[0:01] all right so types of flood damage flood history and future forecast so there's

[0:06] two primary types of flood damage that we typically talk about um inundation

[0:11] yeah I'm going to have to sit here it's going to be hard for you to do it Jen

[0:14] because so inundation the river comes up buildings get saturated basements fill

[0:20] with sediment um it's a mess it's very traumatic very damaging um and expensive

[0:27] for those that experience it right it's it's it's serious um damage the other

[0:33] type of damage is erosion damage right the river banks a road the bed erods the

[0:39] river maybe moves in its entirety and takes out anything in its path right so

[0:45] inundation damage versus erosion damage one important thing to keep in mind is

[0:51] that by far the more expensive damage to recover from is the erosion damage

[0:56] that's where probably 90% well I shouldn't even throw percentages because

[1:00] I don't remember that number off my top of my head but it's where the vast

[1:03] majority of the recovery dollars are spent dealing with erosion damage okay

[1:09] roads Bridges structures fall into the river that sort of

[1:15] thing okay so moving into a little history of Vermont's floods um National

[1:20] Weather Service had their list of top five and

[1:24] 23 we 23 flood got added to that going back to 1869

[1:30] and spanning through 2023 um large scale Regional or large

[1:35] scale you know nearly Statewide floods very expensive hundreds of millions of

[1:40] dollars those are all um those dollars are are all adjusted for 20

[1:46] $22 um so very expensive point being that the flood history in Vermont's very

[1:52] long right flooding is not anything new right and damaging floods expensive

[1:57] floods are not anything new if we look more recently going back to 73 DEC the

[2:03] Department of Environmental Conservation Rivers program compiled information on

[2:08] smaller scale flood events um as well as the bigger ones so we see between 1973

[2:13] and 2023 there were four large scale disastrous floods um three of those are

[2:19] on that National Weather Service list that I just showed um the other one is

[2:24] 1976 uh which being despite the fact that it was Regional and very damaging

[2:29] in Huntington Statewide didn't make the the top five most expensive or the top

[2:33] six most expensive floods and then looking at smaller Regional scale floods

[2:38] and these are all floods for which disaster disaster declarations were made

[2:42] Regional scale floods um between 73 and 2011 19 of those smaller scale floods

[2:48] which works out to about one flood every two years on the regional scale so again

[2:52] flooding we have a long history we have very frequent um occurrences of floods

[2:58] in in Vermont

[3:02] the uh FEMA flood study list the floods in Huntington severe floods 1830 1858

[3:09] 1927 36 38 71 which isn't one that I'm familiar with 73 and 76 and it notes

[3:16] that the 76 flood caused by Hurricane Bell resulted in much Road and Bridge

[3:20] and personal property damage and I've heard that from folks in town that that

[3:23] was a severely or significantly devastating flood in Huntington um so

[3:28] again just a little more on flood history um and what we know from um

[3:35] forecasting of precipitation Trends uh climate change it's only going to get

[3:40] worse this graphic shows um that since 1958 the amount of precipitation falling

[3:49] as very wet uh or very heavy intense events uh has increased by

[3:55] 74% so our storms are getting more intense more rainfall is falling in

[4:01] those intense storms and that's only going to increase uh here's a study in

[4:06] science news that states that the extreme precipitation Northeast us to

[4:11] increase by 52% by the end of the century so it's only going to get worse

[4:16] we're going to get more intense storms more events where large large volumes of

[4:20] water are coming down the river the Gund Institute at UVM has a study out there

[4:26] showing that property damage are expected to exceed 5. 2 billion over the

[4:30] next 100 years right so it's there's going to be a lot more damage um I was

[4:34] looking around today and I was seeing stuff from Europe that was essentially

[4:37] saying the same stuff the UK and France um saying the same saying the same thing

[4:41] right um so yeah these really large 100-year floods and greater are

[4:47] happening much more frequently than we would think when by the name 100-year

[4:52] flood right like yeah they're occurring a lot more frequently than once every

[4:55] hundred years um and we can talk about the white well it's

[5:00] because of what we're seeing with climate change for the most part um so

[5:03] now let's just shift gears a little bit and talk about River Dynamics and River

[5:09] morphology and this concept of balance or equilibrium in our river

[5:16] systems so we talk about if we're going to talk about how Rivers move and erode

[5:21] and fill in we're talking really about the shape or the form or the morphology

[5:25] of the river so the morphology of the river you know we talk about the shape

[5:29] of the cross-section the shape of the meanders as the stream moves down the

[5:33] valley we talk about the slope of the channel or the

[5:37] profile um and we talk about bed form so we're just really describing the shape

[5:42] of the

[5:46] river so one thing to note is that the shape or the morphology of the river um

[5:52] whether it's really Meandering or straight really uh narrow with Ripples

[5:57] and dunes versus broad wider with steps and pools that that

[6:03] morphology is as described by the cross-section slope and bed form

[6:06] playform is a reflection of the valley typ right so you know we all know if we

[6:10] go up into brush Brook and it's going to get Steep and narrow and the riv going

[6:13] to be straight and steps and it's going to have steps and pools and then down

[6:16] here in the broader Valley the Huntington Main St Valley the river

[6:19] Meander a bit more and it has more like riffle pool bed form um so the river is

[6:25] a is the is the reflection of the of the valley morphology

[6:31] and the way the river behaves or moves over

[6:34] time is a reflection of the inputs to the River from that Valley or the

[6:40] Watershed right so we have sediment inputs we have we have rain inputs we

[6:45] have wood inputs as trees get recruited into the river um so these inputs are

[6:50] going to as they change the river will change in response and I'm talking like

[6:55] you know long-term sort of trends like change over 20 you know 100 years as the

[7:00] climate change the river is going to change um as we remove you know as we

[7:06] expose soils the sediment regime is going to change the delivery of

[7:09] sediments the river is going to change and the river is going to respond to

[7:14] that you showed that the Huntington is that bottom form but I'm pretty sure

[7:19] there's no part of the Huntington River that's less than .1%

[7:24] gradient uh is 1% 0.1% right1 but the bottom one is .1% Max yeah which would

[7:31] mean most of the huntingon would be in the next level above that yeah this one

[7:34] right here this one right yeah yeah so so

[7:39] meanders and riffles and pools yeah probably no places in Huntington where

[7:43] you have where you have Dune Ripple bed forms or that severe me yeah that you

[7:47] don't have an e type sh yeah you're right yep so yeah this one

[7:52] here all right so so what you know how do we think about the river and its its

[7:57] movements um over time time as it responds to these different uh these

[8:01] different input changes there a Hydraulics engineer back

[8:06] in I think it was like the 50s by the name of Emory Lane came up with the idea

[8:11] of describing this all um in terms of a balance and in terms in terms of balance

[8:17] and and it's a it works pretty well so here's how this works right Rivers

[8:22] there's this there's this flux or this this balance this this constant dance

[8:27] between the power of the water in the river system and the resistance of that

[8:34] River Channel um to that power okay so if you have equilibrium if you have

[8:41] balance the river maintains its morphology its depth that's with um it

[8:47] doesn't fill in and it doesn't erode and get larger right and that's what we're

[8:52] managing for that's what we're trying to manage for that's what the policy of the

[8:56] state of Vermont managed for if you look at River Management policy the word

[9:01] equilibrium is there a lot that's because this is the most stable

[9:05] condition that we can achieve right it's equilibrium it's all about River

[9:09] stability we don't want our Rivers we want to minimize the amount to which

[9:13] rivers are moving around side to side right and damaging human Investments so

[9:19] we're managing for equilibrium if there's too much

[9:22] resistance which which is partly made up by the amount of material in the channel

[9:28] it over Powers the flow power and the channel fills in right pretty

[9:33] simple okay conceptu pretty simple if the power of the flow over

[9:40] time gets greater than the resistance is able to resist you get excessive erosion

[9:46] right you get the channel down cutting deepening and you get the channel

[9:50] widening

[9:54] okay so let's look a little bit more more detail at these factors at play

[9:58] here in the balance so on the power side power is made up by slope of the channel

[10:04] and depth of the water and of course depth of the water has a lot to do with

[10:08] how much water is actually in the channel of volume right when we have a

[10:12] high flow event the water's deep when we have a low flow event the water's

[10:15] shallow okay but depth and slope really are the the influencers on stream

[10:22] power so depth is a plays a role in power because if you think about it

[10:27] every six every every cubic foot of water weighs 62.4 lbs so as you get one

[10:36] foot stacked on another foot stacked on another foot you're adding 62 PBS to

[10:41] that square foot of surface area of the bed and those gravels and cobbles that

[10:46] make up that bed and as that water slides across the bed or flows across

[10:51] the bed it's dragging that material so the more depth the more weight you have

[10:56] bearing down the more material gets moved that power doing work on the

[11:01] channel right so depth equals power okay so this is where the idea of the flood

[11:07] plane or the flood plane um becomes really important in moderating the depth

[11:14] or governing the depth of flow in the channel when you have a channel that's

[11:18] well connected to its flood plane and what I mean by that is that the banks of

[11:22] the channel are pretty low you have a high flow come through and that flow

[11:27] gets to the top of the bank but then it gets out onto the flood plane and it

[11:32] can't continue to build up deeper and deeper because it's being absorbed by

[11:36] the width of the flood plane right it's got to fill that entire flood plane so

[11:39] the rate of increase in depth as soon as you get over the top of the bank really

[11:43] drops off and depth is governed and power is governed right that's the flood

[11:49] plane is the energy dissipation it's a blowoff valve for the river system right

[11:53] the water gets up there it spreads out there's roughness elements whether it's

[11:57] whether it's you know corn stocks or trees or whatever it is grass it all

[12:02] works to slow the water down over this really broad area spreading out that

[12:06] energy across a much broader area therefore limiting really reducing the

[12:11] amount of work that's done in any one spot on the contrary when we have rivers

[12:16] that are what we refer to as in size I.E their banks are really tall and that

[12:21] same flood event or that same flow event comes through it doesn't get out on the

[12:26] flood plane because that channel is so big it contains all of the flow now you

[12:30] have that really deep flow right 62 P 62 lb

[12:36] 124.80 you know pounds bearing down on every square foot of the bed dragging

[12:43] and scraping that material eroding that channel you have a lot of power a lot of

[12:47] work being done so that's the importance of the flood plane connection and having

[12:52] lower Banks and that's the problem with Channel

[12:56] incision everybody good so far

[13:02] so this is why a lot of people will say you know if you have structures getting

[13:07] wet and you resort to dredging the channel next to that

[13:12] structure what you're doing is taking that pressure Leaf Val away from that

[13:16] channel putting all that power onto the bed and you get you know you get

[13:20] downward erosion get to erosion and all of a sudden your flooding problem turns

[13:25] into an erosion problem and the erosion problem is much more expensive to deal

[13:33] with all right so still talking about the terms involved in streem power the

[13:38] other one is slope right I said slope and depth are the two factors in in

[13:43] generating power slope is a factor simply because

[13:47] the steeper you are the more normal you are to the pull of gravity so the water

[13:51] is influenced more strongly right so really the the way that humans have

[13:57] affected the slope of rivers for the most part is to straighten them right if

[14:01] you have a river that starts at Point a or a reach of river at from point A to

