The town of Bethel, post-Irene. Photo courtesy U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

A report released Monday by Vermont’s Agency of Natural Resources gives Vermonters some insight as to why Irene so devastated some communities and how other communities escaped even greater crises.

“Resilience: A Report on the Health of Vermont’s Environment” examines 10 aspects of Vermont’s environmental health. As the title suggests, the report looks into the greatest threats facing the state’s environment and how resilient the various aspects are to another disaster on the scale of Tropical Storm Irene.

The report follows the tradition of the ANR’s annual state of the environment reports issued between 1993 and 2004, when the agency stopped doing the reports. Deb Markowitz, secretary of the Agency of Natural Resources, said the year’s events led the agency to take a fresh look at the state’s environment.

“In light of the incredible year we’ve experience and in light of the incredible stresses we’ve seen on our natural environment, we decided to re-institute this tradition,” Markowitz said at a press conference in the Statehouse Monday.

While it focused on the environment at large, a majority of the report focused on Vermont’s preparedness (and – in some cases – lack thereof) for Tropical Storm Irene. The effects of Irene were spread throughout the report, with sections on reducing flood damage, cleaning up Lake Champlain and building resilient infrastructure.

“[The report] identifies the biggest threats to Vermont’s environmental health and asks important questions about what we need to do to make sure Vermont is more resilient into the future,” Markowitz said.

“Flooding will happen again,” the report says, and it’s not a matter of if, but when. Maintaining and restoring floodplains – areas where river overflow will cause minimal damage, lowering the risk to downstream communities – is a vital step in preventing flooding damage.

Deb Markowitz, secretary of the Agency of Natural Resources, unveils new report about the status of Vermont's environment. Photo by Taylor Dobbs

After analyzing 8,000 of Vermont’s 23,000 miles of rivers and streams, ANR determined that almost 75 percent of those river miles are considered “unstable,” meaning they “are more likely to produce destructive floodwaters that result in property loss, create public safety risks, and harm downstream river and lake ecosystems.”

Human development caused much of this river instability. Thirty to 50 percent of Vermont’s river miles have been artificially straightened, the report says, and levees and berms meant to contain the river had the opposite effect when Irene hit. Rising water caused the rivers to jump their banks, and a lack of planned floodplains meant the overflow was disastrous almost instantly. The report suggests River Corridor Planning, a process through which communities protect naturally existing floodplains, map areas vulnerable to flooding and limit development in those areas and restore existing floodplains.

The report also emphasized building a resilient infrastructure with safeguards against extreme flooding conditions. It cited Rutland’s use of an already-established backup water supply after its main supply pipe washed away in Tropical Storm Irene and Rochester’s well head being above the 100-year floodplain elevation as examples of resilient infrastructures. Other communities did not fare so well when Irene hit.

Pipes buried in riverbeds and attached to bridges and other vulnerable structures are “critical vulnerabilities,” according to the report. Wells, water distribution centers, and wastewater treatment centers “are often situated directly on floodplains, sometimes perilously close to riverbanks, making them vulnerable to inundation and erosion hazards.”

Precarious location is only part of the problem. Much of the state’s infrastructure is deteriorating with age, the report said, and the lack of a centralized inventory of infrastructure makes cost-effective upgrades difficult. Through the Drinking Water and Groundwater Protection Division, ANR seeks to help communities establish such an inventory and help them efficiently upgrade their infrastructure to avoid failures.

Other issues addressed in the report included climate change, protecting lakeshores, reducing air pollution, enhancing forest resilience, conserving habitat, minimizing waste and drawing kids outdoors.

ANR’s report brings up many environmental issues the state needs to deal with, and some solutions are already at work. Infrastructure planning, citizen education and outreach, and protective legislation can all help the state’s environment, but the report looks to the federal Environmental Protection Agency for help on some issues, especially air pollution, much of which originates in up-wind states with fewer environmental controls. Multiple EPA-proposed rules that would help Vermont are bogged down at the federal level, either in Congress or the court system, preventing further assistance.

VTDigger

“When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the Universe.”  — John Muir

This week, in honor of Earth Day, the Agency of Natural Resources will be issuing a report on the health of Vermont’s environment. What we learned from this report is: In nature, as in life, everything is connected.

In light of the devastating storms Vermont experienced last year, the theme of the report is “resilience.” Research shows that just like individuals and communities, ecosystems will recover from adversity best when the surrounding environment supports healing. For this reason, our report provides an assessment of where we are today. It identifies the biggest threats to Vermont’s environmental health and asks important questions about what we need to make our ecosystems and communities more resilient in the future. Here is some of what we found:

Climate change: During the past 50 years, Vermont’s climate has shown a clear warming trend in all seasons, and especially in winter. New climate patterns stress our ecosystems. For example, increases in rainfall and extreme weather events result in record flood levels. To become more resilient to future floods we must manage our floodplains to make room for the river, and we are using ANR’s emissions inventory to set goals for reducing Vermont’s greenhouse gas emissions and to track our progress.

