Editor’s note: This op-ed is by Kim Greenwood, the Vermont Natural Resources Council’s water program director and staff scientist. She lives in Duxbury on a road that was heavily damaged by Irene.
Several weeks ago, on the heels of this spring’s widespread flooding, Gov. Peter Shumlin announced that the Agency of Natural Resources would renew its focus on long-term policies to reduce the effects of massive and destructive flooding. Then, days after the governor’s announcement, Tropical Storm Irene swept through Vermont as if to further underscore the point.
The Shumlin administration deserves credit for taking seriously the long-term threat that flooding poses to our communities.
The vast costs associated with flooding are, unfortunately, fresh in our minds. The devastation of peoples’ lives that we have all seen in recent days is, in almost every way, beyond description.
Today it’s painfully obvious to Vermonters that floods destroy homes and businesses, ruin roads, overload sewage treatment plants and render places like the State Office Complex in Waterbury (ironically the home of ANR’s central office) unusable for weeks and months. Floods attack the economic viability of our downtowns, and they have deep impacts on our natural resources. Floods, occasionally and tragically, take lives, as Irene has. And unfortunately, Vermont is likely to see more precipitation in the future; there will be more floods.
The good news is that we know at least some things we can do to assure flood impacts are minimized over the long haul. How Vermont manages its landscape — in other words, how Vermont grows and develops in the coming years — will in part dictate whether we effectively adapt to this increase in precipitation, or not.
Here are some things VNRC has advocated for in recent years, and that ANR might consider (and perhaps is already) as part of its renewed and timely focus on flooding:
Enforce stormwater pollution laws
The state should consistently and fairly enforce these laws that are designed to keep water from going into our rivers in the first place. Good infrastructure and preparedness help prevent catastrophic discharges of polluted water.
Protect riverbanks
The state should consider both regulations and incentives to encourage waterfront property owners to leave vegetated buffer strips along shorelines to help protect shorelines from eroding, and runoff from finding its way into rivers. River corridor management, the science that seeks to minimize conflicts between people and rivers, protects homeowners as well as rivers.
Promote “L.I.D.”
The state should set up both incentives and regulations to encourage “low-impact development.” That’s development that puts a premium on letting water soak into the ground where it lands, rather than letting it run off into watercourses.
Encourage towns to plan for “smart growth”
Among other things, smart growth (compact rather than spread out development) minimizes the need for runoff-inducing parking lots and roads. Fewer acres of parking lots and roads means less runoff and also less potential flood-caused infrastructure damage.
Reduce the rate of “conversion”
The state should invigorate policies to keep forestland intact and undeveloped through incentives like the Current Use program and conservation funding. This will, over the long term, help keep flooding down. Land with trees – not pavement – is more stable, filters water and discharges far less runoff.
Vermont was hit hard by tropical storm Irene, and no amount of planning can completely prepare us for a storm of the magnitude of Irene. But through thoughtful, long-term planning by the Agency of Natural Resources, and with the help of willing landowners, we can reduce the impact from the inevitable storms of the future.
