog, Playa, left, contained at her home in Norwich on Friday. The puppies were being treated for leptospirosis, a disease that is spread through contact with urine and can be transmitted to humans. Photo by James M. Patterson/Valley News(This story by Rob Wolfe appeared in the Valley News on Nov. 20, 2017.)
  NORWICH — A local nonprofit that brings rescued puppies from Puerto Rico to the Upper Va
  
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• Hydro dams don’t cause serious erosion, says owner

  23-11-2017 00:47 via vtdigger.org
  The dam in Wilder is one of three on the Connecticut River that Great River Hydro is seeking to relicense. File photo by James M. Patterson/Valley NewsAfter further review, the owner of three Connecticut River hydroelectric dams says those facilities are likely not causing any significant riverbank erosion.
  In connection with the proposed relicensing of the Wilder, Bellows Falls and Vernon dams, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission earlier this year ordered Great River Hydro to take a closer
  
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• Safety questions, pipeline burial focus of VGS hearing

  23-11-2017 00:22 via vtdigger.org
  Rick Barstow speaks at a Public Utility Commission hearing about Vermont Gas and its pipeline. At left is the hearing officer, Michael Tousley. Photo by Mike Polhamus/VTDiggerBRISTOL — Technical questions about the construction of Vermont Gas Systems’ recently completed 41-mile natural gas pipeline were the subject of a public hearing Tuesday in Bristol, but opponents at the hearing raised broader issues about the pipeline, the fuel it carries and the company itself.
  Two issues were
  
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