Water quality: The health of our lakes is inextricably linked to the health and stability of our rivers and streams. Lake Champlain’s water quality suffered in 2011, because the heavy rains that fell in the spring of 2011 and during Tropical Storm Irene washed huge loads of phosphorus down rivers and streams into the lake. Our lake and river protection efforts must be linked. Increasing the stability of rivers and streams is essential for preventing severe damage to our lakes from future flooding.

Forest health: It is hard to overstate the value of Vermont’s forests to the health of our environment (not to mention to our economy and way of life). This past year, Vermont’s forests helped to intercept many heavy downpours, slowing runoff into streams. Had there been fewer acres of healthy forests, the intense flooding and pollution from runoff would have been even worse. Trees also remove greenhouse gas carbon dioxide from the air and store it in their leaves, wood and roots. To be resilient into the future Vermont must safeguard our forests from the threats of climate change, the spread of invasive species and the loss and fragmentation of forestland caused by development.

We have many assets for building resilience. Vermonters understand that not only is everything connected in nature but the quality of our environment is closely connected to the quality of our lives, the vigor of our economy, and to our health. We have a wealth of sound scientific information to help us understand the challenges we face and the steps we might take to meet them. And we have many dedicated environmental and community organizations working alongside us to address complex environmental problems.

I have great hope for our future. This Earth Day I ask that you join us every day, in our effort to ensure our environment remains resilient and healthy for this and future generations.

VTDigger

In our house my husband is the “recycling police.” When he finds a wayward plastic container or piece of cardboard in the garbage he holds it up accusatorially, looking for one of us to confess to throwing it out. And, of course, he is right; when we throw out something that can be reused or recycled we are wasting precious natural resources and are adding to growing piles of waste that are filling our landfills.

Even in Vermont, where we take such pride in environmental stewardship, we are throwing out more garbage than ever. Vermonters generate more than 600,000 tons of garbage every year, or about two tons for every Vermont household. We have to rethink our approach to waste!

At the Agency of Natural Resources we are thinking differently about solid waste these days. Instead of focusing on waste management we are focusing on resource management. This means we are looking at ways to best use our limited natural resources and conserve energy by finding continued value in the things we would otherwise throw away, and by preventing and minimizing waste, rather than just managing it once it exists.

Natural resources are finite, and extracting them has financial, social and environmental costs. When we discard and landfill our trash not only do we squander these materials, but we also add to the factors that cause climatic changes and energy consumption. In contrast, creating new uses for items we would otherwise throw away produces real economic and environmental value. It is also important to note that waste disposal is expensive, and the two existing Vermont landfills have limited space.

A few weeks ago the Vermont House took an important step. In a show of bipartisan support, the House unanimously passed a mandatory recycling bill. Today, we are recycling 36 percent of the waste stream, but half of the other 64 percent is recyclable, and yet ends up in our landfills. The House bill would ban from our landfills all recyclable materials by July 2015. In addition, yard waste, like grass clippings, and waste wood would be prohibited by July 2016, and all organic materials would be banned from our landfills by July 2020. We look forward to working with the Senate to get this bill to the governor’s desk for signature.

In the coming year ANR will complete a new solid waste plan, outlining strategies for making recycling services more convenient and cost effective, and to facilitate and encourage composting. We will also be looking for ways to prevent waste in the first place. It only makes sense: if waste is not generated, then it does not need to be transported, reused, recycled, processed, or disposed of. We will also be asking Vermonters to get involved.

Remember, the little things each of us do can help make a big difference. Choose items that are durable and have less packaging. Don’t throw things out — used items are often welcomed at church bazaars and charity resale shops. Start composting your food and yard waste. Help us meet this “resource management” challenge by becoming the “recycling police” in your home and office.

Together, we can protect and preserve our natural resources for this and for future generations.

Thank you for your interest. Feel free to contact us at 802-241-3600 or by email at penny.percival@state.vt.us with your comments or suggestions.

VTDigger

Agency of Natural Resources Secretary Deb Markowitz. VTD/Josh Larkin

A proposal in Vermont’s Draft Comprehensive Energy Plan to consider rescinding a 2004 wind project moratorium on state land slipped through without consideration from the Agency of Natural Resources, according to ANR Secretary Deb Markowitz.

Due to an oversight in the drafting process, ANR never weighed in on the proposal to consider lifting the moratorium that ended up in the draft plan, Markowitz said. The current policy is appropriate, she said.

Markowitz said the “moratorium,” which prohibits large scale wind projects on ANR land is appropriate and consistent with land use practices the department supports.

“We think that the policy in place now works and is consistent with the goals of the energy policy,” Markowitz said.