[14:05] point B and let's say the elevation is 875 down to

[14:09] 850 this Meandering river is much longer right it's it's more horizontal distance

[14:14] so it's flatter than the straight Channel which is shorter you get a

[14:18] higher slope okay so this is what why you know when we straighten rivers and

[14:23] we've done a lot of this historically in Vermont I don't think we straighten

[14:26] Rivers as dramatically as we used to but we used to and we really increased the

[14:32] amount of energy power and triggered a lot of river and stability that way okay

[14:39] um so now let's Rec covered power now let's look at the resistance side um in

[14:43] the resistance we basically have roughness of the channel and then the

[14:47] amount of sediment to dissipate or to absorb the energy suck up the energy of

[14:52] the flow um so on the resistance of the channel we have things like bed forms

[14:58] right these steps and pools they cause the water to turn and Tumble you get

[15:03] white water white water is simply the burn expenditure of energy so those

[15:07] roughness elements sap the sap the flow of its energy meanders whenever the

[15:13] water has to go around a meander band it gets put into this helical flow pattern

[15:17] and it scour the bed and it drops the deposits on the point bars all of that

[15:22] turning and and and and erosion of the bottom that all saps the river of its

[15:27] energy meanders are great energy dissipators or forms of

[15:32] resistance to the to the power of the channel gravel bars themselves are

[15:37] resistance because the river has to pick that up anytime the river has gravel

[15:41] that it picks up and carries it's burning energy picking up that gravel

[15:45] instead of burning energy eroding a bank somewhere else so the gravel that's in

[15:49] the channel is a source of roughness or resistance that's going to sap the river

[15:54] of its energy large wood is a form of re of roughness I know large wood is also

[16:01] can create a lot of problems for our infrastructure but let's put that aside

[16:03] for a second and just recognize that it is a form of roughness it traps a lot of

[16:09] sediment that otherwise would make it Downstream and it slows water okay so it

[16:15] burns energy in the river channel it's just another roughness element so that's

[16:20] it on the concept of equilibrium you have power on one side you have

[16:24] resistance on the other side we're trying to manage for equilibrium so that

[16:27] we have rivers that are as as least erosive as possible Shane maybe

[16:32] you'll go into it later but the the impact of armoring banks mhm will you be

[16:38] disc we talk about that later yeah okay

[16:44] sure okay so I'm GNA jump I can't is that that clock's that clock's

[16:52] not I know we had a little mishap here but I didn't think it took

[16:56] that5 so I'm done well you

[17:04] can all right so just want to talk about the long history of Channel management

[17:09] and this isn't just Vermont it's just not North America it's Global right it's

[17:13] Global um so what we do as humans it's it's intuitive to us to to try to

[17:19] control these systems so that we can use the surrounding Landscapes um for

[17:23] different land uses but point is is that you know when the when the fur Trappers

[17:29] came through kind of before European settlement I guess technically that's

[17:33] before settlement the fur Trappers came through they eradicated or they they

[17:36] took out all the beaver right so then all those beaver dams failed it's as

[17:40] some estimates have beaver dams at one Dam every hundred yards on per you know

[17:45] along a stream before that before that happened um so just think of all those

[17:50] roughness elements in the river clogging up the rivers right so that dramatically

[17:54] changed our our river systems the hydrologic cycle um

[17:59] Splash dams you know trees were there was a lot of snagging to clear the

[18:05] streams for transport of logs during the logging era right so we and you know

[18:11] that's all really well documented books like tall trees and tough Men by John

[18:14] Pike um we use Dynamite to straighten cook streams steam shovels more recently

[18:22] you know we get in the diesel era right straighten dredge armor um burm right so

[18:29] we have a long history of managing the channel managing

[18:32] channels and we straighten the rivers as part of this and this confused between

[18:38] my tools here um so Rivers naturally want to meander fluid flowing through

[18:44] medium is going to meander the jet stream flowing across the atmosphere it

[18:48] meanders right it's just the rules the pro the rules of of physics will cause a

[18:53] fluid flowing through medium to meander okay that's just that's just phys at

[19:00] work whether it's lower the the third branch of the White River and lower

[19:04] Granville along Route 100 or here in Huntington up in the

[19:11] center Black Creek and

[19:15] Fairfield or even large rivers like the wooki to accommodate i89 you know we've

[19:22] done a lot of Channel straightening across throughout Vermont and again

[19:26] throughout North America and around the world

[19:29] so what's the response been the response has been is well described by this

[19:34] channel Evolution model this is one of several Channel Evolution models it's

[19:38] just a way to describe graphically what goes on but basically you start pre-

[19:44] disturbance the channel well connected to its flood plane it can dissipate all

[19:48] the energy of floods structure goes in the structure gets wet a few times we

[19:53] build the BMS to protect the structure that disconnects the River from the

[19:56] channel we're in this now we're in this incision stage we have all that power

[20:00] now working on the bed the channel and sizes until the banks get so high that

[20:04] they start to fall in we get into this widening phase the the Investments come

[20:08] into the river then there's so much gravel that comes into the river the

[20:12] river starts to a grade starts to fill in the power starts to reduce we come

[20:17] back come back into balance as the all that sediment comes in and and saps the

[20:22] river of its energy and then we get back to a stable condition where you have

[20:27] once again a river well connected to a broad flood plane all set within this uh

[20:32] previous Valley in the me all that through all that we've lost a lot of

[20:36] land mass and we've lost a lot of Investments um here are just some images

[20:41] and I'm going to go pretty quickly since I'm so far behind but that's just that's

[20:45] the stable stage stage one here's stage two um an example of stage

[20:51] two that's an ins sizing Channel That's the widening phase and that's that's the

[20:58] um West Branch of the Little River and Stow that's the that's the upgrading

[21:01] stage or restabilizing stage and then that's stage five where you've got this

[21:07] you've got this the original flood plane up here high and you've got this lower

[21:10] flood plane that's more recently developed in the channel um so that's

[21:15] that's the full Evolution process uh let's see so the Department

[21:20] of Environmental Conservation um worked with Consultants

[21:24] such as awood environmental to assess 5,000 miles of river and this is in the

[21:30] field taking measurements using survey equipment and measuring equipment and

[21:35] found that 75% of those 5,000 miles are in stages

[21:41] one two one through three or sorry two through four of the channel Evolution

[21:45] process they're disconnected from their flood plane they're very unstable and

[21:50] they're just ripe to explode during the next flood event right they don't have

[21:55] that pressure relief valve in the flood plane anymore so I don't know if we can

[21:58] extrapolate that out I think there's 23,000 miles total in the state if you

[22:03] can extrapolate that 75% does that mean 75% of all the river miles all those

[22:07] 23,000 miles are in sized or disconnected from their flood

[22:12] planes maybe I I don't know for sure it wasn't there wasn't that study wasn't

[22:16] designed scientifically to be able to do that but maybe um so point is there's a

[22:23] lot of unstable Rivers across the state and we find ourselves and this is

[22:29] the last slide we find ourselves sort of in the cycle um where we encroach upon

[22:37] the river Channels with with structures the floods come through

[22:41] create a lot of damage we respond with dredging armoring

[22:47] and bming and 10 15 years go by we start to

[22:52] feel safe again and we further encroach upon the river Channel and then the next

[22:57] flood comes across and we have even more expensive damages next time so this is

[23:01] just like this escalating um cycle of cost and risk and

[23:06] ecosystem damage that we're that we've kind of been in for many many many years

[23:11] decades um and with that I'll stop talking and let um the next presenter

[23:17] come up

[23:21] [Applause] I'll just introduce myself now uh yeah

[23:31] so I'm will Al aquatic habitat biologist with the Vermont fish and wildlife

[23:34] department um and I my main focus is on fish and aquatic organisms but fish live

[23:41] in the same rivers that you all enjoy and so dealing with fish means dealing

[23:45] with people and making making the world or making these Rivers better for fish

[23:50] what we're hoping to do is actually make them better for everybody for the people

[23:53] living on the rivers the people enjoying them as well um I also want to start by

[23:59] saying that I have no idea what you all have been through I understand it's it's

[24:04] intense like I cannot relate to what you've what you've done what you've had

[24:08] to go through and I'm not here to try and dictate or or prescribe anything but

[24:14] what I do want to present is kind of the background why we have the regulations

[24:18] in Vermont that we do so um understand that you know human health and safety

[24:24] takes precedence we totally I understand that we respect that um but we Al

[24:28] regulate it because we've as Shane pointed out we understand that our his

[24:32] our history of Channel management actually has maybe made things worse in

[24:37] some cases so what we're trying to do is find a find a balance really between

[24:42] balancing human health and safety with the other the other um uh issues that

[24:48] Rivers deal with other processes and the other um benefits that Rivers can

[24:53] provide and so um and I think the point all they Main

[24:58] point being that what we're the approach that we take in Vermont is based on

[25:03] really decades or even centuries of experience of trying to deal with

[25:07] Channel River Management and so this is basically where we've what we've come up

[25:11] with as the the best way to kind of balance that human health and safety

[25:16] versus the natural processes um all right so just give you a little

[25:21] background talk about um some of the habitat features and then if I have time

[25:25] I'll talk about culs for fun M A Little Closer okay um so as

[25:30] Shane already talked mentioned so there's the the different types of

[25:34] flooding um so inundation flooding is one of the one of the when we most when

[25:39] we think about flooding generally it's inundation right so when when the river

[25:43] comes up it spills out onto the flood plane um this is actually a property not

[25:47] here this is over in Morrisville um and ironically this uh this property is

[25:54] flooded um at least eight times in the last 40 gear years uh above the 100-year

[26:00] flood event level so um you know as Shane was saying we're seeing these more

[26:06] extreme events happening in Vermont um some of you may recognize this this is

[26:11] an example of that um the erosion so this is not this is not spilling out

[26:16] onto the flood plane this is the the river Meandering and undercutting uh

[26:20] this is the um Hotel up in uh up in Hardwick these are all from

[26:26] 2023 by the way um there's another type of of damage

[26:31] that uh I like I I think about and that's when channels start to move

[26:36] material specifically particularly wood and and rocks right and that's another

[26:41] thing that H that can that Rivers can do this becomes an issue when we have

[26:44] undersized structures culs and bridges and that that material gets clogged

[26:49] there um and can cause damage this is actually ironically this is planfield

[26:54] 2023 and this same area just got devastated this year here and

[26:58] unfortunately it was much worse um and then and then just uh again the ENT siiz

[27:05] infrastructure we're seeing it getting overpowered by these floods and just

[27:09] wiping out our roads and so this is where this is when we begin to see

[27:12] impacts to to people from the floods um uh a lot of us experience it you know in

[27:19] this event when the roads are closed for a long time um and so how have we dealt

[27:24] with it in the past and you know uh this is this is not that long ago this is

[27:29] actually last year we basically put the Culvert back the same exact Culvert that

[27:33] we had put it right back and just pay and just pave over it um and you know

[27:39] that's that's what we that's honestly what they do in 49 other states is they

[27:44] just put the same structure back Vermont is fortunate in that we're able to put

[27:47] back structures that are bigger after a flood but um historically this is what

[27:51] we've done um and then as Shane said the other

[27:55] thing we've done is we've take we've gone into rivers with' with the um heavy

[27:59] equipment and we've pulled out trees and boulders and things and we've um tried

