Editorial: Mitigate or pay
March 14, 2025 | By The Times ArgusAn early occurrence of spring flooding took place last week at Crossett Brook Middle School in Duxbury. It was attributed to circumstances unusual, even in a state that’s seen plenty of flooding situations in the past several years.
What’s more, it raises fresh concerns about flood resilience and mitigation, and even emergency preparedness. These “events” are becoming too frequent and very costly.
Here’s what happened last week:
The Crossett Brook itself, from which the school takes its name, rose from rain and snowmelt above its banks, spreading out as it passed under Route 100 flowing alongside the school’s driveway.
Following a new path that the brook has settled into after last July’s flash floods, the water encroached on the driveway, filling a high plateau where it reached telecom and electricity equipment that serve the school.
Repeating events that unfolded last July, the water entered the conduit under the electrical equipment, following the buried lines that acted like a straw, directing water from the stream under the driveway, across the school grounds and directly into the school’s utility room.
Likely for hours, water flowed into the building before a school staffer just before dawn checked on school video camera feeds and spotted the water pooling throughout the school’s first floor.
For custodians and administrators, the hours that followed no doubt had a Groundhog Day-like quality, as the same scenario played out last July. Unlike last summer, though, this flooding event was bigger. Instead of filling three classrooms, this incident impacted seven classrooms, a common space in a student locker area, the school’s cafeteria and main offices, some music practice rooms, the maintenance staff room, other offices and bathrooms.
Even after personnel arrived, water continued to flow into the building, dammed off as staff used bags of ice melter to block it from following the corridor leading to the school gym.
Green Mountain Power arrived to turn power to the building off and by afternoon, an excavator crew arrived to move earth, ice and snow from along the brook to create a barrier near the electrical vaults and redirect the high rushing water.
The school was closed Thursday, Friday and Monday of this week, with the approximate 260 fifth- through eighth-graders finally returning on Tuesday. Fifth- and sixth-graders, who usually occupy the first floor, now have their classes upstairs, where spaces including the library, a makerspace and language classrooms were made into temporary classrooms.
Suffice it to say, the first floor is a construction zone. Since the March 6 incident, workers have made significant progress on removing flooring, cutting out drywall from the floors up where water had absorbed. Cement from under removed floor tiles was being ground down to remove old glue and new sealer is being applied. The cafeteria is back in use, seeing only minimal damage. Administrators have said they hope the affected wing can be reopened after April’s break.
The impacts of these incidents are taking their toll. The Harwood School District says its insurance rates are climbing due to the summer flood at Crossett Brook Middle School, which had a price tag of $230,000, as well as floods at the Moretown Elementary School, where claims are still in progress and exceed $1.5 million.
So what changed? Built in the late 1990s, Crossett Brook Middle School did not flood during Tropical Storm Irene in 2011. The high-water events with the brook only began after the state in 2016 scrambled and built a new bridge ahead of schedule after the previous culvert over the Crossett Brook failed and Route 100 began to collapse.
That raises the question: Has the new, larger culvert played a role in altering the brook’s path when it’s running high and full?
Mitigation is a tricky thing, especially when you weren’t actually planning for back-to-back-to-back weather events. In some communities, like Barre City, Montpelier and Plainfield, it’s very hard to change the course of the water. Thoughtful mitigation was done in Waterbury after Irene, and in other flood-prone communities. But precautions, like moving electrical boxes and storage out of basements, are still required.
In the case of Crossett Brook, however, something went awry. Somebody along the way did not consider all of the factors that upstream mitigation was going to have downstream.
There are some seemingly easier fixes: relocate the utility equipment; plug up the electrical conduit (which was done to the telecom conduit after the July 2024 flood). But GMP and the school district seem reluctant to have that discussion, preferring instead to proceed with the state-permitted stream project paid for by the school district to protect the utility equipment — and, ultimately, the school — from the next time the brook spills out of its banks.
Compared to flood reparations, how costly would it be to relocate the electrical and telecom vaults to a safer spot on school grounds? Why wouldn’t everyone just want to eliminate that path for water into the school?
Ultimately, the issue comes down to this: We all know these weather events are not just going to stop. Even in recent days, you know officials (around Vermont) are watching weather forecasts and stream levels as every rainfall and snowmelt fill rivers and streams — like the Crossett Brook.
Vermont leaders say flood resilience is key to coexisting along the state’s waterways that are increasingly straining under impacts of stronger, more intense storms due to climate change. No question. But why is the cost of these mitigation questions falling so easily on the backs of Vermont communities — and taxpayers?
Mitigation and resilience requires planning, responsibility and accountability. At some point, the blame game and mitigation plans are going to be resolved in courtrooms — not communities.
This editorial was originally published by the Times Argus on March 14.