• Hospital Initiatives
• The Environmental Assistance Division (EAD) is working with the Association of Hospital and Health Systems (AHHS) to determine the needs in the reduction efforts for mercury in hospitals. The Association had its annual meeting on September 7, 2001 and EAD had a small display and information available to the hospital groups that attended. It is EAD’s intention to provide information and assistance through presentations to specific hospital groups such as housekeeping, lab managers, engineers, etc. at their individual meetings.
• Newborn Packets – EAD is still working with AHHS to locate funding for the digital thermometers to place in newborn packets through the hospital birthing areas. Some of the efforts for distribution of the Department of Health’s mercury in fish (for women) brochure is being coordinated with EAD.

• Collection Program Review (CPR) Committee
• The CPR Committee is in the process of reviewing current collection systems and potential alternative collection systems by product. The Committee is scheduled to meet one or two more times and will submit its recommendations to the Advisory Committee at the November meeting.

• Auto Salvage Yard Initiatives
• Arrangements have been made to visit three salvage yards as a part of a pilot program implemented through the Environmental Assistance Division to remove hood and trunk light switches from scrapped vehicles.

• Appliance Manual
• A draft appliance training manual has been developed and will be distributed at three, hands-on training programs scheduled for October 11, 19, and 25, 2001.
• The locations for these trainings will be at the Northeast Kingdom Solid Waste District in Lyndonville, Springfield Recycling Center and at the Chittenden Solid Waste District in Burlington.
• EAD sent notifications for these trainings to waste officials, LP gas distributors, appliance dealers, and salvage yard operators.

• Fish Advisory Postings
• Suggestion that Fish and Wildlife take a more active role in fish advisory postings. Suggestion to work with them to provide detailed information so that they are more aware of the problems with mercury.
• Suggestion to have Fish and Wildlife attend ACMP meeting.
• Suggestion to form a subgroup with Neil, Bill and Michael to develop an approach to address fish advisory postings for next year.
• Neil Kamman to contact Eric Palmer with Fish and Wildlife to discuss potential coordinated efforts and will report back to Committee at October meeting.
• Michael will set up a subcommittee to move forward on this issue. Important to document the agreements that are made between the different parties.
• Suggestion to put this initiative in the Committee’s work plan for next year.

• Committee Appointments
• The Committee welcomed Mary Canales as the health representative for the Committee.
• Rich Phillips stated that there were still no appointments from the House or Senate Natural Resources and Energy Committee. Mr. Phillips will make a telephone contact to determine the status of these appointments.

• Manometer Funding
• The Committee received information for the projected funding needs to complete the manometer removal/exchange program for the remainder of the state. The total projected costs to complete the project were calculated at approximately $20,600.00.
• Pending legislation (S.91) included an appropriation for manometer removal. S.91 has not passed out of the appropriations committee.
• Grant funding was applied for to complete the manometer removal/exchange program. This funding was declined.
• Suggestion to address funding issues at the October meeting.

• Product Stewardship Institute
• Product Stewardship was not discussed at this meeting.

• Letter to be drafted by Rich Phillips to Air Quality with recommendations for draft inventory report update in response to the comments made by members of the Committee.
• Suggestion that the letter encourage Air Quality to continue efforts to more towards a more accurate inventory in the upcoming year.
• Draft letter will be e-mailed to Committee before the next meeting for comments and letter will be mailed prior to next Advisory Meeting.
• New Jersey’s inventory will be an important source of information that should be considered once the report is released. Their information will include incinerators and coal-fired power plants that Vermont does not have. New Jersey is dealing with more sources than Vermont in this instance.
• Committee agrees that Vermont needs to do its own survey in an attempt to prioritize mercury reduction efforts. Also, this inventory would be Vermont’s contribution to regional data.

• Monitoring data recommendations will be finalized at the November meeting.
• Recommendations should be prioritized to be included in the 2002 legislative report.
• Neil Kamman sent a letter to UVM to obtain a student who would be interested in completing a research paper in exchange for credit to compile current monitoring data.
• Neil will supply an update on the progress at October meeting and provide a prioritization for the November meeting.

• Updates on projects listed above.
• Health Department brochures for pregnant women are being translated into six different languages (French, Spanish, Bosnian, Vietnamese, Croatian, and Russian). EAD is coordinating distribution with the Health Department for new mother packets to be distributed through hospitals to avoid duplication of distribution of the brochures. Distribution of the brochures will be through Community Public Health.
• Question as to whether the Abenaki is being targeted for this brochure distribution.

• Bill Bress to report at October meeting.

• Draft Best Management Practices Procedure (BMP) document supplied to Committee members for review and comment by e-mail. Committee to review draft BMP procedure for comment at the next Advisory meeting.
• Best Management Practices Procedure would be a voluntary effort and accomplish similar results as proposed in S.91, which did not get adopted as law.
• The Agency is currently conducting evaluations of amalgam separators. Requirement to add a requirement for amalgam separators can be included in BMP Procedures at a later date.

• S.91 was a revision of the model legislation and did not include this section but rather included a provision for hospitals to provide a mercury reduction plan.
• Committee to obtain update from NEWMOA Hospital Disclosure Workgroup to incorporate into draft 2002 legislative report.

• Report to be submitted to the Committee by Collection Program Review (CPR) Committee at the November meeting for discussion prior to making recommendations for the January 2002 legislative report.

• Pending legislation to be discussed and included on the agenda of the next Advisory meeting.

• Suggestion to include a second meeting for the month of November to allow time for review of the draft 2002 legislative report.

• In the interest of conserving resources, Karen Knaebel told the Committee that notices had been mailed to interested parties on the ACMP mailing list advising that future minutes and agendas would be sent via e-mail. Several responses have been received.

• Suggestion that the Committee should address the need for long-term storage of mercury. Suggestion that recommendation should come out of the Advisory Committee.
• Suggestion that the Committee recommend a legislative resolution to support federal government responsibility for long-term safe storage of excess mercury.
• Suggestion that a letter be written to Jeffords. Michael Bender to draft a letter to be reviewed at the next Committee meeting.

• Bill Bress advised that the Department of Health was having difficulty determining what kind of direction to provide to the general public for disposal of mercury-containing items such as broken mercury fever thermometers.
• EAD will have Tom Benoit discuss this problem at the next Hazardous Waste meeting for input from the Solid Waste Districts and will provide the information to the Department of Health.
• Because of varied types of collection programs throughout the Districts, it is difficult to provide set responses. Suggestion to set up a coordinated effort though the Solid Waste Districts for back-up responses for ongoing emergency spill response.
• Suggestion that information could be provided on the mercury web site.

Tuesday, October 9, 2001   ---  1:00 p.m. to 4:00 p.m.

Friday, November 9, 2001  ---  9:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m.

Tuesday, December 11, 2001   ---  9:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m.

An additional "tentative" meeting date was set for November 30, 2001 from 9:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m. if necessary to use as a time to review a draft of the Advisory Committee’s 2002 Report to the Legislature. The necessity of this meeting will be determined at the November 9, 2001 meeting.