[28:03] to remove that material that we think is a threat um to to us uh here's another

[28:10] example this is from Irene but as a result um what we end up as systems like

[28:16] this this is kind of what people think is ideal and this is again after Irene

[28:20] what some of the rivers in Vermont looks like this is like Gilead Brook over in

[28:24] bethl um and so it's pretty obvious in here there's a they took a bulldozzer

[28:29] and they basically just pushed all the material out of the channel um out of

[28:33] the river and they actually put it up on the banks and the intention here is to

[28:37] get the water out of that system as quickly as possible right they don't

[28:41] want any of that flooding they don't want any of that erosion that we were

[28:44] talking about the goal is to to get the power to get the stream out of there um

[28:49] from a fish standpoint this is a desert you will not see a fish in a system like

[28:54] that um and the other uh so what we've seen

[29:01] after floods this is Fish and Wild Department going out and monitoring

[29:05] streams and rivers after floods so where where we've got um rivers that look like

[29:10] this we see a large decline in the fish population and basically it just doesn't

[29:13] recover um and so there's some systems where you know after Irene we haven't

[29:18] seen the fish population recover we're actually going back in and trying to

[29:21] restore that structure again where it's safe to do so where we don't think

[29:25] there's a risk to human health and safety

[29:28] um the alternative is where Rivers aren't managed at all where we basically

[29:32] are leaving the wood in place we're seeing the fish populations a small

[29:36] decline um immediately after the flood but actually a recovery within 1 to

[29:41] three years the populations bounce back um and uh even it was ironic but

[29:48] actually from some of the Anglers were actually hearing reports like last fall

[29:52] with some of the best fishing they've ever ever seen and that that's because

[29:55] we got actually these floods are are can be stimulating the fish populations you

[29:59] see a lot more material coming in you get insects and things coming in and the

[30:04] fish that are able to survive are actually um there's like a little boost

[30:08] in their production um and so that can help with the

[30:12] recovery um another issue is uh you know as Shane hit on WE we've been managing

[30:18] these channels for probably over a hundred years and we developed our our

[30:26] houses and our and our road and our infrastructures in a system that did not

[30:31] have rivers or sorry wood or trees also these channels were straightened and so

[30:37] often we'll see communities that look like this where you have a historical CH

[30:42] or Channel that's been straightened all the material has been removed from it

[30:46] and then houses have been put on top now going back to what Shane was talking

[30:51] about rivers like to meander they like to move material now we've created a

[30:55] conflict where the river is not able to to do its natural processes anymore

[31:01] we've created a flood risk here right by by putting these properties in in that

[31:06] way of Where the River wants to go um and this unfortunately is what we've

[31:11] seen in a lot of areas in Vermont um and the other thing that this

[31:16] has done is it's turned these channels into pipes so all that water going

[31:22] Downstream what it's what it ends up doing is it creates bigger problems for

[31:27] for the people living Downstream so um uh you know the you know he's talking

[31:34] about the the weight of of water basically one way to think of it is dump

[31:39] trucks you know floated dump trucks full of water basically banging into the

[31:45] riverbank um at sometimes like 30 or 40 miles an hour for hours on end that is

[31:52] what's happening during these floods it's massive massive amounts of power

[31:56] and the Damage that we' seen at least in last year and this year is just a

[32:01] testament to what what that water can do um and so what happens when we turn

[32:06] these Rivers into pipes all right and so um so our

[32:11] regulations basically speak to how can we live with flooding um recognizing

[32:15] that it's going to occur it's it's a natural process um it may be getting

[32:20] worse so what are the things that we can do um to try and live with it and so uh

[32:26] I'm going to be talking about this stuff we can do in the riparian area or that

[32:29] flood plane Zone the inst streams and then um

[32:34] Culver and so riparian so this is that flood plane area so again what what can

[32:39] we do to help with that inundation and erosion risks

[32:43] um so historically what we've done is we've tried to burn and historically

[32:48] again this is 2023 um you know so what we've done is we've tried to keep the

[32:53] river off of our property we've either we've channelized the stream and we've

[32:57] burned it um and as Shane said the the risk though

[33:03] is that now we've created a steeper more powerful stream which can increase the

[33:08] amount of damage that we had and so that Meandering Channel as Shane said that

[33:13] can be more stable I want to emphasize that stable does not mean static it

[33:19] doesn't mean it doesn't move around it will we will see erosion you will see

[33:23] the channel Meander over time but basically it'll Meander within that

[33:27] River what we call the river Corridor and the idea is you'll have less damage

[33:31] to um to other properties it'll also reduce the amount of water and power

[33:37] Downstream um and so this actually a lot of people look at a picture like this

[33:43] and they're like oh no that's in that's flooding that's a bad thing but there's

[33:47] no no structures here there's no there's no development there's no infrastructure

[33:52] to me this is actually a flood plane functioning as it should so this is this

[33:58] what I'd like to encourage people is to actually see this as the desired

[34:02] condition so what happens is now that we have water being stored on this flood

[34:06] plane that's that's an area for it to spread out slow down and less water

[34:11] going

[34:14] Downstream and we've seen a good example of this over in Otter Creek um so uh

[34:21] Otter Creek the the channels there's the rotland is Downstream of menden Brook uh

[34:26] prettyy steep um doesn't have much of a flood plane and so there's these two

[34:32] graphs here oh I can let me give a pointer out um these two graphs show

[34:37] that flood water coming through uh this is during a tropical storm Irene and so

[34:44] what we see in Rutland is the water's coming down um here's here's August 11th

[34:50] 18th 25th and then here's tropical storm Irene all that water basically hits rut

[34:55] Rutland all at the same time right so that's this massive wall of water coming

[35:00] down to Rutland there's not anywhere for it to slow down or spread out that same

[35:05] Water by the time it got to middleberry um was able to spread out in these kind

[35:10] of wetland areas this kind of flood plane and so same amount of water right

[35:15] same river same amount of water but because it was able to spread out it

[35:20] didn't get as high it didn't get as intense and so middleberry didn't have

[35:24] the same amount of damage and so these Wetlands were credited with basic

[35:27] basically saving those communities so Brandon Cornwall and and

[35:33] middleberry um and uh and so what we're doing with in um Vermont is where where

[35:41] it's again where it's safe to do so where we can is we're trying to restore

[35:45] these flood planes and um including doing a lot of tree planting and so now

[35:49] I'm going to talk about the importance of trees um to fish uh again because

[35:55] there's a lot of conflict between Tree Management

[35:58] uh and and and River resources um and so we like to say fish grow on trees and

[36:03] you can actually make a literal connection between trees and fish so um

[36:09] let's see the fish eat the insects that come that eat the leaves that come from

[36:13] the trees so you really can make a literal connection between the fish and

[36:17] the tree the fish is derived from the tree

[36:20] nutrients um but there's other things that we see too so uh the Bucko benefits

[36:27] um I like to say but anyway so the temperature moderation so just these are

[36:33] two different streams in in um uh we both like uh Granville for some reason

[36:38] anyway so this is the White River uh so here's this is a channel that's not

[36:43] shaded it has it's pretty open this is on the first branch of the White River

[36:46] and it gets up to about 70 or 80 degrees um in the uh Summer Time versus Alder

[36:53] Meadow Brook which is pretty shaded doesn't get above 70 and so what we see

[36:57] for Brook trout is they won't survive in in streams that get above 70 72° so we

[37:03] don't see any brook trout in a stream like this but in these shaded rivers and

[37:06] streams they're able to stay cool enough to to sustain our cold water fish um and

[37:12] again that's because of the shading from the trees along the stream channel um

[37:16] and this is important because uh in Vermont we're actually

[37:20] seeing a rise in our our air temperatures and so this is from the

[37:24] National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration Noah um Vermont's uh

[37:30] temperature going back to 1895 um and basically this line right

[37:35] here is the mean temperature from uh during the um 20th century from 1901 to

[37:42] 2000 um and what we see this is this blue line is the trend between 1999 and

[37:48] 2021 and what we see two things to take away in our in the last two decades the

[37:54] mean temperature is much warmer than it was historically and it's continuing to

[38:00] increase right so we're seeing this Rising temperature is now now we're

[38:06] seeing this new threat to our aquatic resources um so again another important

[38:12] reason to keep try and keep our streams cool uh and then again the fish eat the

[38:17] the um leaves which the uh and the bugs it's not just important for um for fish

[38:23] but there's a lot of other animals that use the riparian area including beavers

[38:28] uh and and wood Turtles and and bats um and bald eagles and then they're also

[38:34] important travel corridors for a bunch of other animals including moose bear

[38:37] and deer and then there's the huge water quality benefit so it's not just um

[38:43] habitat issues but water quality you can get water quality funding for tree

[38:47] planting um and so here's just a nitrate removal with the width of the uh

[38:52] riparian buffer um the the forested riparian buffer and this sediment

[38:56] removal and sediment is important because that's a lot of our phosphorus

[39:00] is tied to sediment um so basically The Wider the the buffer the bigger water

[39:05] quality benefits that we're seeing um and so from a management Zone

[39:10] perspective what we recommend is 100 fet on each side of a river the other thing

[39:15] I'll point out is that smaller streams are more connected to the surrounding

[39:19] landscape so there's actually a bigger benefit of maintaining a riparian Zone

[39:23] on those small streams um all right and then instream

[39:27] Channel management so again historically what we've done um dredged and

[39:31] straightened we've removed the trees we've also um tried to engineer these

[39:36] stream channels um try and make the river do kind of what we want and what

[39:42] we found is that these managed areas from a from a um fish standpoint this is

[39:46] after tropical storm Irene we went in and looked at channels that were left

[39:51] unaltered and and ones that were altered and the the trout populations were were

[39:56] vastly uh reduced in those areas where were altered so basically where we we

[40:00] created these fish deserts where the fish just weren't um just uh were no

[40:05] longer able to to survive another issue with this dredging this ISS uh um that I

[40:10] want to talk about is although although the dredging occurs at one site you

[40:16] basically you're creating um by removing that stream bed there by lowering the

[40:21] stream bed there you're creating a domino effect because that that bed is

[40:24] going to eventually fill in and that what's going to do is fill in with the

[40:28] material that's just Upstream from it and that's going to fill in with

[40:31] material upstream and you end up with what's called a head cut right and so

[40:34] you're basically lowering the bed and that lowering is going to extend all the

[40:38] way Upstream right and so what we're seeing is that by doing that you're

[40:44] destabilizing the toe of the of the um the slope right so so Shane talked about

[40:50] channel uh Evolution Channel widening and so these what we're seeing is these

[40:55] massive so slope failures are occurring not because of the power of the channel

[41:02] the the flood or the um or any dredging happening near there

[41:07] but B but what happened was dredging Downstream has destabilized the stream

[41:12] all the way up here has lowered the channel up to this point and caused that

[41:17] bank the toe of the bank the the this part to become unstable which has caused

[41:23] the entire Bank to fail and so dredging can actually make things worse because

[41:28] now you've got all these trees falling in right and so basically you've created

[41:32] this cycle where you're going to have to continue dredging to remove these trees

[41:36] but then that removing those trees is going to cause this bank to continue to

[41:42] fail I have a quick question that may you don't know sure the difference of

[41:47] that happening because of the river versus maybe an inovation of a lot of

