Officials and conservationists in Bennington County have an updated plan to direct the course of water quality projects and funding in a watershed that extends the county’s length.
The public can now review the draft of a comprehensive plan for “Basin 1,” issued this month, that details the health of the Battenkill, Walloomsac and Hoosic rivers and all of their tributaries.
Angie Allen, a tactical basin planner with the Vermont Department of Environmental Conservation, has spent the last several years collecting information with organizations located in the watershed, including the Bennington County Conservation District and Battenkill Conservancy.
The plan details how state agencies and local organizations used more than $12 million in state funding, granted to clean water projects in the basin between 2016 and 2020. It also traces the steps of those projects and highlights areas that still need work.
Tactical basin planning, completed in five-year cycles, acts as a funnel, collecting information about almost every facet of water quality work in the basin into one plan. It’s required by the state and exists in all of Vermont’s 15 major watersheds.
It makes recommendations about how those organizations should continue to protect wetlands, rivers, streams and lakes that already have high water quality, and restore hot spots where water quality suffers, plus tips about obtaining funding for the projects.
Other basin plans in watersheds that feed into Lake Champlain put a particular emphasis on efforts to minimize excess nutrients, such as phosphorus, that wash into the water from agricultural and developed land. Those nutrients can cause harmful algal blooms and produce dead zones in Lake Champlain that don’t have enough oxygen to support a healthy ecosystem.
Bright spots
Allen’s plan for Basin 1 highlights successes in the watershed since the last plan was published. Water quality in Bennington County, she said, is relatively healthy.
“We have a lot of really good and great condition waters in Basin 1,” Allen said. “Forest cover drives good water quality in this basin. Forest begets healthy waters.”
Around 80% of the basin is covered in forest, which has helped keep a lot of the water pristine.
Some wetlands are pristine enough to be entered into a higher classification — Pownal Bog, for example, already meets the criteria for a Class I wetland, but residents would need to petition to make that change. A new classification would increase protections around that land and water.
The health of some of the basin’s waters can also be attributed to projects in the field: 68% of the projects and strategies recommended by the previous basin plan, published in 2015, are either active or complete.
Unlike other basins, like the Otter Creek, which contains land that’s heavily farmed, the watershed doesn’t contain any farms that are considered “large” according to the state’s standards, and it contains only several medium-sized farming operations.
That leaves mostly small farms, which are largely scattered along the flat, nutrient-rich riverside land. Many of these farms took on “best management practices” in the last several years, the plan notes. Cover cropping was among the most popular strategies employed by farmers.
Organizations are in the process of removing two dams, and Trout Unlimited has collaborated with local groups to plant shrubs and trees between open fields and streams, which helps stabilize stream banks and filter runoff. Those efforts and others have resulted in a total of 266 new acres of riverside buffer.
Also highlighted: The town of Manchester is in the process of implementing a new stormwater master plan, which will help curb pollution in nearby waterways.
“Manchester is one that we’ve had our eye on for years,” Allen said. “Basically, since I started my job, we’ve been trying to get this funded.”
Strategies for restoration
The basin plan recommends 39 new strategies for continued water management in Basin 1, and many of the strategies address problems in a total of 25 water bodies in the watershed that are listed as impaired, stressed, or where the flow has been altered.
Allen divides the strategies for restoration into sectors such as agriculture, developed land, wastewater and natural resources. While forest cover indicates good water quality, the presence of developed land and agriculture can indicate degraded water quality unless best management practices are adopted, she said.
Those predictions ring true in Bennington County, where some of the lower water quality exists near developed areas such as Manchester and Bennington.
All of the towns in the basin have completed road erosion inventories, which will help conservationists and road crews determine where to plan future projects.
For wastewater, efforts are underway to monitor water quality above and below the Bennington sewage-treatment plant, which was recently upgraded after falling into disrepair in 2015. That section of water may need an “impaired” or “stressed” designation, but there isn’t enough data yet to make that determination.
Allen also highlighted a partnership between Bennington County Conservation District and the Poultney Mettowee Natural Resources Conservation District, which provides education and technical assistance to farmers who need help understanding or using best management practices.
Allen said she’s been working to publicize the draft of the basin plan while the public comment period is open. Plans are now published in “story map” form, which makes data that’s ordinarily difficult to digest more readable. Members of the Department of Environmental Conservation have also taken to Instagram and Facebook, hoping to find new audiences.
Allen will discuss the basin plan, answer questions and take public comment at an in-person meeting July 8 at the Arlington Town Hall. A virtual option will also be available.
Read the story on VTDigger here: Basin plan highlights water protection and restoration efforts in southwestern Vermont.