On this point, Appellants have a meritorious claim, and the Permit should be altered to reflect that the allowable angles of fire at the shooting stations is indeed 30E. As described below, however, the hearing requested by the Appellants is not required by either the Vermont APA, Act 250, or the Environmental Board Rules. Moreover, several other of the previously proposed stations were removed altogether. As a consequence of the reduction in sites near the Project's perimeter, the total of allowable sites was reduced. Accordingly, the Applicants proposed one additional site that Appellants argue had not been subject to review or cross examination. Appellants proffer a host of arguments as to why incorporation of this additional station, and the use of the final site plan that was submitted in the proposed conditions, are improper.
Appellants request an additional hearing.
If a new issue were introduced and if it were to be considered by the Board, Appellants and all other parties would be entitled to an opportunity to respond. The Applicants' proposed conditions, however, did not introduce any new issue. Rather, the proposed conditions effected a mitigation of the projects' impacts and were consistent with, indeed driven by, the proposed findings of fact and conclusions of law which the parties had proposed and particularly with those findings and conclusions which the Board adopted and included in its decision. Appellants seem to contend that the noise data and shotfall issues that had been addressed throughout the hearing with respect to the site in general were wholly separate from those attendant to placement of C34 - and irrelevant to it. An important question to ask when discussing whether the Board has complied with 3 V.S.A. 809 is whether the Appellants' testimony, arguments, or proposed findings and conclusions would have been any different had C34 been part of the site plan.