[41:52] water and the erosion from the deepness of can you tell the difference can I

[41:56] tell the difference

[41:59] NE oh sorry the question was can we tell whether you know what's causing erosion

[42:04] like this these massive Mass bank failures when is it when is it caused by

[42:09] um either uh storm runoff or some kind of um water from up here versus

[42:15] destabilizing the toe and um I think I mean there's definitely examples of both

[42:21] and I I I personally don't know the the answer to that but I think for the point

[42:26] of this talk I think it's important to acknowledge that destabilizing the toe

[42:31] is a way that that can happen um so it's just something to be aware

[42:35] of all right um and then just to go back to the uh the the benefits of the wood

[42:42] in Stream So these log jams um so what we're finding is that these log jams are

[42:47] basically where the fish are able to survive a flood so like I said there's

[42:52] fish are able to survive these floods and it's because they have Refuge Behind

[42:56] These log jams um because they don't move they're big

[42:59] enough to they're stable and and the fish uh basically just hunker down ride

[43:04] it out and as soon as it floods over they they um start uh eating again um

[43:11] and the other benefit of these log jams is uh the flood water actually backs up

[43:16] and and will spill out onto the flood plane so we're seeing a sediment like

[43:22] this so again sediment where we're seeing our phosphorus um phosphorus is a

[43:26] Nutri ENT that's a a pollutant or there's too much of it in in the um

[43:32] Champlain Basin so we're trying to reduce the amount going in and so if we

[43:35] can get that phosphorus depositing on our flood planes that's actually helping

[43:39] our water quality and so these log jams are actually helping to store that those

[43:43] nutrients up here uh in sorry up here up in areas where it's um safe to do

[43:51] so um and then I will also say that uh fish and wildlife department thinks that

[43:57] these trees are so important that we're actually going back and putting trees

[44:01] back into channels where we where it's safe to do so and so we've created this

[44:05] um handbook on how to do it uh and what we've seen is that where log where we've

[44:11] done these engineered log jams we've actually seen a 300% increase in the

[44:15] biomass of brook trout um so again uh a really important function um the other

[44:22] thing I'll and I'll talk about this a second but um what we're not seeing is

[44:27] is a lot these uh um some of these culs uh actually let me let me talk about

[44:34] this one next all right culs

[44:39] so again um historically culverts were designed to pass water they're they're

[44:45] designed hydraulically they weren't designed to pass rocks and trees right

[44:50] so um but what we know is that rocks and trees are important part of uh

[44:57] of um what's what's transported during floods um and so now our streams our

[45:03] standards for sizing stream Crossing structures Bridges and culverts calls

[45:07] for this one times bankful width size I won't go into what onetime bankful width

[45:12] means but just understand that it's bigger than what we've

[45:16] got um for the most part and we've actually gone out and looked at a bunch

[45:19] of these structures we've assessed them all across the or not all them but a lot

[45:23] of them so we've actually looked at a lot of Cs across the state and um anyway

[45:28] a lot of them are are fish barriers uh but from a bankful width

[45:33] standpoint um most of them more than 50% U pushing 70% of them are less than half

[45:40] of that bankful width that Channel width so there are a lot smaller than what we

[45:44] think they should be what our current standard is um and so uh but we looked

[45:50] at new ones and a lot of them a lot of them look like this uh so these are ones

[45:55] that have been replaced by municipality and um what we did after the July flood

[46:01] uh we actually went out and looked at about 60 culverts that were replaced to

[46:06] that one times bank for withth standard um in areas that had been impacted by

[46:10] flooding uh and what we found as examples like this so here's here's a um

[46:15] a trip to the jail branch over in uh orange and we had a replace cover here

[46:21] and and an old Culvert there and this is what the replace Culver looked like

[46:26] after the flood basically you couldn't even see that it had been involved in a

[46:30] flood um and this is a just Downstream um the covert had blown out um so this

[46:38] is a a sign that these the standards that we have in place are helping with

[46:42] our flood resiliency um they're also helping with fish passage but that's um

[46:49] anyway that's another story just to understand that um what

[46:55] we're doing to help fish is also helping people all right um yes and there's

[47:03] tradeoffs to to doing it again we're um we uh we recognize that there are

[47:10] going to be situations where we do need to do Channel management but that

[47:13] channel management is not benign it it could have impacts Upstream Downstream

[47:18] to to your neighbors um and to the other Aquatic resources things so

[47:25] [Applause]

[47:35] all right um so I am uh my name is Aaron Worley um longtime Huntington resident

[47:40] know most of you I think probably and um uh I'm also an ecologist and GIS analyst

[47:46] with AOW environmental and we're a very small environmental consulting company

[47:50] here in Huntington and we also have two partners who live elsewhere in the state

[47:54] um and we do a variety of work um kind of ecologically related with wetlands

[48:01] and wildlife habitat and helping towns uh learn about their um their important

[48:06] resources and identifying um things that might have implications for um

[48:12] environmental permitting and all these sorts of things but one of the pieces of

[48:16] work that we have done historically is look um is some of this River assessment

[48:20] work that Shane mentioned of those 5,000 uh miles of stream that were assessed uh

[48:26] in Vermont um we did a few of them um so I'm going to talk about we some of that

[48:33] work we did was right here in Huntington so I want to talk a little bit about

[48:35] kind of the big picture findings of what we came up with um out of that work and

[48:39] then I just want to um talk a little bit about kind of a local boy perspective I

[48:46] guess um and just some of the things that um you know I've observed over the

[48:50] years a little bit less scientific a little bit more anecdotal and I'm going

[48:53] to probably whip through things pretty quickly but um

[48:57] uh so I'll jump right into the the stream geomorphic assessment piece so um

[49:03] this work was done on the Huntington River Watershed in uh from kind of a

[49:07] range of years between 2004 and 2009 um it's this was um projects that

[49:14] we started AR and Bell started uh uh working teaming up with

[49:19] some aquatic biologists at the National Wildlife Federation um the uh huntingt

[49:26] and conservation commission was uh sort of our sponsoring organization um

[49:31] funding came from the Vermont agency of Natural Resources River Management

[49:34] program and uh and then later ccrpc was involved with um putting together some

[49:39] of these projects as well um there's kind of multi-stages or phases of these

[49:45] uh stream geomorphic assessments um phase one is really kind of the starting

[49:49] place and that's taking a really broadscale look at the whole

[49:53] Watershed um and kind of understanding that um that uh uh landscape setting

[50:00] that Shane was talking about what's the what's the slope what's the valley

[50:04] position uh kind of what's going on in a really broad scale most of that work is

[50:10] done remotely it's not actually done on the ground we look at lots of mapping

[50:15] resources um uh topographic uh maps and all that kind of

[50:20] stuff better understand um kind of the landscape view of the Watershed

[50:28] uh move into phase two and that's where we actually get into the river um and

[50:33] there's uh um this particular River was done in a few different sections the

[50:41] first the first um area was roughly uh and this end of dugway Road up to um

[50:48] Moody Road in Hanksville was kind of the first stretch of river that was done

[50:52] with this phase two assessment and that's literally walking um uh in the

[50:57] river uh every inch of that River and doing a bunch of detailed measurements

[51:01] collecting a whole bunch of data taking crosssections throughout that whole um

[51:07] that whole run uh coming out of that Phase 2 in

[51:10] 2005 we did a little bit of what's called corridor plan and project

[51:13] development and that's kind of distilling all that data down into what

[51:17] does that what does it mean how does it uh how does it reflect um what's

[51:23] available what we have available to um either improve the situation or uh where

[51:29] is it already good um came back in 2007 later in 2007

[51:36] uh did the rest of the main stem wooki River up to the gorge uh through the

[51:42] gorge up to the um the Huntington end of of dugway road then jumped up to

[51:46] Hanksville and did a few more reaches up there and then we also did a few of the

[51:50] uh lower reaches of some of the major tributaries the Texas Hill Brook Fargo

[51:55] Brook and brushing Brook all all got looked

[51:58] at um 2009 we also uh we did the the uh

[52:06] Culver inventory that Will was talking about I was looking at each and every

[52:10] Culver through this section bridge and Culvert taking very detailed

[52:13] measurements and evaluating their capacity to not only pass water but to

[52:18] pass sediment and wood um and we also did some um more

[52:27] detailed what's called fluvial erosion Hazard mapping and that's developing a

[52:30] better understanding of the um of the boundaries of the corridor within which

[52:36] you would expect the river to actually be

[52:40] migrating doing those meanders uh given uh relatively well we'll say relatively

[52:48] an unconfined situation so we have a lot of lateral constraints in the um in the

[52:54] corridor now homes Bridges roads all these things that impact where we're

[53:01] going to allow the river to move and and erode uh and so that plays into comes

[53:07] into play when we're looking at where uh the the river is how how the river is

[53:11] going to react to that and erode in other

[53:14] places uh and then finally in uh in 2009 we followed this kind of this all up

[53:20] taking all of this data redoing the corridor planning coming up with a more

[53:24] comprehensive list of um of projects and doing a little bit of kind of U more

[53:30] final assessment that looked at the at the whole Watershed having done all of

[53:33] this these different pieces of work so I'm going to just talk about a few of

[53:36] the highlights this is all you know somewhat a long time ago at this point

[53:41] um I'm just going to talk about a few of the highlights of takeaways from that

[53:45] some of that work kind of how it relates to what some of these other guy what

[53:48] these other guys have said buffer conditions one of the pieces

[53:52] that we look at um probably not surprising to to many of you the um

[53:58] overall buffer conditions throughout the hington river aren't great um we had

[54:03] almost 40% of the assessed length um that's River length um with a a forested

[54:10] buffer of less than 25 ft wide um so when will was talking about

[54:15] those forested riparian buffers and the benefits that they bring to cooling the

[54:19] water and um and the the habitat and the um all those various bucket bucket

[54:26] of benefits more we're we're a little bit

[54:31] hurting

[54:34] here um bank erosion 55% of the assess length was found to have a moderate or

[54:42] high erosion rating on at least one bank and uh a good 20% on both

[54:54] Banks um I think it's it's may be interesting that the buffer conditions

[54:58] don't always correspond directly with the bank erosion um there's there's

[55:03] other things at play here when we're thinking about uh I think there there's

[55:07] an assumption that oh bad buffers always means uh um bank erosion in that exact

[55:13] place but that's not necessarily the case Channel

[55:18] incision um and this is measured primarily with our with the

[55:21] cross-section work that we're doing and um what we've came up with here is some

[55:28] 88% of the assess length is showing some uh moderate to severe evidence of

[55:34] historic Channel incision so that's that down cutting bed loss of access to the

[55:39] flood plane um Shane talked about the the channel Evolution model and kind of

[55:45] where we are finding ourselves Statewide in that 2 three and four stage between

[55:51] inzing and stabilizing um and this is where the uh

[55:56] at least back in the early 2000s where the Huntington River shook out based on

[56:03] the data that was collected

[56:05] um only about 6% of the length was active actually actively in sizing but a

[56:12] huge portion of it is actively was actively widening um so it's kind of

[56:18] moved through from that incision stage into stage three and we're seeing

[56:24] it a the the B grating and the um and the river moving

[56:30] laterally uh no surprise I think right for most of us who who see this River um

