Special select board session will focus on flood mitigation brainstorming

July 26, 2024  |  By Lisa Scagliotti

July 28: This story was updated with information about New York University’s Rebuild By Design project.

Lowe Union Street becomes a waterway in the July 2023 flood. File photo by Sarah Milligan

Envisioned before this month’s latest round of flooding and storm damage, the Waterbury Select Board on Monday has scheduled a special meeting to brainstorm flood mitigation project ideas. 

The meeting will be held at the Main Street fire station starting at 7 p.m. and also will be available to view online. 

Town officials have begun to draft a list of a range of projects that would address resiliency against future flooding. They range from large-scale efforts such as a major excavation of the field between the Winooski River and the Randall Street neighborhood to smaller, specific tasks such as elevating the HVAC units alongside the municipal building exterior. 

In early June, Gov. Phil Scott and Vermont Emergency Management announced that $90 million of federal funding is available to all Vermont cities and towns for projects that would reduce future flood risk.

The federal Hazard Mitigation Grant Program pays for projects for municipalities to harden infrastructure in areas of repetitive flooding to help prevent against future flood losses. It also funds voluntary buyouts of homes in floodplains. The program typically requires towns to pay 25% of total project costs but the state of Vermont has decided it will cover the local match.  

The July 2023 flooding made it clear that many communities need more resources to help strengthen infrastructure to withstand future disasters, Scott said in announcing the grant availability. “That’s why my budget included $12.5 million to fund the local match portion of the Hazard Mitigation Grant Program,” he said. 

Some examples of projects the program has funded to date include spillways and large culverts in downtowns, flood-proofed public buildings, restored river corridors and home purchases in floodplains that remove structures from the path of floodwaters.  

Grants now have no local match requirement and the original deadline to submit applications was recently extended from Aug. 16 to Aug. 30. 

“Taking the local match off the shoulders of cities and towns lifts a significant barrier that may have deterred towns from applying in the past,” Vermont Emergency Management Director Eric Forand said. “The process may seem daunting to communities that have limited staff, but we are here to help. We encourage towns to apply.”

This first deadline is described as a “pre-application” where cities and towns identify problem areas and submit general, basic information on a proposed project. As applications more forward, more technical information will be required and staff from Vermont Emergency Management and Regional Planning Commissions around the state will be able to assist local officials with applications. 

Waterbury town officials encourage community members to attend on Monday to hear ideas and share suggestions for potential projects to propose for funding. The meeting format will include small group brainstorming to contribute ideas to the discussion.  

Washington County tops for disasters

For those wondering if having three flooding events hit the region in the past year, a think tank at New York University last week announced a new project that aims to answer that question and aid communities looking for ways to weather future storms. 

Rebuild by Design, an outreach effort within the Institute for Public Knowledge at NYU, last week announced the creation of a mapping tool called the Atlas of Accountability that tracks natural disasters across the U.S. to provide information to communities and policymakers looking to invest in resilience measures. 

Among its findings: With 20 declared natural disasters from 2011 to 2023, Vermont is tied for seventh place alongside Kentucky and South Dakota on the list of states with the most disasters. 

Even more remarkable: Washington County, Vermont, is among the leading counties in the nation having experienced 14 declared disasters in that period. Only Johnson County, Kentucky, with 15 disasters had more in that time. 

In its data analysis, Rebuild by Design found that 91% of Congressional districts had counties that received a federal disaster declaration for an extreme weather event from 2011 to 2023; more than two-thirds of the districts experienced 10 disasters or more. Impacts were spread across urban and rural districts, and those represented by both Democratic and Republican members of Congress. 

“Our research clearly shows that extreme weather is not a partisan issue,” said Amy Chester, director of Rebuild by Design. “Constituents all over the U.S. are suffering through these events, with lasting consequences.”

The atlas tracks the disaster data alongside breakdowns of Congressional districts to highlight the lawmakers who might be pivotal to helping direct federal dollars to the regions looking for ways to adapt their infrastructure and communities to be better able to withstand natural disasters in the future. 

Looking to the future, the organization favors advocating for steps such as making federal investment in resilient infrastructure post-disaster funds and reforms to the insurance industry that reward policyholders with better rates for taking mitigation steps at their properties.

The Waterbury Select Board meeting agenda contains the link to join the meeting via Zoom. More information on federal and state hazard mitigation programs is online on the Vermont Emergency Management mitigation website and on the FEMA website.