Flood Resiliency
We cannot continue to do things the way we are.
River bed Maintenance
All the studies say that dredging rivers is bad. It erodes the river banks and causes bigger problems. I don’t want to damage our river banks in Vermont. But this is not about normal rivers. Show me the study which have rivers banks with solid granite slabs. The Stevens Branch in Barre City is more like a spillway than a river. I have lived here almost all my life and I can tell you the sediment has built up and the water has to go somewhere. Therefore it jumps the banks. You can say doing river bed maintenance is bad and point to studies but until I see the study that addresses the unique design of the city… we have to do riverbed maintenance or sedimentation maintenance or whatever the term is that current that digs up silt left behind from years of erosion up stream.
Mitigation
Mitigation works! This is the debris racks on Gunner’s Brook. All that debris was prevented from going into the very narrow water way that winds through the neighborhood and empties into the Stevens Branch. This is also a perfect picture showing the reason for riverbed maintenance. As sediment builds up around those poles less debris will be caught which means more will be in the narrow spillway of Gunner’s Brook. For those that don’t know the rest of gunner’s brook has granite slabs for river banks. I remember walking down the riverbed as a kid. I know the sediment has risen.
Dealing with the Potash Brook is another problem we have to contend with. This brook comes down from the Windywood development. Creating all the impervious surfaces up there has risen the amount of water. We need to build retention areas further up stream and make sure the current infrastructure is up to the task of routing the water to the Stevens Branch. This brook makes its final trek under the streets of Barre City and empties out by Prospect Street. When the river is too high it causes a back up in the system which why it overflows into the city streets. Another reason for riverbed maintenance.
Watershed
Planning
We need to have regionalized watershed planning that protects the river and allows responsible development. We are all connected and what happens up stream effects down stream.
Potash and Gunner's brook have become larger for sure. These changes need to be addressed on a regional basis. Again, what happens up stream effects down stream.