[56:35] but 22% or so of the reaches are beginning that stabilizing process um I

[56:40] don't think they're probably very far down the road but they're starting to

[56:44] move out of that widening phase starting to stabilize a little bit doing less

[56:48] lateral

[56:51] migration when we lose that flood plane access um

[56:57] and we don't have the uh we don't have the the the river is

[57:04] not able to to get out and deposit its sediment and uh release the nutrients um

[57:10] all that is uh moving Downstream in what we call a transport regime and what

[57:16] we're seeing in uh at least in this study was that some 65% of the reaches

[57:21] are converted to transport regimes when they normally

[57:25] would be uh uh in in an equilibrium stage they

[57:28] would be of course um kind of sediment in equals sediment out right but what

[57:34] we're seeing is that a lot of that sediment is just moving right

[57:38] through um I will spent a lot of time in this because Shane kind of hit hit on

[57:41] the history pretty well um but I've um well I find this pretty interesting

[57:49] just kind of from a local perspective I guess to kind of think at the think

[57:52] about some of the catastrophic floods that we're we've EXP experience in this

[57:57] Watershed and I think we have a tendency to think about um sort of what's

[58:02] happening right now and don't really have the the um the the broad

[58:08] perspective all the time um and what occurs to me is I start to look at some

[58:12] of these dates is that we're we've actually experienced a fairly

[58:16] regular um occurrence of what I'll call catastrophic floods in the Huntington

[58:24] River Watershed and they're there been a lot of um kind of major floods

[58:29] throughout Vermont um that have that that haven't really impacted the

[58:33] Huntington River Watershed um but we had the uh I'll just

[58:39] kind of kind of look at the last 100 years here we have we have the uh great

[58:43] New England hurricane which was pretty devastating in the Huntington River

[58:47] Watershed in 1976 we had hurricane Bell and then this year we had another one

[58:52] and you know we're looking at somewhere around a 40-year

[58:56] pretty even time span for those that anybody's interested I have

[59:01] the Burlington Free Press from I think it's August 11 1976 hurricane Bell is a

[59:06] variety of pictures of the the devastating flooding in Huntington um

[59:12] including Joe Spence rescuing some of his cows from the uh flood waters and um

[59:19] I think there's some washed out Bridges uh 1976 I was 6 years old living in

[59:24] Huntington Center and and um the uh every bridge except the one into

[59:31] Huntington Center completely washed out um the Shaker Mountain Bridge was uh

[59:38] Still Standing but very wobbly

[59:43] um and uh it uh it had some benefits for a

[59:49] six-year-old it was the year I learned to ride a bike because there was uh no

[59:52] traffic on the road for for quite a few weeks

[59:57] um but uh you know talk about devastating floods it was it was

[1:00:02] um yeah it was a lot I think it's important to note that

[1:00:07] two people drowned thank you yeah yeah we had two people two hunon residents

[1:00:11] who died in that flp there were two others elsewhere in the state who died

[1:00:15] as well four fatalities in that in that year um I thought i' just talk really

[1:00:20] briefly about the uh water quality studies that we've done in the

[1:00:23] Huntington River um from about 2002 to 2018 um the Huntington coordin

[1:00:31] Conservation Commission started a a project to um study eoli

[1:00:36] bacteria contamination in the Huntington River um uh we did that just here in

[1:00:42] Huntington for a couple years and then Richmond got very interested and we sort

[1:00:46] of formed a little um an official Cooperative called the

[1:00:51] Huntington River conservation partnership um and we had teams of

[1:00:55] volunteers going going out every week or every other week later collecting water

[1:01:00] samples that would get taken to the um State lab and Waterberry and then

[1:01:05] eventually to Randolph um to test the eoli bacteria levels at points all up

[1:01:11] and down the river uh I know some of you here collected water

[1:01:16] samples um we did we made several attempts at um

[1:01:22] trying to identify the uh the source of the uh bacteria area um it was uh the

[1:01:29] huny river was found to be you know quite highly contaminated at certain

[1:01:33] times um in fact the Lower Village was put on

[1:01:38] the states impaired water list in I think it was 2006 or 2007 um for for

[1:01:43] bacteria contamination um we weren't really

[1:01:48] successful ever at kind of nailing down a point source or one point source um we

[1:01:53] did some pretty Cutting Edge um DNA analysis at one time

[1:02:00] um to to try to identify the actual type of uh mammal that the EOL bacteria was

[1:02:09] coming from um and the results were were interesting but somewhat

[1:02:14] unconcluded basically they found that it it seemed likely that it was a mixed uh

[1:02:20] source of humans livestock and Wildlife

[1:02:34] but but what but well so the reason the Lower Village area was deemed impaired

[1:02:39] was because the levels were shown consistently High there um and so I

[1:02:43] think that's important to note um but we also found that uh we were able to link

[1:02:48] the high bacteria to pretty to pretty well to um to high flow events and and

[1:02:55] uh and more specifically to high flow events that

[1:02:59] followed periods of um dry so if you if you had a if you had an extended period

[1:03:06] of rain um you would tend to see the bacteria levels taper off and then if

[1:03:11] you had a dry spell and then a big storm you'd see those bacteria levels Spike up

[1:03:18] um and so that suggests that there's a fair amount of um probably uh uh surface

[1:03:24] water input coming off the land flowing into the river right and also U

[1:03:30] potentially a jump in the water table a spike in the water table at a particular

[1:03:35] time that's that's pushing stuff

[1:03:44] out um and then the last thing I was just going to talk about a little bit

[1:03:49] was um just some more personal less scientific observations having um put

[1:03:55] the new in the river this summer um for the first time in in a while uh it was I

[1:04:02] always find this is a really good way to uh well first of all to kind of

[1:04:06] reconnect to the Huntington River and see it from A New Perspective besides

[1:04:10] our roads and bridges again but um but also just you you really get this to see

[1:04:16] it in detail and doing that repeatedly over uh many years U or with many years

[1:04:23] in between you start to see some of these differences and um so we put the

[1:04:28] canoe in the river and uh late August just for a a 4our trip from the recck

[1:04:35] field down to Horseshoe Ben um and really wanted to get a look at things

[1:04:39] after the July flooding of this year um and just kind of get a better sense of

[1:04:44] of of what was going on out there

[1:04:49] um we certainly saw um some bank erosion um but I wouldn't have said it

[1:04:55] was um astronomically more bank erosion than we've uh had seen back in the early

[1:05:02] 2000s when we were doing geomorphic work or in years prior when we were when we

[1:05:06] had done canoe trips before that um there were some new large mass

[1:05:12] wasting sites so a mass wasting site is one of these a very very tall Hills

[1:05:17] slope banks that the river is banging into and um and uh so there were a

[1:05:23] couple of of new sites uh that that were notable and considerably more dramatic

[1:05:29] than the bank erosion in fact um we were able to see uh evidence of

[1:05:36] some of that historic bed incision um where you can actually where

[1:05:42] some of that eroding bank is happening you can see um Riverbank sediment at a

[1:05:48] higher elevation than the current bad so uh real clear evidence that that River

[1:05:55] in that area has been down cutting um and leaving the old bed sometimes 3 or 4

[1:06:01] feet sometimes even more higher

[1:06:06] um saw considerably more Japanese knotweed than we have in the past um

[1:06:12] that's probably not a surprise to most of you but um it was uh it it shouldn't

[1:06:17] have been shocking but it was um kind of having looked at

[1:06:21] it 15 20 years ago and to see it today it's um it's it's a it's a big and

[1:06:28] unfortunate change um but on the plus side what we

[1:06:35] noted was we're starting to see evidence of

[1:06:40] improved channel in Channel habitat and really that took the form of um in this

[1:06:46] particular case of seeing a lot more pools than we have in the past um when

[1:06:51] we did the work on that uh main stem in uh

[1:06:56] 2004 or five uh that same section from Horseshoe

[1:07:02] Bend to the rec field working Upstream um we documented a total of

[1:07:10] four pools uh this summer somewhere probably

[1:07:16] in the neighborhood of 10 or 12 um saw 15 or 18inch brown

[1:07:23] trout um

[1:07:27] so I felt like you know there is some hope here thinking looking at this River

[1:07:32] and uh I think I think what we're seeing in those in those pools are some

[1:07:37] evidence that that you know as we're starting to move out of that incision

[1:07:41] through some of that widening and and into that stabilizing phase of the

[1:07:45] channel channel Evolution we're starting to see some of those um habitat

[1:07:49] characteristics take hold again we're starting to see some of the banks

[1:07:53] starting to stabilize a little bit we're starting to see maybe a little bit of

[1:07:56] places where the river can reconnect to some flood planes or is forming some new

[1:08:00] flood planes that will serve that purpose in the

[1:08:04] future um so it's uh it's been a bad year for the river but I don't think

[1:08:09] it's been all bad and uh hopefully we'll have more good than

[1:08:16] bad as we move forward

[1:08:21] [Applause] thank you for ending on a positive note

[1:08:30] Aaron um so we're going to move into our question phase and we're going to try to

[1:08:36] get to as many questions as we can um if folks have written questions down

[1:08:42] Janette said she would come around and pick them up I don't know if anyone

[1:08:46] wants to use the card no obligation that was just an

[1:08:49] option um

[1:08:53] and if folks want want to come up and use a microphone they're welcome

[1:08:57] otherwise just speak loudly and um I know you all know this but I'm just

[1:09:01] going to remind us all to be respectful and commit to communicating with

[1:09:06] courtesy to listen attentively to others and have an open mind and to encourage

[1:09:11] equal participation by being mindful of our speaking time and making space for

[1:09:16] others who may be less likely to speak up so who has a question or a

[1:09:23] comment and you can also spef ify um if this is for a particular panelist or for

[1:09:28] anyone to

[1:09:32] answer uh this is just a matter of definition I know when you when you give

[1:09:37] presentations you can sometimes misse so this may been a matter that um and

[1:09:43] talking about the force of the river and the different aspects of what makes the

[1:09:49] force of the the movement the word slope was used and in my mind slope is a

[1:09:57] gravitational thing going from up to down but it seemed like it was being

[1:10:03] described as the Meander of the river so can you clarify what the term slope

[1:10:09] means when you're talking about the river let me take

[1:10:13] that yeah thanks um and sorry for being confusing um so yes slope is from

[1:10:21] Upstream to Downstream and the point there is is that if you have a reach of

[1:10:27] river that starts somewhere let's just arbitrarily say the elevation is 1,000

[1:10:33] ft above sea level and then that reach of that reach of river ends Downstream

[1:10:40] at 980 ft above sea level so it's dropped 20 ft right now if you draw a

[1:10:47] straight line down the Valley from point8 to point

[1:10:50] B let's say that's a distance of one mile so that that River ran straight

[1:10:57] it'd be a mile long and it would drop 20 ft over that mile so 20 ft per mile but

[1:11:02] if that River's Meandering back and forth across the valley it's going to be

[1:11:06] much it's going to be longer than a mile right so if it's longer than a mile then

[1:11:10] it's going to be 20 ft over 1.2 or 1.3 or 1 so it's flatter that's that's the

[1:11:15] point is that the Meandering River has less slope than the straight River do

[1:11:20] that yeah okay yeah thank you in the back a

[1:11:28] question someone in the back has a question yeah oh

[1:11:31] yeah hi my name is onise I just want to thank all three panelists for coming and

