Vermont capital city plans to remove dam and restore nearby floodplain
The Pioneer Street Dam — an old mill dam — is about 1.3 miles upstream from the capital city's downtown along the Winooski River. Not only is the dam filled with cracks, but engineers consider it a flood hazard.
'It's got about everything wrong with a dam you can imagine,' said Roy Schiff, an engineer who's monitoring the dam.
Nearby sits an 18 acre parcel of land at 5 Home Farm Way, where the Stevens Branch of the Winooski River joins the main branch. That land, which houses the Jacob Davis Farmstead, was historically a floodplain. Restoring it to such, coupled with the dam removal just downstream, could significantly reduce flood risk, Schiff said.
The project offers a look at how recovery efforts from the 2023 flood are underway in the city. After years of monitoring water levels and studying the feasibility of the project, officials are starting to seek permitting and funding approval for their plans.
'There is a real sense of forward momentum and progress,' said Jon Copans, executive director of the Montpelier Commission for Recovery and Resilience.
The Vermont River Conservancy first pushed for Montpelier to take down four dams along the river back in 2021. Along with taking down the Pioneer Street Dam, they encouraged dismantling the Bailey Dam, the North Branch Dam and the Hidden Dam. Removing them could mitigate flood risk, improve river ecology and offer recreation opportunities, Randzio said.
The four old dams hold back a large amount of sediment and a small amount of water, Randzio said. The sediment built up behind their structure pushes water levels even higher during times of peak flow.
The conservancy selected consulting firm SLR International to perform feasibility studies of the four dams in 2021, she said. A grant from The Lake Champlain Basin Program paid for those studies, Randzio said.
After floods pummeled the state in 2023 — and hit Montpelier especially hard — river experts pointed to thousands of what Schiff calls 'deadbeat dams' around the state. Then, city officials and state lawmakers started taking notice.
In Montpelier, Randzio's proposals became a high priority. Necessary evaluations of the dams were already underway — putting the project on a fast track, Randzio said.
The Pioneer Street Dam dates to when people used water to turn wheels or millboards or grind grains, Schiff said. But dams are expensive to maintain and they deteriorate fast, he said.
Those working on the project anticipate the sediment built up behind the dam contains pollutants from an old coal facility that once operated along the riverbank upstream, Randzio said. Digging out that sediment while breaking down the dam is an iterative process, Schiff said.
'You have to lower the water a little bit, remove some sediment, lower the dam a little bit,' to prevent sediment from being released downstream, he said.
Just upstream from the dam, at 5 Home Farm Way, sits The Jacob Davis Farmstead, a historic building declared a public safety hazard in 2019, according to The Barre Montpelier Times Argus. The city is currently working with The Preservation Trust of Vermont to remove the building from the property and restore some pieces of it, Copans said.
That way, the 18 acre property would again be a floodplain. By using that land 'we can create more flood storage to help protect the local area and store some more water to protect Montpelier,' Schiff said.
The city's also considering ways it can use the land for recreation and public enjoyment, Copans said.
Schiff's firm worked with city officials and employees at the regional planning commission to submit a list of projects to request funding from the state. The firm concluded the removal of the Pioneer Dam coupled with the floodplain restoration would offer significant flood mitigation risk compared to other proposed projects, and it made sense to tackle the two projects together.
The city hopes to get funding from part of FEMA's hazard mitigation grant program funding offered to Vermont, Copans said. So far, they've received positive signals from the state and remain hopeful, he said.
Then, the project proposals must clear a number of Act 250 and permitting processes before a contractor is hired and work begins, Schiff said.
But all acknowledge the project is just a piece of the puzzle. Randzio hopes the town can remove all four dams, especially the Bailey Dam by Shaw's grocery store downtown.
'Each one of these projects is a step forward and there are more projects sort of in the pipeline,' Copans said.
___
This story was originally published by VTDigger and distributed through a partnership with The Associated Press.
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