To be clear, the “moratorium” on large-scale renewable energy development on state lands is not really a moratorium. In fact, the policy statement, which emerged during the Douglas administration, states: “The Agency shall actively encourage and promote development of small-scale, renewable energy applications in appropriate locations on ANR lands. (This includes ANR lands under long term lease to ski areas).” “Large-scale renewable energy projects” on such land are not permitted under the policy.

In fact, there already are turbines on state land. The agency recently held a ribbon-cutting ceremony for a wind turbine on Burke Mountain, for example, which is located on state land.

“My understanding is the final version of the plan will have taken the lifting of the moratorium out and in fact will reflect the reality that what we have is not a complete moratorium but allows the kind of flexibility that I think is appropriate to engage in renewable energy projects that is consistent with the land ownership,” she said.

Sarah Hofmann, deputy commissioner for the Department of Public Service, said the department was not giving any sneak peaks as to what would be included in the final plan, which should come out some time in mid-December.

The draft plan recommends that ANR consider lifting the moratorium. It does not rescind the policy outright.

Even if the policy did go away, Hofmann said, new projects would still have to go through the certificate of public good process, which requires the public service board to consider adverse effects on aesthetics, historic sites, air and water purity, the natural environment and the public health and safety that new electricity generation projects would cause.

The idea of rescinding the policy drew mixed reactions from environmental groups and lawmakers.

The Green Mountain Club, which works to preserve the Long Trail, wrote in its comments that it opposed the state lifting the moratorium “as long as the state continues to lack clear policy and guidelines for wind energy development projects.”

Will Wiquist, executive director of the Green Mountain Club, said his group had voiced concerns with lifting the moratorium early on. Wiquist said the club has been working for 20 years to purchase land in operation with the state and preserve it so people can enjoy the trail, which travels the length of the state from south to north. The comments filed by the club propose an evaluation of the cumulative impacts of wind project development on the landscape, considering the utility-scale wind projects on ridges at Georgia, Sheffield, and Lowell, as well as the Deerfield Expansion already in progress.

In comments to the Department of Public Service regarding the policy, the Vermont Natural Resources Council said rescinding the policy would be premature until the state completes its natural resource inventory and mapping project to determine whether state lands are
appropriate for wind development.

On the other hand, the Vermont Public Interest Research Group supported lifting the policy. Their comments state: “The current ban on wind turbines on state lands is not only unnecessary but also sends the message that wind power is somehow worse than other development that benefits the state.”

Paul Burns, executive director of VPIRG, said if the state is serious about renewable energy it needs to consider wind projects on state land, including those with more than one turbine. Like state buildings are an appropriate place to demonstrate a commitment to renewable solar energy, Burns said, land could be a demonstration of commitment to wind, subject to all environmental regulations.

“As one of the most benign forms of generating electricity, it should not be treated more harshly from a regulatory standpoint than anything else,” Burns said.

The proposal to lift the policy drew even more criticism from Sen. Peter Galbraith, D-Windham, who issued a press release last week proposing legislation that would make a prohibition of wind projects on state land a law rather than just a policy. Galbraith’s proposal would also require consent of all towns in the “viewshed” of a proposed project for an industrial-scale wind project.

Galbraith said his proposal would prohibit projects on private conservation land as well as ANR-managed land.

“If we protect land for its pristine qualities and we allow projects there, we’re defeating the purpose for which it was protected,” Galbraith said.

He said the consent of surrounding towns is only fair considering that their view may be affected more than that of a town that hosts a project.

Tony Klein, chair of the House Committee on Natural Resources and Energy, initially criticized the supposed “viewshed veto” Galbraith’s legislation would allow. Klein said approval of projects should be up to the state Public Service Board.

Klein said his concerns involve the proposal that surrounding towns have an effective veto more than the moratorium in general. He said it is more of a “feel-good” moratorium anyway, since there is really no appropriate siting for large-scale projects on state lands that anyone is currently aware of.

VTDigger

Woodstock, Vt., September 11, 2011 -- Mud, rocks and debris have to be cleared in many rivers and streams throughout Vermont as a result of flooding from tropical storm Irene. FEMA is working to provide assistance to those who were affected by Hurricane Irene. Photo by Angela Drexel

State worries that rivers were damaged by dredging while Act 250 was relaxed

This story by Allison Teague originally appeared in the November/December issue of Vermont Woman and the Nov. 16 edition of commonsnews.org.

Tropical Storm Irene swelled rivers and streams to 100-year, and in some cases, even 500-year, flood levels on Aug. 28. The raging torrents washed out roads and bridges, destroyed homes and left more than a dozen communities in southern and central Vermont stranded by the aftermath.

Thousands of tons of sand, gravel, and rock were washed out of roadbeds and deposited in streams and rivers in the region, altering the shape of these waterways for decades to come.