[1:11:37] doing this amazing presentation um I think it's phenomenal

[1:11:43] the work that you've put in to helping us understand um the natural course of

[1:11:49] waters whether they're in a steeper Valley or a wider Valley and how they go

[1:11:55] straighter or they may or more depending on what the valley itself says um and I

[1:12:00] think it's it's a lot of food for thought for people all over the world as

[1:12:07] the climate changes and the impacts vary and the floods come more and more often

[1:12:14] and heavier um to re-evaluate what we think of as

[1:12:21] appropriate engagement with the river um I I thought your points were

[1:12:27] brilliant actually really really spot on um and I did hear on was it Brave Little

[1:12:33] state that the reason that we have more Japanese not weed all over the state

[1:12:37] right now is because of Hurricane Irene that there was so much insane

[1:12:42] flooding and incision that the Japanese not weed got spread all over the rivers

[1:12:47] all over and at first they thought yeah this can be a bank stabilizer this might

[1:12:52] be good but then they discovered that actually Japanese not weed the rones run

[1:12:58] at the surface level of the dirt and they don't dig in deep to hold the dirt

[1:13:02] in place so actually because of the Japanese not weed instead of other raran

[1:13:08] buffers um we're going to see more incision in the future and yeah I just

[1:13:15] thought it was a great presentation thank you so

[1:13:18] much is it going to be online somewhere where people can watch it it is being

[1:13:22] recorded right now yes Thank you

[1:13:27] Lisa yes back I too want to thank the uh panel for presenting some of this

[1:13:33] material was very you know interesting learning about all the different aspects

[1:13:38] of what you presented tonight you know as a lifelong Vermont myself having

[1:13:44] broke fish uh all my my life uh when I well mostly when I was younger and get

[1:13:50] around a little bit more easily but one of the questions that I had for the

[1:13:55] panel is is that one of the things that I think Vermont could look at is uh

[1:14:00] utilizing homeowners who own uh homes along the rivers and along the Brooks as

[1:14:07] Force multipliers in terms of helping to take care of the Brooks and

[1:14:11] communicating effectively with those homeowners of the things that they could

[1:14:15] do on their own in order to support that uh uh River or brook or what have you

[1:14:22] and I think a lot of times you know when you have a a situation uh such as a a

[1:14:27] major flood and a homeowner loses a lot of their property or or what have you

[1:14:32] they're looking for quick answers you know to kind of get an assessment

[1:14:36] they're they're concerned they're worried you know uh they may lose their

[1:14:40] home uh they're they're losing property and one of the things I was just

[1:14:44] thinking about as you folks were were talking is you could do contact teams

[1:14:49] for major areas that have been been hit and just put out there say hey for the

[1:14:53] homeowners look we understand you know you just got nailed by this particular

[1:14:58] flood what can we do to help in terms of assessing the future needs of the brook

[1:15:05] or the river that you live along and uh what you know what areas you can go to

[1:15:11] in order to get help and a lot of us you know we are concerned about I you know I

[1:15:17] want my grandchilden to have the opportunity to go Brook fishing in

[1:15:21] Vermont I mean for crying out loud I was in the Northeast Kingdom I remember

[1:15:25] drinking out of the brook you know when we when we went fishing so bottom line

[1:15:31] is is that we've got to figure out a way to communicate more effectively in terms

[1:15:36] of homeowners or Farmers or what have you on ways that we can do stuff and

[1:15:41] just by doing a study it's great to do a study but what did you do with the study

[1:15:46] you know um and and how did that Implement change in terms of what we did

[1:15:52] and when you showed that particular River

[1:15:55] uh where it was just essentially flat I was thinking to myself well how

[1:16:00] is that happen with not you know consultation and and saying okay well if

[1:16:05] you're going to do this you at least need to put you know large rocks

[1:16:10] whatever but bottom line is I'm looking for uh

[1:16:14] communication helping to ease homeowners Minds that not only are you concerned

[1:16:20] about the Aquatic Life of a river but you're also concerned about the human

[1:16:24] beings who are living in homes next to the river because we're not the only

[1:16:28] ones who are being impacted when you have buildings and one of the things

[1:16:32] that I don't know if it was addressed in your study but one of the things that

[1:16:36] impact the river as well is when homeowners build homes on mountains and

[1:16:42] they clear SWA the land and allowing additional water to reach the the

[1:16:47] tributaries and waterways so that was just you know my comment again thank you

[1:16:52] very interesting you know in terms terms of uh how the water uh works and

[1:16:57] channeling and what have

[1:17:03] you um no I think that's a really good point about the the value of of people

[1:17:08] who live in the community sort of being I think Advocate would that that be the

[1:17:12] word I could use yeah um because I think you're right like the state regulations

[1:17:18] the the funding all of that reality is we're not going to be able to to buy our

[1:17:22] way or to regulate our way to whatever we want you know flood

[1:17:26] resiliency water quality habitat it's going to require behavioral

[1:17:32] modifications it's going toire people adopting the behaviors the strategies on

[1:17:36] their own volitionally to do what what is is going to what I think we're going

[1:17:42] to need to do um and it's uh it's going to require and that the way that that's

[1:17:47] going to happen is by neighbors talking to Neighbors about you know flood

[1:17:51] response what did you do during what did you do during a flood how did you resp

[1:17:54] respond to it or you know water quality issues or whatever but I think the the

[1:18:00] the point that you brought up I think is is Spa on um you mentioned streamwise

[1:18:05] earlier there's actually we're we're working with uh friends of the wusi

[1:18:09] river they' they've come to Huntington um streamwise basically is a program

[1:18:14] that to basically develop that to culture that what you're talking about

[1:18:19] identify land owners who are want to do the right thing are doing the right

[1:18:23] thing um and sorry that's a very loaded term I

[1:18:28] I'm sorry I wish there was a better way I could have said that but anyway

[1:18:31] neighbors who who are managing their property in a way that we think is um

[1:18:35] consistent with natural River processes flood resiliency water quality aquatic

[1:18:39] habitat and providing them with tools basically to talk to their other land

[1:18:44] owner other neighbors uh and provide them with information um so anyway there

[1:18:49] is there is a program that we're working on to to do that do you guys want to add

[1:18:53] anything

[1:18:59] um yeah and uh I agree and I'll just say that I um I believe that right now the

[1:19:05] regional Planning Commission is has um begun a project to kind of pick back up

[1:19:11] the results of the corridor plan that we worked on back in 2008 2009 and to uh

[1:19:20] take a new Fresh look at what types of uh projects are are would be most

[1:19:25] beneficial in today's environment and um I think one of those is you know part of

[1:19:31] that's going to be reaching out to to Streamside land owners and working with

[1:19:36] people on um developing some of these projects that could have some of those

[1:19:39] benefits so uh fingers crossed that that um that happens in a in a good

[1:19:48] way I'll put in another plug for the streamwise assessment um it is

[1:19:54] completely free to uh Property Owners it's not so much uh response to flooding

[1:20:00] as more of like come out at kind of let give you ideas uh for how to um just

[1:20:07] create a healthier stream uh environment and so um they do write up a a report

[1:20:15] for you and give it to you so and list it out with recommendations of things

[1:20:19] you can do and uh if you go to friends of the wusi website you can link through

[1:20:25] there to put in uh formal requests to have a stream side assessment at your

[1:20:30] property um okay yes question here yeah is there I know that for Farmers there's

[1:20:37] federal and state funding put in recur firsts and convert to car zones is there

[1:20:45] funding or support for land owners that might want to put in a buffer strip or

[1:20:53] support or reduce erosion by putting in trees access to funding for folks that

[1:20:58] want to do that on their private property I I streamwise does not

[1:21:03] actually pay for any of the recommendations that they make um but

[1:21:09] someone else may have an answer to that question do we

[1:21:13] know I know the Huntington Conservation Commission is um always looking for

[1:21:18] projects we might be willing to help out but that might not be the answer you're

[1:21:21] looking for I plan commission so the reference

[1:21:29] to projects on private land stated in recent years is funding something called

[1:21:35] clean water service providers this is a way to

[1:21:38] address Foster reduction projects voluntary project so big picture we have

[1:21:45] Lake champag

[1:21:48] tmdl State a couple years ago said EPA we got this we're going to you know

[1:21:53] improve Reg on farms or Wastewater plants we're going to have Municipal

[1:21:58] roads General permit so that's why you see all this road work and ditching and

[1:22:01] turnouts and those kinds of things so regulatory measures to reduce phosphorus

[1:22:07] that gets you 80% of the way over the next 15 20 years to hopefully meet the

[1:22:13] phosphorus reduction targets we report back to EPA and say see we're cutting

[1:22:17] back to phosphorus in the L but 20% of the load plus or minus depending on what

[1:22:22] water shed you're in needs to come from voluntary sector so the state is putting

[1:22:27] in about $7 million a year passing it through the different Regional planning

[1:22:32] commissions um the one for the wusi drainage which you guys are a part of is

[1:22:37] actually managed by Central Vermont RPC that's Brian boy Lincoln Pras are the

[1:22:41] two main staffers there um so they be the ones to contact about doing projects

[1:22:48] um town could do a project we're doing as as Mr rley mentioned we're working

[1:22:52] with the town right now on we hired a consultant Stone

[1:22:56] environmental to go back and look at the old 2009 study and find some phosphorous

[1:23:00] projects there because any kind of flood plane restoration you get that whether

[1:23:06] you when you carve down the flood plane a little bit by a couple your feet so

[1:23:11] the water can get in or you put fake beaver dams in the streams either way

[1:23:15] you want to get that sediment to dump you get the sediment to dump boom that's

[1:23:19] phosphorous so he take some time s like and stream blank stream Bank restoration

[1:23:25] projects rep plantings have a have a phosphorous reduction benefit

[1:23:29] calculators so that's Regional Planning Commission work like a vendor to set

[1:23:35] over lot RPC so we can manage a project like we're doing now so that's the best

[1:23:40] source for projects on private lands reduce phos r or any private potentially

[1:23:47] private road projects that's sort of the newer thing that look clear erosion

[1:23:52] project you know on that if it's of not just fixing Road there's a clear siment

[1:23:58] run off into into the street that's the best short story priv roads thank you

[1:24:06] priver yeah thank you that sounds like a good option for

[1:24:10] folks uh

[1:24:15] yes I don't get out much but I've noticed there was a petition from I

[1:24:20] think mostly homeowners who were affected by the July flood

[1:24:25] to the select board and I'm not sure exactly what they were asking for I

[1:24:30] think I think they were asking for permission to access the river and

[1:24:36] mine the gravel Banks and asking for subsidies from the town perhaps do it or

[1:24:42] asking the town to Grants to make that happen and I

[1:24:46] wonder how that relates to what you guys have talked about

[1:24:51] today what the impact of that sort of I don't know if I even understand what

[1:24:56] they were asking for but I'd like to know more about it and how it relates to

[1:25:02] the yeah I don't know if anyone here can answer that question what they're asking

[1:25:06] for because I don't know that either someone here who signed the petition

[1:25:12] um but but we do have some panelists who are willing to speak to the broader

[1:25:19] issue so yeah I can't clarify exactly what the

[1:25:24] petition is I mean I think I generally understand it and I think you

[1:25:28] articulated it fairly accurately is is to do River Management work to reduce

