A judge has decided that landowners who reside along the Lake Champlain shoreline, having proven their case, are entitled to relief from agricultural runoff streaming off of a neighboring farm.
The Hoppers, landowners with agricultural backgrounds who spend part of the year in Vermont, accused the Vorstevelds, dairy farmers in Panton, of conducting practices that send vast amounts of brown runoff through their property and into Lake Champlain.
The high-profile trial played out in an Addison County courtroom for three days in mid-December and three days in early January. It has spurred conversation about the state’s regulatory system and has prompted lawmakers to introduce legislation to protect farms from nuisance suits by neighbors.
The neighbors proved their claims of trespass and nuisance “sufficient to warrant relief with respect to water flow and sediment and contaminants” and “proved a nuisance claim sufficient to warrant relief with respect to noxious smell,” according to the order, which was issued Monday.
But while the Hoppers and their attorney, Rob Woolmington, had suggested a specific plan to reduce the amounts of water flowing from the Vorsteveld farm, through their land and into the lake, Judge Mary Teachout said that plan was “not a remedy available in a suit between private owners based on common law claims.”
While the Hoppers are entitled to order the Vorstevelds to stop the runoff and address the noxious smell, their suggested remedy was “much more extensive,” Teachout wrote, and required a remedial plan.
The plan, based on recommendations from the Hoppers’ expert witness, Harold van Es, a professor of soil and water management at Cornell University’s College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, would have required crops to be grown in specific fields over certain time periods, for example. The Hoppers also called for a water quality monitoring program to be approved by the University of Vermont Extension.
There’s no precedent, according to the order, for the court to mandate “that a defendant conduct its business or agricultural activities in specific ways subject to such oversight by the opposing party or third parties, however beneficial the requested practices may be.”
Instead, Teachout asked Woolmington to prepare an injunctive order more in line with established remedies. She gave the Vorstevelds’ attorney five days to file objections.
Woolmington called the court’s order a “complete vindication” of the Hoppers’ position.
Neither the Vorstevelds nor their attorneys were immediately available for comment Monday night.
While the case has become symbolic of an unfolding dynamic, and sometimes conflict, between farmers and newcomers to the state, the judge gave summaries about each party, gleaned from the evidence and testimony provided by each party, that counters the narrative most commonly at play.
Vicki Hopper, who grew up on a 5,000-acre family farm in Kansas, “values farming, the need for farming, and the importance of productivity,” Teachout wrote. “She respects the hard work and devotion farmers give to their farms. She does not wish to stop the Vorstevelds from farming on their property.”
The order found that “Vicki Hopper is not prone to be squeamish about ordinary or normal levels of manure odor associated with farming.”
The Vorstevelds, the order says, “are hardworking and interested in innovative farming methods and new technologies. They like to ‘keep up with new practices.’ They have coordinated with the UVM Extension Service to host events at the Jersey Street farm to introduce others to innovative and best farming practices such as growing good cover crops.”
Woolington told VTDigger on Monday night that he plans to issue an order that says, in essence, that the Vorstevelds have “got to stop what they were doing.”
“All this damage that they’re causing, to stop,” he said. “We’ll draft an order for the court’s consideration that says that, and the court will decide if the wording is right. But I think the decision makes it pretty clear that that’s what the injunction has to say.”
Disclosure: Rob Woolmington is vice president of the board of the Vermont Journalism Trust, the parent organization of VTDigger.
Read the story on VTDigger here: In Panton farm case, judge orders Vorstevelds to stop runoff, but doesn’t specify a remedy.