The state immediately gave towns and villages permission to use the fluvial debris to rebuild access roads. Just as quickly, excavators, backhoes, bulldozers, and huge dump trucks massed around the river and stream beds around Vermont to accomplish that task.

Municipalities began work to “relocate streams to a former location,” “re-establish channel capacity,” “facilitate stream stability,” and “reestablish stream crossings.”

Not long afterward, the Compliance and Enforcement Division of the state Agency of Natural Resources began responding to complaints lodged by residents who were concerned about the environmental impacts of streambed alterations.

Since evidence of dredging and bank “armoring” came to light, environmentalists have decried the permanent damage caused by the excavation of streams and questioned the state’s handling of the emergency.

Act 250 after Irene

River and stream alterations such as armoring (embedding rock in banks) and channelization (digging out stream beds) have been off-limits since 1970 thanks to Act 250, Vermont’s signature environmental protection law that controls land use and development.

Deb Markowitz, secretary of the Agency of Natural Resources, suspended certain Act 250 rules immediately after Irene.

“Gravel and rock fill for road and infrastructure repair is critical to Vermont’s post-Irene response,” Markowitz said shortly after the cleanup began. “To assure availability of material that has been requested by the state or towns for such repairs, the Natural Resources Board [which enforces Act 250] is temporarily suspending enforcement of extraction limits and trucking, and is allowing closed gravel pits and rock quarries to be reopened on an as-needed basis.”

ANR officials gave towns verbal permits for to dredge streams through the beginning of October. At that time the state began to require written permits for all streambed alteration and gravel removal, according to Compliance and Enforcement Director Gary Kessler. Complaints about unapproved streambed work, he said, will be taken seriously.

“The locations with the most number of complaints will be the first we will look into,” Kessler said.

Grafton reacted swiftly

Grafton was one of the towns in the region that was cut off when the main roads washed out, but it was also one of the best prepared. Town Emergency Management Incident Commander Bill Kearns, a former FEMA attorney and now a Grafton resident, knew what to expect, and he parked machinery at the fire and rescue department, recruited contractors, and then obtained faxed approval from ANR’s District 2 Environmental Commission Coordinator, April Hensel, to “open any pit you want” to fix the roads the day after Irene hit.

As a result, three days later, residents and homeowners were able to get in and out of Grafton on roads that were “not up to standard,” but nonetheless allowed traffic.

For weeks, in an attempt to repair river channels and protect property farther downriver in Saxtons River, backhoes, bulldozers, and excavators lumbered into the river and began moving rocks and sediment, berming some and carting the rest away to “be stockpiled in the Rockingham highway yards,” according to R. J. Furgat, the operator/foreman of Buck Adams Trucking and Excavating LLC in Westminster, contracted by the town of Rockingham to deal with the emergency.

One of the results of severe flooding is likely to be that “the river bed was raised,” in some places several feet by gravel, rock and sediment, according to Furgat. “We’ve been hired to remove the excess gravel and clear the debris, as well as [re-]make channels and pools for the river to flow more like what it used to do,” Furgat said.

A mile or so downstream along Route 121, another contractor, Bazin Brothers Trucking, also of Westminster, spent several weeks clearing debris and berming the banks of the river with gravel from the riverbed, then leveling it. Bazin Brothers subsequently set up a gravel grading and crushing operation on the north side of the river in the flood plain where, before the flood, a farmer’s cattle had grazed.

Of time and the river

Time shows its effects on rivers and streams slowly, so human memories are short when it comes to events that result in flooding and damage.

Floods leave rich soil that is good for crops, and farmers along the Connecticut River have tilled floodplains for several centuries. Towns have also allowed building near rivers, despite historic flooding. But with the damage costs rising into the billions of dollars following Tropical Storm Irene, the state is encouraging towns to rethink planning and implement greater controls on development in floodplains.

“People don’t like to change,” Markowitz said. “It’s not going to be easy.”

A third-generation Vermonter, Caitlin Noel, executive director of the Friends of the Mad River, pointed out that rivers “operate on an entirely different time scale than humans.”

Noel, who holds a bachelor of science in environmental science from the University of Vermont, said that rivers have been “moving and changing since the retreat of the glaciers 10,000 years ago, meandering across floodplains, and moving sediment as our mountains continue to wear down over the course of geologic time.”

“The issue of dredging and stream alteration has been a very polarizing one,” Noel continued. “However, I believe that people on both sides of the issue want the same thing: to protect our communities from harm. The two camps simply disagree about the best way to do that.”

Environmentalists want to keep dredging to a minimum because the scientific evidence shows that removing silt and gravel is detrimental to river ecosystems.

“Scientists have documented what happens when you channelize, dredge, widen, and armor rivers over the years in places around the world, and the science is clear,” she said: Dredging damages waterbodies.