[1:25:33] the flood hazards um was is is generally what they were asking and whether or

[1:25:39] not the town would help pay for that or the town's involvement would make

[1:25:44] funding easier to get from other sources um I'm a little unclear on that but

[1:25:49] generally that was it so you know it it was back in 1986 that the laws around um

[1:25:59] mining gravel changed before 1986 uh you could mine gravel and you

[1:26:05] could sell that gravel commercially for I think was $2 a ton um which I've been

[1:26:13] told in that time period was pretty good money for just digging gravel out of the

[1:26:18] river um it was somewhat profitable know there probably some better Minds on that

[1:26:23] than mine but yeah $2 a ton Justin I don't know something like that um so

[1:26:29] after 19 in 1986 the the laws on that pass laws on that changed and you could

[1:26:34] no longer mine gravel for profit um you could mine gravel if you were riparian

[1:26:40] landowner and you could use that gravel on your property um to to repair roads

[1:26:46] that you you know primarily with with agricultural uh land owners in mind you

[1:26:50] could use that gravel to repair roads Etc I think the maximum of volume that

[1:26:55] you could remove is 10 your 50 is that I've heard this number thrown around

[1:27:00] recently is it 50 cubic yards your annual yeah so 50 cubic you can take per

[1:27:04] year um prior to that you know gravel mining

[1:27:11] it was just it was done extensively it was done without any understanding of

[1:27:16] what the implications were it was done without any understanding of you know

[1:27:20] the flal geology the the sciency stuff that I talked about tonight wasn't

[1:27:25] really well understood and it put us into this situation now where we have

[1:27:28] all these insided unstable Rivers we still however remove gravel

[1:27:34] from Rivers I think between 23 and 24 2023 and 2024 um that' be August to a

[1:27:41] yeah August to augusti is um the state issued I believe 350 permits that

[1:27:47] included removal of gravel from the river so we still remove gravel we lots

[1:27:53] of times it's around public infrastructure Bridges Road Road

[1:27:56] embankments Etc um to mitigate mitigate the risk to that

[1:28:02] infrastructure um but we do it in a measured way right we understand the

[1:28:08] implications when we do it we're careful we we we survey these sites we

[1:28:14] understand how much gravel to remove and we do it and it's it's it's a it's a

[1:28:18] more you know wellth thought out designed scientifically informed way to

[1:28:22] do that so all of that that long wittedness is to say that in some

[1:28:28] locations if we've done our homework and we use science and engineering to base

[1:28:35] designs on um we can remove gravel to reduce flooding hazards in a way that

[1:28:42] isn't going to

[1:28:46] um cause negative impacts that outweigh the benefits of removing the gravel

[1:28:52] right you're always going to have some some negative impacts but you're

[1:28:56] mitigating another Hazard so you're balancing risks right and you're

[1:29:01] weighing those against each other and your risks or hazards against each other

[1:29:05] um but we need to understand you know we need to do the studies to understand

[1:29:10] what the implications are and it can't what we've moved away from and what what

[1:29:14] I'm proposing that the science is telling us we need to continue to move

[1:29:17] away from is the idea that you just go in and dig and dig as deep as you can

[1:29:21] and get out as much as you can because that that just gets us into trouble

[1:29:25] so you're talking the less disadvantageous method of gravable is

[1:29:29] bars above water line I'm assume correct as opposed to just trenching that is a a

[1:29:36] um practice that's become fairly commonly prescribed by the River

[1:29:43] Management program and I think can you repeat what Justus yeah so

[1:29:49] Justin asked if I'm suggesting that the activity of removing

[1:29:56] the gravel from the tops of gravel bars is a less impacting form of Channel

[1:30:03] management than just dredging the entire Channel

[1:30:08] and um it is a a it is a a a pres a practice that has been commonly

[1:30:15] prescribed by the River Management program I think they do see that those

[1:30:21] gravel bars typically just rebuild when that gravel's

[1:30:24] removed um so they see it as a less impactful I would say it's still

[1:30:29] impactful we still need to understand it but um you know the River Management

[1:30:35] engineers and really when you talk about people to go around and work with land

[1:30:39] owners and help them understand their risk and what they might do the way that

[1:30:43] the whole system is set up it's the River Management Engineers that are the

[1:30:46] ones that are really supposed to do that they're the experts so um they're

[1:30:51] prescribing it and what I think about yeah I'm not sure

[1:30:55] what I think about it in every case I think all cases are different um there

[1:30:59] are some implications well you know one of the things that that whole balance

[1:31:03] situation if you remove sediment from the Huntington in Huntington um or if

[1:31:10] you remove sediment in Hanksville and you dredge the rivers in

[1:31:15] Hanksville and you set you know the next storm comes along that's less sediment

[1:31:20] getting down here that's available to get down here to sap the energy out out

[1:31:24] of the water also potentially cause conflicts but sap energy out of the

[1:31:28] water and it's more water you're sending down here because that water is not

[1:31:31] being stored on a flood plane up in Hanksville or up near starbor somewhere

[1:31:34] that water's coming down here to the Village right so when we remove gravel

[1:31:38] here we're impacting folks down stream um so that that's one thing I keep in

[1:31:43] mind about that whole thing but yes that is that is what they typically prescribe

[1:31:47] um whether or not there's a huge benefit in terms of reduction of

[1:31:52] flood Peaks I think that's really questionable like

[1:31:57] are you really you know by scraping that little bit of gravel off the bar are you

[1:32:01] really reducing flood Peaks all that much I'm not sure if that's if that's

[1:32:05] necessarily

[1:32:10] true anyone else want to speak well I'll just no I'll just um build on that a

[1:32:16] little bit so um we were actually looking in preparation for this talk we

[1:32:20] were looking at a study that was done in the '90s

[1:32:24] um that and I don't I'm not sure um oh yeah so this was this was a a USGS

[1:32:31] study I believe done on three different rivers in Vermont um in the early to mid

[1:32:37] 90s looking at the um the modeling the impacts or the or the benefits to flood

[1:32:44] attenuation for um dredging channels and uh also what what's kind of collo called

[1:32:52] Gravel Bar sculping scalping which is this you know removing the tops of These

[1:32:56] Bars and um you know I think I I really agree

[1:33:00] with Shane that I don't know that this um you know these things don't bear

[1:33:04] out the same way in every case but what that study showed the modeling showed

[1:33:09] that when you dredge a river um you do show immediate improvements to um

[1:33:16] inundation so you know and that kind of goes along with the with the history

[1:33:21] that we've you know we've seen and what we see in that channel I believe ution

[1:33:24] model um um but you also see um very rapid um significant increases in

[1:33:31] erosion um and the model very very clearly showed uh uh significant

[1:33:36] increases um and then with the Gravel Bar scalping you didn't see that uh

[1:33:41] erosion impacts um but you also saw just negligible changes to the um to the

[1:33:49] inundation situation and I mean by negligible I think the I think the

[1:33:54] number was somewhere around two10 of a foot or something like that um so you

[1:33:59] know I think that that's part of the um part of the one of the things that I

[1:34:02] think a lot about with this conversation about the the Gravel Bar reduction is

[1:34:08] that it's not inexpensive to get contractors in there to do that it's um

[1:34:14] it's not without risk to the uh you have to get there you have to you know get

[1:34:19] down the bank and into the channel itself so it's not without ecological

[1:34:22] risk um and is it after you spent all that money and um and you know tried to

[1:34:30] mitigate that risk the best you can are you actually getting any benefit out of

[1:34:33] it and I think that that's the important question in my mind that needs to be

[1:34:36] answered before we just jump to do something like

[1:34:43] that so if it's good for rivers and I know it is to have a flood plane to

[1:34:49] spread out and soak in

[1:34:53] is it possible to create a flood flood planes for the Huntington if the

[1:34:58] Huntington doesn't have enough flood planes I mean it seems like it's

[1:35:03] creating its own but is it possible to find a place that's good to have a

[1:35:10] flood plane yeah and I'll start with this one good for yeah um so that's the

[1:35:16] flood plane cut method right where you have these high Terraces that the river

[1:35:21] can't access until it gets some you know some really high flow event maybe above

[1:35:25] a 100-year flow event so you go in and you excavate that down you cut that down

[1:35:30] and you create lower lying land and that is what you're right that is what the

[1:35:35] river is doing as it moves side to side it's cutting into that high terrorist

[1:35:39] taking that away and then as it Manders back the other way across the valley

[1:35:44] it's building those Point bars and it's those Point bars become the new flood

[1:35:49] plane and um you know they vegetate and and yeah provide all those that function

[1:35:54] of the flood plane so you can that is a that is a approach that's used um I've

[1:36:00] been involved in three or four of those projects and throughout the state and um

[1:36:06] yeah that's that's an approach very expensive very

[1:36:11] expensive Shane another approach which you also are um pioneering is I'm

[1:36:16] actually bringing the channel up to the flood plane so not just bringing the the

[1:36:20] flood plane down but um so like the wood addition I was talking about where it's

[1:36:25] safe to do so we're finding that that actually is helping to reconnect the

[1:36:29] flood plane um and so there's plenty of other examples I I could have shown of

[1:36:34] where we have state land state forests where it's all flooded on the in the

[1:36:39] flood plane because we've done these wood addition projects um Shane's also

[1:36:43] doing a lot of work uh in other areas look actually recreating wetlands and

[1:36:48] things like that um up in higher elev or not smaller order streams um it's you

[1:36:55] know smaller scale it's not maybe as like a massive flood plane but the idea

[1:37:00] being that if we can store water in these smaller spaces if we can get

[1:37:04] enough of that it it can help it um slow it slow down some of that flood water I

[1:37:09] think something else to emphasize you know there's so that we can we can

[1:37:13] mitigate some of this we can do some like slowing the water storing it but

[1:37:19] again with the size of the floods we we're

[1:37:21] seeing it's it's going to overwhelm it at some point you know I think the

[1:37:25] floods that we've seen this year I think unfortunately what we've seen is it you

[1:37:30] know when we've built in um uh In Harm's Way that those areas are going to be

[1:37:36] inundated or there's going to be erosion and so that that's the other side of

[1:37:41] this is yes it's important to do that but recognize that there's a limit to

[1:37:45] what the what we can achieve through that approach in terms of the flood you

[1:37:49] know lowering our flood elevations

[1:37:54] Margaret um yeah so my question is I'm just thinking about we have so many

[1:38:00] private land owners along the Huntington River and what it sounds to me is like

[1:38:05] we really need a holistic approach to this River cuz what someone does

[1:38:11] Upstream it's going to what effects on Downstream and if we reconnect the flood

[1:38:17] plane Downstream it's not going to help the people

[1:38:20] Upstream do you guys have any examples of where we've been able to think about

[1:38:25] it in that way and have it work successfully just knowing how much

[1:38:28] private land we have in the state and how everyone's kind of doing their own

[1:38:33] thing but not not necessarily able to work

[1:38:36] together now OT

[1:38:40] Creek but Otter Creek isn't a lot of that

[1:38:44] public um is the like hburg leek leou Creek they worked with

[1:38:53] do and dozens of land overs um

[1:38:57] and um there's a great video somewhere online of what it looked like after the

