This story by Tommy Gardner was first published in the News & Citizen on Nov. 2.
The July flooding that left Morrisville Water & Light customers thirsty for a week also wreaked havoc on its infrastructure, causing nearly $3 million in damages.
That estimate does not include efforts to deter future flooding, which could cost at least another $1 million, according to the utility’s general manager, Scott Johnstone.
“These figures are sobering,” Johnstone said.
Although the Federal Emergency Management Administration is expected to pay 75% of the costs for flood recovery, the utility will be on the hook for the rest, which it would have to absorb through its rates. Johnstone said the state won’t let the utility raise its rates to cover expenses incurred in one-time events, and it already raised them last spring.
“So, that becomes a different problem because how do you pay the bills?” he said.
Damaged dams
Although the immediate danger following the flood in July came after Morrisville Water & Light’s primary drinking water well was overrun by the Lamoille River — leading to a rare “Do Not Drink” notice mandated by the Vermont Agency of Natural Resources — the bulk of the flood damage was further downstream, at two of the utility’s three hydroelectric dams.
According to Johnstone, the flooding caused $1.9 million combined damage between its village dam and the one in Cady’s Falls. To this day, nearly four months after the flooding, the dams remain mostly unable to produce power — he said the village dam is generating “a tiny amount,” but that’s negligible.
A third dam, located on Green River Reservoir, was not damaged and has continued to produce electricity, but without the other two, the utility is buying more power on the open market.
He said his staff knew there was bound to be some damage just by looking at the sheer volume of water rushing over the dams.
“We knew that there was fully 4 feet of water going over the tops of both the Morrisville and Cady’s Falls dams,” he said. “Not the spillways, mind you. Over the top of the dam.”
When the water receded, and crews were able to assess the damage, they found that most of the working components associated with hydroelectric production were damaged.
The tail races — which normally carry water away from the dam — are filled right to the top with debris. Johnstone said those openings measure about 20 by 40 feet.
The penstock on the Morrisville dam — that’s the pipe that sits below the top of the dam to channel water to the turbines — is also packed with riverbed sediment. Johnstone surmises that debris is probably largely from nearby Oxbow Riverfront Park.
That all needs to be dredged out before the dams can be fired up again.
“I think that, by December, we’ll have them mostly running again,” he said.
Other damage
In addition to the dams, the drinking water wells got hammered in the flood, sustaining roughly $800,000 worth of damage. The primary well was the one that had to be switched off during the flood and resulted in Morrisville’s “Do Not Drink” order — one of only two towns in the state to do so during the July flood.
Morrisville spent four days under the order and another under a boil notice, during which Johnstone said the utility’s phones rang nonstop with angry customers. Some businesses either shut down for a few days or spent significant money sourcing potable water. Churches and private industry — like local well drillers Manosh Corporation — provided thousands of gallons of water to the community at various pick-up spots.
The well that was hit hardest was the utility’s backup, which is located a few hundred feet from the main well, both of which are in the Lamoille River floodplain off Route 15A. That one was entirely submerged, according to Johnstone.
Not only that, but he said the configuration of the nearby Tenney bridge caused a whirlpool of sorts that created a 50-foot-deep hole nearby.
“We’re not really sure that that backup well is a viable well anymore, honestly,” Johnstone said.
He said it remains unclear whether that’s a significant issue now since the primary well has so much water supply, and there’s not much in the way of state money to install a new backup well.
However, he said there are also FEMA funds for future flood mitigation projects, and he has recently begun talking with the feds about the feasibility of moving the backup well to a new location.
All told, Johnstone estimates there are already $1 million worth of mitigation projects waiting FEMA funding, projects that will begin next spring.
Elsewhere, the utility enumerated roughly $140,000 in damage to its electrical grid, with poles washed away and wires snapped throughout the system. He said line crews were busy in the flood’s aftermath making fixes on roughly 35 grid-related projects.
The final bit of damage was $25,000 worth of fixes at the village wastewater plant, although it could have been far worse.
“We were probably 6 inches away from really major damage,” Johnstone said. “Literally, 6 inches.”
Johnstone said although the damages are expensive, he feels Morrisville was spared the worst of the statewide storm’s damage, as Lamoille River neighbors to the north and south — in Hardwick and Johnson — were hit much worse. Johnson, for instance, all but lost its wastewater treatment plant.
He is also impressed that the dams themselves had not been breached.
“I think we’re lucky that the dams held up,” he said. “It just goes to show that things that were built in 1895 are pretty strong.”