Many states limit the amount of gravel that can be removed from a stream, and regulate channel management, she said.

“[ANR] takes a watershed approach, understanding that river systems are interconnected, and the actions that are taken in one place can reach and affect the conditions of the river in upstream and downstream locations,” Noel said.

But Irene may have changed all that, Noel noted, and by the time ANR responded with guidelines, “The damage had already been done.”

Fish populations and their riverine habitat were impacted significantly.

In a study of selected streams affected by Irene, Rich Kirn, a fisheries biologist with the Vermont Fish and Wildlife Department, noted a loss of 33 percent to 58 percent of wild trout populations following the storm, compared with surveys before the storm.

“Young fish were particularly affected [0 percent to 37 percent of pre-flood levels], while older trout fared better [41 percent to 64 percent of pre-flood levels],” Kim said.

Kirn also noted that the impact of in-stream flood recovery activities “such as channelization, excessive stream bed excavation, and large-scale natural wood removal greatly reduces the quality and diversity of aquatic habitats necessary to sustain fish and other aquatic populations.”

He added that is difficult to say whether it would take longer for a river to recover from catastrophic changes from a natural disaster of the magnitude of Tropical Storm Irene, or from the extensive damage that is being caused by what he called “misguided human intervention.”

“It is my understanding that Vermont’s rivers are still in a period of adjustment due to historic channel straightening that occurred in the 1800s,” he said.

What happens next time?

Climate scientists, environmentalists, Gov. Peter Shumlin and Markowitz — agree that there will be a next time.

Noel wants to know what will be different “next time.”

One of the biggest problems was an inadequate number of technical staff from ANR who were available to respond to the emergency – there were only four river specialists available to help towns and villages dealing with cleanup following Irene, according to Justin Johnson, the deputy commissioner of the Department of Environmental Conservation.

Markowitz said that all the state’s agencies involved in the Irene disaster — from the Agency of Transportation, to the Agency of Natural Resources, to the Department of Environmental Conservation — are “stepping back to say, in the case of another event like this one, what are the lessons learned?”

“We want to be sure we have the capacity to meet the need” should a similar event recur, Markowitz added. “In this particular case, we had over 2,000 streams and impacted areas that [still] need to be addressed.”

Markowitz said the agency’s emergency response was “not a realistic way to deal with it (Irene).”

In an ANR study from 1999, “Options for State Flood Control Policies and a Flood Control Program,” the agency stated that “flood recovery operations have historically and frequently addressed only the symptoms of a greater problem rather than focusing on identification of the cause and determining how to facilitate improved system stability.”

“This is somewhat a funding-driven shortcoming, but a problem of institutional focus as well,” the report warned.

In August, Shumlin called for the formation of an international task force “to study issues related to flooding on Lake Champlain and the Richelieu River,” following spring flooding that destroyed homes and property all around Lake Champlain, in New York, Quebec, and Vermont.

Markowitz noted that “because of that experience, we had already made it a priority to have a more proactive approach” to mitigating and controlling flooding in state.

However, the biologic impacts on habitat following Irene have not yet been fully assessed, as the state continues to grapple with the damage to the infrastructure of roads, highways, and bridges, and biological and habitat assessments of the damage to private and municipal property continue.

With Vermonters coming to grips with a changing climate that includes increased precipitation, Shumlin urges residents to start to “change how we do things, and think about where we build our communities and developments.”

“Our city and town planning must reflect what we know about where floods occur, and not build there,” he said.

Those who fail to heed current warnings, Markowitz said, might find themselves disqualified from receiving FEMA assistance should a similar event occur. “We know it’s not if, but when,” she said.

Editor’s note: Anne Galloway contributed to this report.

Correction: We originally stated that Act 250 rules regarding stream management were lifted in the immediate aftermath of Irene. This was incorrect. Act 250 requirements were lifted for the reopening of gravel pits, according to Ron Shems, chair of the Natural Resources Board.

VTDigger

“Resiliency – the ability to adapt to difficult situations and successfully overcome adversity.”

An increasing body of research shows that people with strong social networks have a better chance of recovering from crisis; and that when people come together to rebuild, it can result in great innovation. Vermont’s history, from the early settlers in the 1700s to the great flood of 1927, demonstrates the truth of this research. And now, again, even in the shadow of the loss suffered by so many Vermont families, communities are coming together to reinvent themselves. Vermonters are a model of resiliency. So, too, are Vermont’s ecosystems.

This year many of Vermont’s ecosystems suffered significant damage from Irene and from the historic floods in May. Rain swollen rivers eroded their banks, realigning their contours, sweeping fertile agricultural land downstream. Pollution washed into our watersheds and as we repaired our infrastructure, work in the rivers compounded the damage.

