[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]