Editor’s note: This article was first published in The Commons.
WILMINGTON — Water rolls downstream…and so does everything carried by its current.
Floodwaters from Tropical Storm Irene raged through Vermont towns on Aug. 28, carrying away propane tanks, cars, houses and kitchen appliances.
In the Deerfield Valley, much of what the flood scooped up landed in the Harriman Reservoir, also known as Lake Whitingham.
Mark Pedersen spent six solid days of hauling debris from the lake with a pontoon boat. Pedersen, who owns High County, a marina and snowmobile tour company on Route 9 outside downtown Wilmington, started clearing debris right away. “This is my town and we’re going to fix it ourselves,” he said. “We don’t have time to wait.”
Pedersen said he used his two rental pontoon boats and a makeshift plow made of two doors push and to tow items from the lake to the shore. He removed 17 propane tanks, two fuel tanks from the nearby gas companies, clothes, styrofoam, bits of plastic, and the roof and gable ends that once topped Ann Coleman’s gallery.
The flood had washed the gallery from its location on West Main Street in Wilmington.
According to Coleman, floodwaters picked up the 32-by-40-foot newly renovated building, which “took off like a boat with all its contents, very buoyant with all its newly blow-in insulation.” Volunteers attached anchor lines to the roof and towed it to shore.
The “coolest” find came on a Friday, said Pedersen, when the volunteers discovered what remained of the sculpture, “The Vanishing Vermonster” by Dale Doucette. The piece washed up about a mile from Coleman’s gallery.
On Saturday, after Mount Snow’s decision to cancel its Brewers Festival left Marketing and Events Director Vinnie Lewis and other employees with an empty day in their schedule, about 20 folks from the resort made their way from Dover to help, said Pedersen.
Pedersen said he and group of volunteers from Dover used the pontoon boats to clear the reservoir’s 28 miles of shoreline.
State Game Warden Richard Watkin of Wilmington and his colleagues spent four days last week pulling hazardous items from the water. The team dragged two partially full 1,000-gallon kerosene tanks from the lake. It took the team two hours to tow one of the tanks, reeking of kerosene, four miles at 2.5 miles per hour, he said.
“Not pleasant,” said Watkin.
Other items pulled from the lake included several five-gallon gas containers, paint cans, household poisons like weed killer and rat poison, refrigerators, televisions, building frames, prescription medication, bottles of liquor, and a 55-gallon drum of creosote “spewing out” its contents.
A hazardous soup
According to the Molly Stark Byway’s website, the 2,200-acre reservoir comprises the largest body of water completely enclosed within Vermont’s borders.
The TransCanada-owned lake has 28 miles of coastline and is over 8 miles long. The Deerfield River feeds into the reservoir, which the New England Power Company dammed in 1923 by flooding a community called Mountain Mills.
“The map of Vermont has changed” because of the flooded rivers, said Dover Selectboard member Colby Dix, who calls the team of volunteers and officers from the Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department “unsung heroes.”
Dix said he’s concerned about the potential amount of “hazardous effluent” that may have pooled in Lake Whitingham. It’s not a good idea to swim there right now, he said.
Lake Whitingham is a year-round attraction for the area, providing a venue for boating and swimming in the summer and ice fishing in the winter.
“Our thoughts are with those Vermonters, particularly on the North Branch, that suffered enormous property damage and are struggling to reorganize their lives and rebuild,” said TransCanada spokesperson Leanne LeBlanc.
According to LeBlanc, the lake’s recreation and boat launches owned and maintained by the power company will remain closed until a better health and safety assessment has occurred.
LeBlanc said the company is coordinating with state and federal agencies to “formulate how best to clean up Harriman and restore its recreational attractiveness.”
The reservoir has not been closed to the public.
Cleaning the Harriman
Watkin anticipates the cleanup to take months, but he feels cautiously optimistic about the team culling most of the toxic debris.
As the water level in the reservoir changes over the year, he said, more items will surface.
The “mess is not good for wildlife,” he said, but it’s too early to know the flood’s full impact.
He said the two components to keep an eye on are runoff of both chemicals and soil, and manmade debris.
According to Watkin, the reservoir’s size will aid in diffusing the chemicals washed into the water. Some people have suggested to Watkin that TransCanada drain the entire reservoir and pick out any debris.
“Imagine the impact on the aquatic life,” he said. “[Draining] would devastate the body as a fishery.”
Watkin anticipates instead mounting an organized volunteer campaign to pull items from the reservoir, which he calls “a fantastic body of water and a huge resource.”
Pedersen said his marina sailed through the tropical storm “unscathed.” He spent two days ahead of the weather battening down the hatches.
But his coffers will have a little less money in them. According to Pedersen, remaining closed over Labor Day weekend will cost him about $45,000 in business.
Pedersen’s wife, Wendy, and her sister also own the former restaurant Poncho’s Wreck in downtown Wilmington. The empty building’s basement flooded, but the other floors remained dry, he said.
Pedersen estimates the damage at $20,000 — not as bad as other downtown businesses, he said.
On Monday, he said he was in Connecticut, “taking a breather” and visiting family after.
“It’s gotten to me,” he said.