[1:39:03] latest flood you know it was that inundation

[1:39:07] thing where the trees were standing and the water was spread out everywhere but

[1:39:11] it wasn't death and destruction to all the stream beds and the roads and the

[1:39:15] the valleys and the Farmland stre Association is a good

[1:39:20] place to go

[1:39:25] yeah and I think to that point it really it's it's a local Advocate who's able to

[1:39:30] to have the connections has has a knowledge and and able to bring that

[1:39:34] together um yeah do you want to well I I'll just say you know I mean obviously

[1:39:40] um if a property becomes a FEMA bio that's a really really hard thing for a

[1:39:45] land owner to go through um but once it becomes town-owned property um that

[1:39:50] property is a able to become flood plane and so

[1:39:56] those places are opportunities to kind of reconnect the land to the river

[1:40:03] um again Fe FEMA bio is is a challenging place to be but once that process does

[1:40:09] happen if it if it if it does go through it it gives us an opportunity to restore

[1:40:15] the flood plane in those places um over here I don't think you've

[1:40:20] had a question yet yeah I was just going to comment that um Aaron's work on the

[1:40:25] corridor plan is kind of a holistic approach yeah um and it generates a lot

[1:40:30] of projects and looks at the stream River holistically and where our are can

[1:40:36] strategically do something that will benefit the common good for a lot of

[1:40:39] people but it does take a lot of Partnerships and a lot of private land

[1:40:43] buy and it takes a lot of time and a lot of money um but it is a holistic

[1:40:48] approach of looking at the entire water

[1:40:54] uh well yes I I agree U um I think it's also it's also really relevant and

[1:41:01] important to keep in mind that um uh in this Watershed we have a lot of

[1:41:07] what I I mentioned lateral constraints and so these are the these are the

[1:41:11] things that um really prohibit us from allowing our River to move uh in in in

[1:41:18] areas where it would otherwise um naturally be inclined to do so and and

[1:41:24] um and we are all as a society making commitments to protect those things um

[1:41:30] and to the best of our ability to improve them to make them more resilient

[1:41:35] and um and and better able to handle the forces of the river um but they still

[1:41:41] exist and they still require us to be you know um managing in and around them

[1:41:47] and so when you I actually did make a map and I didn't for the in the interest

[1:41:51] of time I didn't end up sticking this particular one into the the slide deck

[1:41:55] today but um just overlaying kind of our lateral constraints with what's left in

[1:42:00] the river Corridor and um you start to narrow down kind of where you can really

[1:42:04] focus your efforts um in in thinking about flood plane mitigation and these

[1:42:09] kinds of things so I think there's you know there is a filtering method

[1:42:12] available to us too that um we we fully understand that we will be

[1:42:17] protecting uh homes and infrastructure in in many places in many cases and you

[1:42:21] know and looking at ways to more resilient and move out of the way when

[1:42:25] we can but um but we're we're not going to get completely out of the way and you

[1:42:29] know we crisscross this River all up and down the valley and it's a relatively

[1:42:32] confined setting and so um you know there's no there's no turning away from

[1:42:37] that uh if if we're all going to continue to be here

[1:42:47] so okay yeah question back here yeah I'm sorry I just got here a few minutes ago

[1:42:52] I be earlier but I couldn't be I own about maybe a third or a half a mile of

[1:42:58] river both sides I've got a section of river 20 ft High 150 yard

[1:43:07] long 60 yards away from the old bank that's all top soil and it went away and

[1:43:15] I watched this there's no way that my land is flood play this the river is

[1:43:20] just eating into the my fields it's moving away

[1:43:25] from the river the where it used to be 150 yard in 15 years 150 200 yard to the

[1:43:34] to the East and it's chewing up River back and I watch this every

[1:43:41] year and not a single person has come and said can we walk on your land can we

[1:43:46] look at your River can we study this how many cubic yards how many

[1:43:51] thousands of cubic yards top soil have washed into the river so my my point is

[1:43:56] if the river gets shallow somewhere is down below what's it where where's

[1:44:02] what's the the the water what's it doing I mean I invite you to come to my place

[1:44:08] I'll walk you down there I'll show it to you take a look at it it's absolutely

[1:44:12] horrendous I just about cry every time you look at it and not a single person

[1:44:16] has come and ask me about it you want to come and look at it give me a call where

[1:44:21] do you live it's in hanville it's it's below like kings field between Joe King

[1:44:28] and Tomlinson it's a half a mile River and it's I lose trees I lose River Bank

[1:44:34] I lose everything every year nobody's called me up and said hey can you look

[1:44:37] at it it's horrible and we talk about the natural

[1:44:43] flow of the river how many tons of phosphorus for in

[1:44:48] that top soil where does it go it ends up in the

[1:44:52] lake I mean top soil I mean phosphorus is sequestered in Top Soil

[1:44:57] right so how much of that ends up in the lake probably all of it how many how

[1:45:02] many feet of River Bottom has has how much how much has the river risen below

[1:45:07] it Downstream from me you're you're invited to come and

[1:45:12] see and say this is our suggestion let's just let it go until it reaches the road

[1:45:17] and then we'll put some steel beams in and save it meanwhile it's just desert

[1:45:21] there's nothing growing there yeah so that's that in sized Channel

[1:45:27] condition right really high Banks super high Bank super high Banks yeah and they

[1:45:31] go away I mean it's just half the height of this room yeah and

[1:45:36] and and the roads I can't do a thing to it right right the road's pretty close

[1:45:41] on the other side no it's hundreds of yards away okay the road's so so so we

[1:45:46] got many years before it reaches the road but what are we doing in the

[1:45:49] meantime yeah tall banks on both sides I got rting on one side it doesn't go that

[1:45:54] right up against the valley wall long the other side of the river just

[1:45:59] down below my neighbor's land I've got trees

[1:46:03] stacked up 8 ft High laid horizontal against the

[1:46:08] bank and was just marching away from that side of the river yeah so

[1:46:15] um you know this is this iniz channel condition banks are really high the

[1:46:20] channel fills during a flood the water is 6 7t deep during flood event during a

[1:46:28] flood event what does it do during the flood event how deep does that water get

[1:46:33] I mean that's 8 10t yeah 8 10 ft right so that's like you know that 62 lbs on

[1:46:40] top of 62 lbs and like you know 620 lb and so you get a lot of Shear so it's

[1:46:44] that really unstable condition the idea of I thought I knew where you were

[1:46:49] talking about but I don't think I I have it pictured correctly but

[1:46:53] restoration ideas range from cutting down that high Bank to give it that

[1:46:57] flood plane that pressure relief valve putting well you can scrape the

[1:47:02] top soil and and put it somewhere else and cut down the flood plane give it

[1:47:06] that pressure relief valve we can't really put wood in the

[1:47:10] main stem of the Huntington but if you could like that slows the water down

[1:47:14] that that trap sediment coming from Upstream it builds the bed back up so

[1:47:17] you can regain that connectivity um maybe there are other

[1:47:21] ideas for you know when you talk about River restoration it ranges from really

[1:47:26] true River restoration towards property protection so there may be more property

[1:47:30] protection sort of things we could do but um that it all stems from this iniz

[1:47:35] channel Condition it's exactly what we're talking about right but I I'd be

[1:47:40] happy to come and I'd be happy to come and take a

[1:47:43] look yeah that sounds great that sounds great i' I'd love to do that actually so

[1:47:47] thanks for the invitation all right um Justin did your hand go

[1:47:53] let's just get into the Weeds about it his is it like the soil geomorphology

[1:47:57] and the field he's talking about is not a standard flood plane yeah you should

[1:48:01] go look at it it's it's a very interesting piece of land that's not

[1:48:06] Channel incision from what I can tell it's cutting a new channel hundreds of

[1:48:12] millions of yards of sand being deposited 15,000 years ago yeah when the

[1:48:16] valley was flowing the other way sorts of it's complicated yeah that's the

[1:48:20] other thing we thing we have going on in this valleys

[1:48:24] is really interesting surficial geology because of our proximity to the lake and

[1:48:29] what happened when the lake Rose and and and you know we were Lake Shore Beach

[1:48:33] and we have all these C Terraces all over the place and these sand deposits

[1:48:38] everywhere Texas Hill and it creates really Dynamic around yeah yeah so yeah

[1:48:44] that adds a whole layer and Justin I know you're really familiar with that um

[1:48:48] so yeah I'd love to come out and look and talk and learn more and see if

[1:48:51] there's anything we could do there's half a dozen places like that

[1:48:56] along the river um looks like we've got one more

[1:49:00] question in the back here and then we are at time so I think this will

[1:49:04] probably be our last question for the night and I'll just make a quick

[1:49:08] announcement and then we'll be done so that's

[1:49:15] you a nice note know mine possibly isn't just that you we talking about

[1:49:23] increases in temperature and everything and we know that as the atmosphere warms

[1:49:27] it's holding more moisture uh and we're talking about equilibrium and stream

[1:49:31] restoration um I restore buildings but I restore them to a time period And I

[1:49:36] don't know how we can restore Rivers back to a time period that

[1:49:42] existed a 100 years ago when we didn't have the climate that we now have and so

[1:49:47] there's not a solution here and I appreciate you guys being here but I

[1:49:51] think there's a big giant El in the room that's like it's going to be

[1:49:55] ridiculously humid this summer and it's going to rain like crazy we we know it's

[1:49:59] going to and we don't know how bad it's going to be we know that there's culbert

[1:50:02] that we put back this year that shouldn't have been put back um so any I

[1:50:07] think at some point this is a great discussion I think at some point we

[1:50:09] actually need to talk about like where we put these these blowouts like where

[1:50:13] we're going to actually say all right we're going to give up this chunk of

[1:50:15] land so these houses can survive these Bridges can survive cuz there's like

[1:50:20] it's not going to just get better I ha that's why I don't want to

[1:50:24] end not nothing's getting

[1:50:29] better sorry

[1:50:33] I great comment like really appreciate that I'll just say I think actually in

[1:50:40] in some ways that it is a good place to end because it's about thinking

[1:50:43] holistically and that's I think what we need to do um in

[1:50:47] our especially in this community so um it's an opportunity for us to try to

[1:50:52] bring all the pieces together and think about how do we think about climate

[1:50:56] change and the river and the community and the peoples whose homes are imp

[1:51:00] that's why this is such a complex issue is because there are so many factors um

[1:51:05] it's not easy so and it and climate change is a factor and we there's so

[1:51:09] much we don't know about what's going to happen in the future but working

[1:51:13] together as a community is the best we can do I think to do the best we can to

[1:51:17] protect people's homes when when possible and take care of each other uh

[1:51:22] when flooding happens and so there are some I think positive

[1:51:27] things about this bringing us together so I just want to say thank that was a

[1:51:32] lot of information we got tonight a huge amount of information uh thank you guys

[1:51:37] so [Music]

[1:51:39] much um I'm sure we're all going to take time to absorb all of that and this will

[1:51:44] be um this is being recorded and will be available and we'll let folks know once

[1:51:49] it's posted um and thanks to all the volunteers who helped the setup and and

[1:51:56] everything else and thank you all for engaging with the issues and being here

[1:52:00] with us tonight so thanks for coming and thanks again you guys great job

[1:52:06] [Music]

Huntington Conservation Commission: Understanding Rivers 11-14-24

Transcript