Waterbury voters will weigh a bond this Town Meeting Day for a project town leaders have called “the only meaningful option” to soften the impact of future floods.
The Washington County town sits on the banks of the Winooski River and has suffered repeated flooding since Tropical Storm Irene devastated its downtown in 2011.
At the heart of the proposal is a 45-acre parcel of state-owned farmland called Randall Meadow, or just “the cornfield,” along the river, near the state office complex.
The town is proposing to excavate the field, hauling out some 100,000 cubic feet of soil in thousands of dump truck loads.
The environmental consulting firm SLR Consulting estimated the project could lower floodwaters in the nearby Randall and Elm Street neighborhoods by between 4 inches to 1 foot during the next 50-year flood.
Many homes in the area have flooded two or three times in recent years, and it’s a problem that’s likely to get worse as Vermont sees more extreme rainfall due to climate change.
Randall Meadow is one of several parcels along the river the town identified for flood plain restoration as part of an analysis commissioned after Tropical Storm Irene. Others, including one promising, privately-owned field in Duxbury, proved harder to implement.
“Getting land that's under private ownership, for those people to buy into something like this, is oftentimes difficult,” said Bill Woodruff, interim town manager. “So this property here, being state owned, just makes, you know, makes moving forward a little easier.”
In this case, the state has offered to gift the land to Waterbury. Implementing the project is expected to cost $4.3 million, but town officials hope grants will keep the town’s contribution to no more than $1.8 million.
So far, Waterbury has received a $2 million award from the state’s Community Development Block Grant Disaster Recovery program. The town is facing a deadline to secure its award, by proving it can finance the entire project, and is seeking voter approval for a $4.3 million bond.
At worst, the select board said Waterbury could end up borrowing $2.3 million to finance the project, which they estimate would raise local taxes by 3.7% for a 20-year bond.
Woodruff hopes voters will support the project on Town Meeting Day, noting the town lister estimates it will protect some $240 million of grand list value in nearby properties.
However, he said voters should know the project won’t eliminate flooding in the downtown, nor will it address the longstanding problem of Waterbury’s sewer backing up during heavy rain events.
Woodruff estimates that a couple hundred homes in Waterbury sit in the flood plain. Several are going through the FEMA buyout process and are due to be torn down in the coming months, but Woodruff said removing too much of the town’s housing stock would cause other problems.
“I think getting this money would help keep those homes on the tax rolls and keep the town vibrant.”
Some in town have questioned the cost of the project, and whether it will lower floodwaters in the surrounding neighborhoods as much as proponents say it will. Harry Shepherd, a Waterbury resident who serves as Stowe’s public works director, points to the Winooski Street bridge, which he said creates a choke point that drives flooding in the downtown. He’d rather see the town invest in removing or upgrading the 100-year-old structure.
But University of Vermont hydrologist Rebecca Diehl said these sorts of projects have a cumulative impact in a watershed.
She isn’t involved with the Waterbury project, but said the scale, location and size of Randall Meadow make it a good opportunity. She also said lowering flood plains to make them fill with floodwaters does reduce flood damage — in the communities that finance the projects and those downstream.
“It’s a huge question for our watersheds: Where can we find extra storage, or extra room for floodwaters to hang out during floods, where it’s feasible, right? Where we don’t have to move people and things out of the way,” Diehl said. “The Randall Meadow flood plain, this sort of checks all the boxes.”