While the state, local and federal responses to the flooding have been outstanding, we cannot underestimate the significant cost of flooding to Vermont. Scientists warn that changes in the earth’s climate will result in more frequent extreme one-day precipitation events, like those we saw this year, so we must do what we can now to prevent future economic harm, environmental damage and threats to public health from floods.

Ecosystems, like people, exhibit their own form of resiliency: and like people, they are more likely to bounce back when the surrounding environment supports the healing and prevents additional damage. There are things we can do to make our ecosystems and our communities more resilient, and to protect ourselves from future floods.

· Think twice before we build in floodplains. This year Vermonters suffered millions of dollars of damage when homes, businesses and roads in the floodplain were damaged or destroyed; and we saw environmental harm from failed septic systems and oil tanks leaking pollution into our waterways.

· Where possible, restore our river corridors. The places where we allow our river to meander survived this year’s floods with a minimum of damage. When we restore our river corridors we protect properties up and down the river because it gives a place for the stormwater to go, instead of flooding our towns. Re-vegetating the banks of our lakes and rivers and maintaining healthy forests helps prevent erosion that destroys property and pollutes the water.

· Design our communities for flood resiliency. We must rethink how we design our communities. New development can incorporate low impact building techniques and designs that allow water to seep into the ground, more closely imitating the natural cycle of water in which rain flows into the ground, is filtered by the soil, and then is slowly released into streams. Strategically placing green spaces and town forests can help absorb runoff in our built environments. This is not necessarily easy work, or cheap – but many communities have begun this work and are seeing results.

· Use innovative approaches for infrastructure design. When we build and renovate infrastructure like roads, bridges, culverts and wastewater treatment facilities we need to anticipate future flood events and look for innovative approaches to make them more resilient to floods.

Leadership from the top. Just weeks before Irene hit Vermont Governor Peter Shumlin and I announced a major flood resiliency initiative in response to the unprecedented spring flooding experienced last May. In light of Irene we will be expanding that effort. In the coming months we will be working across state agencies to develop a plan for Vermont that will use what we learned from this year’s floods to better prepare us for the future. With our partners in Canada and New York we are convening a conference that brings together state, local and regional partners to consider the latest research on innovative approaches to prevent, mitigate and respond to future floods.

State government will not solve this problem alone. Like every environmental challenge facing Vermont we need to work together. But if our response to Irene is any indication, Vermonters are well up to the task.

What causes floods? We experience flooding when stormwater cannot soak into the ground so it flows into our lakes, rivers and streams in amounts that make those water bodies exceed their banks. For example:

· Earlier warming trend are changing the timing of our spring snowmelt. When the snow melts before the ground thaws the water has nowhere to go except our lakes, rivers and streams. This year the early snowmelt was combined with record spring rainfall and the consequence was disastrous for Lake Champlain.

· The impervious surfaces we create – parking lots, pavement, roofs and other development – within our communities mean that stormwater has nowhere to go but our lakes, rivers and streams. And it brings with it all sorts of harmful pollution!

· Floodplains and wetlands are nature’s way of making us more resilient to flooding because it creates a place for stormwater to go, and it prevents pollution from reaching our lakes and streams. The more we fill in and developed our floodplains and wetlands, the less able the landscape is able to absorb snowmelt and rainfall. The areas that suffered the least damage in Hurricane Irene had less development in the floodplain and more marshy areas.

Costs of Flooding:

Economic impacts: property damage including both buildings and loss of land through erosion, loss of customers and tourism for lake dependent businesses, and disruption of other businesses as well.

Damage to public infrastructure: roads, drinking water and waste water treatment facilities, bridges, and culverts. Repairing this infrastructure will require public monies.

Environmental impacts: spills of oil, hazardous wastes, and other chemicals; septic tank failures; excess sediment and associated nutrients – all of these impact the environmental quality of the lake; also, it is likely that algae blooms this summer have been exacerbated by the flooding. Work we do in our rivers to protect infrastructure destroys fish habitat. All of these impacts have immediate costs associated with them, and will also impact our economy over the long term.

Flooding and Lake Champlain water quality

The flood exacerbated a number of existing challenges facing Lake Champlain. Some wastewater treatment plants and sewer systems overflowed, septic systems were flooded or failed, oil tanks tipped and spilled, and some small amounts of hazardous chemicals such as paint and cleaners were spilled from flooded households and small businesses. In addition, some fields where manure had been spread flooded and that material ended up in the lake. Similarly, stormwater runoff from our towns and cities throughout the lake’s watershed carried nutrients such as phosphorous off of our lawns, sidewalks, roads, driveways and parking lots.

Stormwater runoff also caused serious erosion and the resulting sediment load carried significant amounts of nutrients such as phosphorous and nitrogen. The significant algae blooms we are seeing this summer are due in part to the significant amounts of sediment that entered the lake.

