Johnson Interim Chief

Of Vt. Env. Protection

A Randolph man, Justin Johnson, will become Vermont’s interim commissioner of environmental conservation as of Sept. 1.

Vermont Natural Resources Secretary George Crombie last week announced that Jeff Wennberg, the agency’s commissioner of environmental conservation, will resign in order to seek opportunities outside of state government.

"Jeff has been a valuable member of our team, and I am grateful for his more than four years of service to Vermont and its environment," Secretary Crombie said.

His announced departure elicited generally favorable reviews throughout Vermont, both from business representatives and from environmental groups.

The Department of Enviromental Conservation is the enforcement arm of the Agency of Natural Resources. It is also the agency’s largest single entity, which employs more than half of ANR’s 625 employees.

Johnson is a native of Australia who married Randolph native Gus Howe.

Previous to relocating to Randolph, Johnson worked as chief of staff for a member of the Australian Parliament and as a senior executive in local government.

In the United States, he first worked for the Montpelier-based Institute for Sustainable Communities, implementing civil society and community development projects in Russia, Ukraine, and Macedonia on behalf of the United States Agency for International Development.

In the mid 1990s, he spent four years with the Vermont Agency of Agriculture.

He said this week he hopes to approach the job as Wennberg did. Consistency is important in a regulatory agency, he noted. "It gives people an opportunity to know what the rules are, and hold them to them."

He said he is part of the team assembled by Secretary Crombie to perform a complete review of the Agency. There has been no general reorganization in 30 years, he noted.

Included among Johnson’s responsibilities is the new effort to produce plans for every watershed in Vermont. The "basin planning" started with the White River watershed and is well behind schedule, having already sparked considerable controversy.

New people have been assigned to the overall effort, Johnson said. Apart from the possible new regulations, which may be controversial, the plans have an important role, he said.

"My sense is that there is a lot of really good stuff in them that’s not regulatory at all." The plans point at "things to do" to help the health of the watersheds, he said, and can be acted on by groups of citizens.

One such group is the White River Partnership, based in Rochester but active throughout the watershed. Johnson stepped down from the board of the Partnership when he joined the Agency but he continues to be a member and goes out "planting trees," he said.

Johnson will be the second Randolph resident to hold that position; the other was Chris Recchia during the tenure of Gov. Howard Dean.