The Vermont Supreme Court last week found the owners of a Panton dairy farm in contempt of court for their failure to reduce agricultural runoff produced by their large operation.
The latest decision in a long-running legal case could further mire the farm’s application for state approval of its plan to add 580 cows. The expansion has already prompted concerns from neighbors who complain that the farm is worsening the water quality in nearby Lake Champlain.
Owned by Rudy, Hans and Gerard Vorsteveld, the property is recognized as a Large Farm Operation by the state. The farm’s 1,500 mature dairy cows and 1,500 heifers produce 19.87 million gallons of liquid manure annually. The proposed 580 cow expansion would generate an estimated 6.1 million additional gallons of waste each year, according to their permit application.
In response to Vorsteveld Farm’s application, 18 concerned Addison County residents urged state leaders to deny the expansion in an April letter to the secretaries of the Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food and Markets and the Agency of Natural Resources as well as Gov. Phil Scott. The neighbors cited the farm’s multiple violations, lack of compliance and defiance of court orders.
Additionally, a crowd of roughly 60 people gathered at an April 3 public meeting held by the Agency of Agriculture to discuss the farm’s expansion plans. After a five-day public comment period following the meeting, the agency began reviewing the farm’s expansion application and plans to approve or deny it June 16.
In response to neighbors’ claims, Gerard Vorsteveld has said the farm would gradually increase the herd, rather than adding all 580 cows at once. He acknowledged public concern and said he and his brothers were following orders from the state regarding the farm, according to Seven Days.
Neither the Vorstevelds’ attorney, Claudine Safar, nor Gerard Vorsteveld returned multiple requests for comment.
A history of conflict
The brothers have already been accused of releasing pollution into local waterways, including Lake Champlain — one of Vermont’s primary drinking water sources.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency filed a civil suit against the Vorstevelds last summer for allegedly violating the Clean Water Act and destroying wetlands. The brothers denied the charges, and the case remains open.
In 2022, Addison Superior Court Judge Mary Miles Teachout found the Vorstevelds liable for trespass due to polluted runoff crossing a neighbor’s land and flowing into Lake Champlain. The contaminants included nitrates, phosphorus, suspended solids and E. coli levels comparable to untreated sewage, according to the court decision.
Though the court ordered the farm to stop the runoff in 2022, the Vorstevelds were held in contempt in September 2024 for failing to comply. Teachout ordered they pay a $1,000 fine for each day the farm was out of compliance, starting Nov. 15, 2024.
The Vorstevelds, through their attorney, appealed the decision and invested an estimated $60,000 in improvements to their tile drainage system to prove their compliance with court orders.
“The Farm did its best to address the issues that were raised by every point, and spent a significant amount of time and money addressing these issues,” Safar said in an argument before the Vermont Supreme Court.
In rebuttal, the Hoppers’ attorney Merrill Bent argued much of the $60,000 the Vorstevelds spent on improvements was geared toward the EPA’s lawsuit against the farm, rather than in response to Teachout’s contempt order. Bent said “there is a robust record” of evidence validating Teachout’s motion for contempt.
At evidentiary hearings on April 24 and 25, Gerard Vorsteveld testified that he had capped the tile drains, successfully preventing water from flowing into neighbors’ property. Although the excess runoff was halted temporarily, the court found that Vorsteveld’s solution did not meet the clear and convincing standard to prove permanent compliance with the initial contempt order, according to Teachout’s May 1 Superior Court decision.
To conclude the three-year legal battle, a final Supreme Court decision on May 9 upheld the lower court’s contempt order. However, Teachout relieved the Vorstevelds of any fines due to their attempt to comply during the period between Nov. 16, 2024, through April 25, 2025.
Community complaints
In their letter to state agencies and the governor, neighbors pointed to the contempt ruling as evidence that Vorsteveld Farm has not addressed the continued harm to Vermont’s waterways, therefore, “the question the Secretary of Agriculture must determine when evaluating an LFO Amendment application has already been conclusively determined.”
Neighbor Glen Macri pointed to the EPA’s separate lawsuit accusing the Vorstevelds of illegally discharging pollution into wetlands, calling it a clear contradiction against the farm’s ecological practices such as cover-cropping and no-till farming.
“They are trying to maximize yields, but there’s no countermeasure to control the accelerated runoff that’s going directly to the lake or surrounding waterways,” Macri said. “I guess there’s no regulation or requirement to prevent that.”
He said the farm is situated in an environmentally sensitive area with the Dead Creek watershed to the east and Lake Champlain directly to the west, both of which provide popular public recreational sites.
Paulette Bogan, another neighbor and longtime Addison County resident, said algae blooms near her Lake Champlain property have rapidly increased since the Vorstevelds built their tile drainage system, which she believes to be the cause of the pollution.
“We have a dock … I used to swim in it, and I would not swim in it anymore. It’s directly a result of the algae blooms,” she said.
In an email to VTDigger, Safar wrote that these claims from neighbors were “completely baseless.”
The state’s role
The proposed farm expansion accompanies ongoing criticism of Vermont’s regulatory system, which divides oversight between the Agency of Agriculture and the Agency of Natural Resources. Macri voiced frustration with what he called a “totally dysfunctional” arrangement between the agencies.
Under the existing system, the agriculture agency oversees farm practices to prevent runoff, while the Agency of Natural Resources is tasked with intervening if that pollution reaches streams or lakes.
However, neighbors say the split regulatory system has led to finger-pointing rather than action. Bogan said her questions about water quality have gone unanswered by the state.
“Every time we ask (the agriculture agency) to look into the water quality,” their response is to put the responsibility on the Agency of Natural Resources, even though “the agriculture agency has 12 water specialists on their staff,” she said.
Scott Waterman, a spokesperson for the Agency of Agriculture, said in an email that officials were unavailable for comment while the Vorsteveld farm’s expansion application remains under review until June.
The EPA has acknowledged deficiencies in Vermont’s regulatory programs for more than a decade. In a January letter to Natural Resources Secretary Julie Moore, the federal agency said the state’s division of responsibilities between her agency and the Agency of Agriculture “has led to confusion and regulatory inaction.”
The EPA has pushed Vermont to clearly define the two agencies’ roles, particularly for regulating concentrated animal feeding operations, which have never been formally permitted in the state. The pollution generated from phosphorus, often present in agricultural runoff, is arguably the greatest threat to clean water in Lake Champlain, according to the Department of Environmental Conservation.
In response to the EPA’s concerns, legislators are considering bill S.124, which would give oversight of the concentrated animal feeding operations program to the Agency of Natural Resources, though many responsibilities would still be shared with the Agency of Agriculture. Moore said the bill received broad support from the EPA.
“There were places where we hadn’t kept up with some of the changes in the Federal Code of Regulations around CAFO,” Moore said. “We’ve committed to EPA that we will revise that to provide better clarity around roles and responsibilities, and that the authority for the CAFO program really sits with ANR.”
The agriculture agency is responsible for approving or denying the Vorsteveld’s proposed expansion, and its review of their permit application is expected to occur “outside of any real conversation about the CAFO program,” Moore said.
Bogan, one of the neighbors, expressed disbelief that the farm’s expansion is even on the table, due to the drastic reforms needed in Vermont’s regulatory system.
“Since we’ve got this dysfunctional relationship between ANR and the agency of ag, and we have no permit for CAFOs in Vermont, and we’re in violation of the Clean Water Act, how can they possibly consider an expansion of the farm?” she said.