VTDigger

Rivers run through our history and folklore, and link us as a people. They nourish and refresh us and provide a home for dazzling varieties of fish and wildlife and trees and plants of every sort. We are a nation rich in rivers. – Charles Kuralt

In Vermont we love our rivers, lakes and streams. They are the centerpieces of our communities, an important source of clean water and an essential economic driver as people come from all over the world to fish, paddle and swim. The recent floods have not just damaged our homes, businesses and infrastructure; the flooding made catastrophic changes to many of our streams, and rivers.

Across Vermont, communities have been devastated by the flood, and they have a real need to protect vulnerable areas before the winter snows fall. But this work can and must be done in a way that does not cause more significant damage in the future, and that will minimize the ecological impacts to the banks and beds of our rivers and streams.

Getting this balance right — with 2,000 locations with flooding impacted rivers and streams — is challenging, and responding to this statewide emergency has clearly strained the finite resources of the Agency of Natural Resources Rivers Program.

The first phase of our disaster response primarily involved emergency river work that was necessary to allow Vermonters to get back to their homes and businesses. Starting this week, staff will begin the shift from an exclusive focus on emergency response to working with municipalities, businesses and homeowners to maximize the long-term effectiveness of our state’s flood recovery work. We will be moving from oral authorizations to written documentation to ensure that work is done in conformity with the rules. This is also necessary to ensure FEMA reimbursement. Work that is unrelated to the flood disaster will still need to go through the formal permit process.

We can only protect our communities if we learn from our past mistakes. The damage from Irene is at least partially the legacy of flood control approaches taken in the 1930s, 1950s and 1970s. We know more now than we did then. We know that we must limit the amount of channel straightening, berming, over-widening and deepening to the bare minimum necessary to protect existing homes and businesses; we must design and size road ditches, bridges and culverts correctly and push roads and infrastructure as far back from the stream and river banks as we can, and finally, we need to minimize how much we build in our river corridors and floodplains.

Work in Vermont’s streams and rivers must be done knowing that doing the work incorrectly is just money down the hole. It may well cost more in the long run to simply rebuild in the same place, using the same methods! We also know from experience that digging deeper channels and constructing more bank stabilization is an expensive and uncertain way to contain a river or stream. While this may be done to protect particular homes and businesses, it can easily result in shifting the problem from one stretch of a stream to another area downstream.

This is easy to say but much harder to achieve in practice. There are times when digging out a channel and armoring the banks of a stream or river are simply necessary to protect our towns and villages, and our most important roads and bridges. Going forward, we must work to account for the costs and impacts of doing so.

Over the coming days, weeks and months, we look forward to engaging Vermonters in a conversation about how we can rebuild Vermont to be stronger and more resilient to the next round of flooding.

VTDigger

In the days since Tropical Storm Irene passed through Vermont leaving devastation in her wake, we are reminded of what it means to be Vermonters, what makes Vermont the special place it is, and how fortunate we are to call this state our home and our neighbors our friends.

Many of the offices of the Agency of Natural Resources are located at the Waterbury State Office Complex. When the muddy waters of the Winooski River first started rising, most of us were convinced we’d seen it before as we’d already survived spring flooding relatively unscathed. But when the waters rose through the basement and filled the first floor of some of our offices, we began to realize our own failure of imagination.

The flood of 1927 should have prepared us to appreciate the awesome destructive power of floods. In November of that year, 1,285 bridges were lost as well as countless numbers of homes and buildings destroyed and hundreds of miles of roads and railroad tracks washed away. More importantly, the flood waters claimed 84 lives, including that of the Vermont lieutenant governor at the time, S. Hollister Jackson. We are lucky to have avoided that level of destruction and loss of life in the most recent flood!

Now, as then, Vermonters stepped up to the challenge of rebuilding communities and the lives of those most directly affected. I realize now that our own organization — the Agency of Natural Resource — is a microcosm of the larger community.

I am proud of and indebted to those state employees who, when the floodwaters began to rise, struggled to save what they could of both our digital and physical infrastructure. They slogged through mud and muck to save important agency records and valuable equipment. Many of our staff worked long hours and responded to emergencies all around the state, despite having just lost their own offices, phones and computers.

Wherever I go, I hear stories of agency staff who have helped Vermont communities restore damaged sewage treatment facilities, ensure our dams remain safe and strong, rebuild roads, collect hazardous materials and debris, deal with contaminated drinking water and respond to the changes in our rivers in ways that will keep our communities safe in the future.

Without a home in Waterbury, the Agency of Natural Resources will look different from what it once was. Although we do not yet know whether we will return to Waterbury or make our home in a new place, we remain committed to our mission to protect, sustain and enhance Vermont’s natural resources for the benefit of this and future generations. One thing we have learned from Tropical Storm Irene is that we cannot achieve our mission by working alone.

