Williston
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AUGUST 3, 2023
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Special treatment Town, brewery reach agreement to lessen impact on wastewater system BY JASON STARR Observer staff
Joe Lemnah, founder and CEO of Burlington Beer Company, poses at the company’s Flynn Avenue restaurant in Burlington that opened in 2021. OBSERVER FILE PHOTO
The Essex Junction wastewater treatment facility was not built to handle what a growing craft brewery flushes into the system. Last summer, with high-demand waste stretching the facility to its limit, Water Quality Superintendent Chelsea Mandigo organized a test. Each of the three municipalities the facility serves — Williston, Essex and Essex Junction — would simultaneously test the wastewater they were piping in to try and determine where the highest-strength waste was coming from. Sampling quickly revealed that the most problematic waste was coming from Williston, Mandigo said. “So we started working backwards,” she said, “and as we worked backwards toward Burlington Beer Company, it was
very obvious that was the source.” Since its founding in 2014, Burlington Beer Company has grown steadily at its Omega Drive location behind the Get Air trampoline park. It took a big leap in 2018 when it increased brewing capacity by nearly 1,000 percent to 10,000 barrels a year. It’s second major leap came three years later, in 2021, when it moved its taproom and restaurant to a 14,000-squarefoot space on Flynn Avenue in Burlington, opening up enough space in Williston to double beer production. The company installed several holding tanks in 2018 to “sidestream” wastewater and send byproduct to an anaerobic digester for conversion to energy. But, according to founder and CEO Joe Lemnah, that system is no longer adequate. “We’ve grown a lot,” Lemnah said. see WASTEWATER page 24
FPF defends itself against religious discrimination claim BY JASON STARR Observer staff A Williston-based religious group claims its paid ad inquiry to Front Porch Forum was rejected without sufficient explanation. The Vermont Institute for Human Flourishing on Blair Park Road put out a news release last week explaining its intention to advertise a second-year event it is organizing in October in South Burlington: the Restoring Our Faith Summit. Front Porch Forum co-founder Michael Wood-Lewis this week confirmed the group’s assertion that the request was denied based on non-compliance with the company’s terms of use. “All attempts to elicit clarification were met with silence,” the group claimed in the news release. In an interview with the Observer this week, Wood-Lewis said: “We don’t typically discuss specific moderation cases. We
apply our terms of use uniformly. It has nothing to do with religion, it has to do with abiding by our terms of use.” The Vermont Institute for Human Flourishing consults with the Washington D.C.-based Sovereign Global Solutions. “This Washington D.C. lobbying group, we looked at them the same way we look at everyone else, and it just didn’t pass our screening,” Wood-Lewis said. The Vermont Institute for Human Flourishing seized on Front Porch Forum’s acceptance of public funding in its criticism. The neighborhood-level newsletter service accepted a contract to work with the Vermont Council on Rural Development on a federal grant in the wake of 2011’s Tropical Storm Irene and currently accepts annual funding from some larger municipalities with multiple forums to allow public officials to post across all of their municipal forums. “It’s appalling to suggest that
notice of a conference on faith is not welcome on a public platform in Vermont,” Vermont Institute for Human Flourishing president Deb Billado said in the news release. “Freedom of speech is a foundational principle of our
“It has nothing to do with religion, it has to do with abiding by our terms of use.” Michael Wood-Lewis Front Porch Forum co-founder
country and, without explanation, our group is shut down and shut out of reaching our fellow Vermonters with an important message.” The first Restoring Our Faith Summit occurred last October in South Burlington. This year’s event will feature “speakers, authors, social scientists and faith
leaders” to “engage with Vermont communities to revitalize the role of religion in daily life,” the news release describes. In announcing last year’s event, Billado said: “The summit is a first step in helping to strengthen our resolve as people of Judeo-Christian heritage. After identifying the ways our country has lost its moorings, especially in recent years, we will contrast these with those of Americans at the country’s founding, highlighting what monotheism and biblical teachings inspired at the time and are still capable of doing.” According to Laura Cirone, the D.C.-based spokeswoman for Sovereign Global Solutions who inquired about placing the Front Porch Forum ad, the denial was based on Front Porch Forum’s review of the event website at www.restoringourfaithvermont. com. No ad content was ever submitted. “FPF takes its moderation responsibilities seriously,” Wood-
Lewis explained in an email to the Observer. “We do not allow illegal activity, personal attacks on neighbors, or misinformation about important public issues. That said, only a tiny fraction of the postings submitted by FPF members require moderation. The vast majority are civil, useful and neighborly. “In recent years, FPF’s moderation work has become more challenging,” he continued, “as a small minority of members bring the vitriol and divisiveness that has come to characterize national debates into their local Forums. FPF remains committed to providing a welcoming and inclusive online space for people to connect with each other as neighbors, regardless of their opinions on political or social issues. We will continue to engage in thoughtful moderation to support this goal, and will maintain our financial independence so we can continue to serve as a resource for Vermont communities.”