As I listened to the stories of families who lost everything when the flood took their home, or a town clerk who is trying to salvage the historic records of the town that were inundated by floodwaters, or parents and teachers trying to get a school back up and running, I feel both overwhelmed with the enormity of the tragedy facing so many Vermonters, and also incredibly heartened by the resiliency and generosity of our people.

Just as we must work together to overcome the adversity imposed by flooding, so too must we work together to ensure we make the right choices for the future. When we protect our environment and help our ecosystems remain strong, we will be more resilient as a state.

VTDigger

Contact
Dr. Les Kanat
Department of Environmental & Health Sciences
leslie.kanat@jsc.edu
802-635-1327

JOHNSON, VT – Deb Markowitz, secretary of the Vermont Agency of Natural Resources and former Vermont secretary of state, will speak about her involvement in the Vermont Climate Cabinet from 4 to 5:15 p.m. on Wednesday, Sept. 21, at Johnson State College. The presentation takes place in 203 Bentley Hall and is free and open to the public, with ample free parking available in any campus lot.

Markowitz’s talk is part of the Wednesday afternoon speaker series sponsored by JSC’s Department of Environmental & Health Sciences, which brings experts on science topics to campus on Wednesday afternoons during the fall semester.

VTDigger

By Deb Markowitz, Vermont Secretary of Natural Resources

Some years ago, when the kids were young and my husband was out of town on business, I discovered a couple of bats flitting around the house. Quickly, the house erupted into chaos with bats flying, children screaming and running around, and me – trying to figure out how to open the windows (still caulked from the winter) while avoiding the darting bats. I was unsuccessful. Finally, I corralled the kids into a room and closed the door and called a friend who calmly caught the bats in a large sheet and then safely released them outside. The emergency was over.

I don’t know for sure what kinds of bats were in my house that early spring day – but most likely they were little brown bats. Until recently, the little brown bat was one of two species most often found in and around our homes, attics, barns, and garages. Due to a devastating illness, these populations have shrunk by as much as 95 percent. Just three years ago little brown bats were Vermont’s most common bat species, and now they are one of the rarest in the state. Consequently, as of this month, the little brown bat along with the northern long-eared bat have been added to Vermont’s Endangered Species list. This requires all of us to rethink how we treat our encounters with bats.

The Situation

White Nose Syndrome now threatens as many as 25 species of cave-hibernating bats across the United States. In Vermont alone, we have already lost over 500,000 bats. Two of these species – the little brown bat and the northern long-eared bat – have experienced declines by as much as 90 percent or more. Unless we find a way to slow the disease the little brown bat, among others, could become extinct within the next 15 years.

Why Bats are Important

Bats are important to our ecosystems because they pollinate plants and flowers, spread seeds, and, of course, eat insects. In fact, these little creatures eat nearly one-half their weight on a given night. Some of these insects are forest and agricultural pests – and others, like the mosquito – are human pests.

The impact of the loss of bats in Vermont cannot be underestimated. The 500,000 bats that died from white nose disease would have eaten around 2.5 billion insects every night – a figure that is so high, it is hard to imagine. A recently published national study found that bats contribute as much as $32 million annually in value to Vermont by destroying insects that could damage crops.

What We are Doing at the Agency of Natural Resources

This month both the little brown bat and the northern long-eared bat will be listed as state endangered species. We listed these bats on the advice of biologists in the Fish and Wildlife Department and the Vermont Endangered Species committee, with the support of many members of the public. We all believe that the protection offered by this status will help buy these species some time, so that we can, hopefully, find a treatment for White Nose disease before it is too late.

As a practical matter, once a species is listed as “endangered” members of that species cannot be taken, harassed, or killed without getting special permission. This means that pest control companies that remove bats from a chimney must take care to relocate them in a safe manner – rather than just kill them. It means that we must all avoid entering caves and mines in the winter when we know there is a colony of endangered bats hibernating within. And it means that when we encounter bats in places they don’t belong – like our homes and barns – that we find a safe way to remove them.

How You Can Help

Until a treatment is available we need to all work together to prevent unnecessary harm to Vermont’s endangered bats – and you can help.

We take concerns about rabies transmission from bats very seriously. The goal of the state is to provide technical assistance to citizens and pest control companies to appropriately deal with and exclude these bats from homes. Avoiding interactions with bats avoids bites and scratches from the small number of bats that carry rabies. Because such bites and scratches are serious, despite the endangered species listing, Vermonters will still be able to kill a bat in order to have it tested for rabies when a possible exposure has occurred, so long as the killing is reported to Fish and Wildlife officials.

I know from experience how hard it is to think straight when a bat is flying around the house – but it is more important now, than ever to remove bats without hurting them. You can get more information about best practices for keeping bats out of your house and removing them safely at our website www.vtfishandwildlife.com.

Remember, the little things we do can make a big difference. Help us help our bats.

VTDigger