Continuum PLMeriam

Added: 2026-05-18

[00:00:10]this is a human footprint and the concrete remains of the dam at Smugglers Notch Reservoir Vermont more broadly the human footprint on our planet has interrupted networks of biodiversity resulting in significant changes to our planet's surface putting all communities at risk of climate damage dams and culverts disconnect rivers from their floodplains disrupting the flow of oxygenated water and the passage of nutritious sediments Curtis Pond is an example of a dam maintained for recreation whose private ownership has Downstream consequences this video follows the water and its ability to carry sediments Downstream while engaging the Vermont Dam task force as they analyze and dismantle derelict and collapsing dance their mission is to minimize flooding and increase biodiversity by keeping the water flowing in Vermont's river systems there's lots of different kinds of dams in the state and over a thousand and a group of dams that are derelict damn so old mill dance from an age that no longer is needed and those stems are abandoned and some of them are very beautiful some of them are less so and there's modern dance that are also abandoned for different reasons um so those are the dams the derelict dams are the ones that we're working on okay so they no longer serve a useful purpose or could they be retrofitted too and the benefit of their removal far outweighs um any Micro Hydro that could be completed on those projects and so for those projects we are you know we're driving around the state identifying those projects and then sort of prioritizing which ones move to the top of the list based on their ecological benefit um their Hazard mitigation potential so a real Public Safety benefit and we're looking at that benefit both in terms of like so it's reconnecting a river that's been fragmented the system for over 200 years so you you know you have a river that has become a lake due to the empowerment so basically the wall that barrier that concrete barrier is still there in creates um a very lake-like system behind it because it's slowing it's blocking a river yeah and turning it into a slow-moving lower temp higher temperature lower dissolved oxygen lower turbidity so it just becomes the stagnant lake-like system yep and with that comes a whole different it's a really different ecosystem than a rumor system which is a free-flowing moving system that that like rivers are dependent on Flow and the habitat that lives in them is dependent on Flow and when you change that system you really change the entire ecosystem sediment transport is part of a river system and that builds your Banks and your Downstream and it provides cold water to Lake Champlain and like all of those things there's so many obstacles in the way and to keep them just slowly chip away at that and can reconnect those networks is huge sir [Music] ens but we're not looking to make this area pristine there's the human footprint impact and we're just balancing that with the other needs of the in the Watershed the other benefits let's say in the dog River where we really brought brook trout a habitat it's important so maybe it's important to the economy maybe it's important to just people who live there and so that's the goal then then you can talk about dams in relationship to that where's the Kingsbury Branch where the dams are enhancing um you know the the surface surface water ponds and so there's some people depend on that surface extent we can have dams for protecting swimming and boating or whatever but and the dog no talk then the damn removal becomes a priority because the Watershed of the Watershed priority for the dog could be protect habitat restoration I think we'd go there to remove dams because if the community was behind us and understood the benefit of it then the landowners would be more likely to say oh right yes I like it like the open water but I can see your point I can see our our the reason for why we would want to enhance brook trout habitat and so therefore reduce the my aesthetic or I would change my understanding of what I've said it's where so it's not just dance because there are many many many many many many many more culverts that are barriers to fish passage than there are dams that are barriers and um and so we've got to work on the culverts as well and then there are many you know areas where the stream banks have no vegetation and that also you know so there are many different threats to work it's hard to about like think about it what scale to think about it at because if we're all think about like sampling like we want to lower the temperature in Lake Champlain and increase the dissolved oxygen so like doing that bit by bit on the turbine tires and the headwaters whatever it is like will ultimately improve that It's Our Hope um so there's that piece as well and then like with climate change like how much time do we have because there could be a point where Recreation benefit isn't worth it before it disappears so like like how long do we wait foreign [Music] the stem is in danger of collapsing if it were to be washed out in a big storm have any provisions been made for the people living Downstream there have been a lot of different studies done of impact studies from for Downstream um there are maps on our website that show you know specifically which houses and businesses would likely be flooded okay um but there is not there have been a few times when there have been big storms coming that we've done sandbagging um along the shore but of course that's a hugely labor intensive and then you're required to remove them yeah the short answer is no we don't have anything right we'd take out this road which is the main cross between Calis and Worcester and then the Culvert by the store which is the main route into callus on the County Road yeah they could certainly destroy the store it could right it would certainly flood the store there's multiple houses along the way all the way down to Kent's Corner to the historic Robinson Sawmill reason why the state is interested in taking out dams in general is to increase the resiliency for climate change Downstream and to increase biodiversity so I mean I use this fund I I love this place too so it's it's a conflict for all of us right when we're Vermont environmentally minded like how do you feel about that we would likely reduce biodiversity by losing the bond we have so many Wetlands around if we didn't have so many Wetlands I mean a large portion of this part of callus is wetlands one could argue our biodiversity I mean that's always an interesting question and there's always you know pros and cons to things like that I think you know resiliency um can look like a lot of different things and maintaining a healthy Vibrant Community and right is something that you you could start to lose without things like Curtis Pond to be the the anchor and that's critical to survive you know whatever's to come climate change wise as well so I think there's multiple sides to that coin we're old we're all guard here I guess and one of the few vermonters still left on the pond so the reason we bought this place and actually it was um didn't look anything like this when we bought it um our very first house in 1974 was across the pond first house up from the fishing access and it was an old old house built here years ago about owned by the van orems who raised goats and kept the goat sometimes in the house he was a phenomenal Fiddler and at one point and for most of his life if you look across there at the point it was called Camp Comfort which was a huge um Inn and Restaurant and dance hall and he was a fiddler who played there okay look at it look at Camp Comfort at the time I mean it was massive it really was thank you this these are the mink Farms that were the that were uh that were here one of these places was like that see this was like our little cottage was like this right there and a lot of them were like that where they're just from the old mink farm yeah but this was I don't know like a social life 30s 40s 50s 60s where they had dancing oh okay you know poor there's pictures of it you can find it was it was neat it's been here a long time 122 years is a long time yeah oh it's so much warmer than yesterday I heard it it gets like maybe 40 feet at the most oh really this is actually on the other side of the mirror huh oh wow ah tingle Tingle tingle I think I saw a mink last week really standing on the dock up there and I saw a squirrel swimming across the pond no kidding no were the two the two loons were I saw two of them last week the far end down that way yeah but it was the squirrel swimming across which was really fascinating wow have a wonderful afternoon like in certain situations removing the damage you might still have I think you'd still have a large Wetland system with some Open Water habitat but I don't think you would you would probably lose that right here yeah so like trying to figure out what that looks like but even when this was an active mill they wouldn't have let this amount of sediment so this is all material but would have naturally before there was a dam would have moved Downstream but now it's built up and when it was an active mill they dredged behind the dam constantly to keep this space deep and big so that they could maximize the energy down basically creating an earth and Dam of sudden in front of the man-made Dam so that's why when you take out a man-made Dam you have to move a lot of that otherwise it all mobilizes in like one giant villain [Applause] thank you [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Music] foreign [Music] [Applause] okay and it wants to have an actual bottom I mean it doesn't have a huge gap fish could go up that they'd get blocked with the dam so there's no questions but insects can't move up that like in their Marvel stages because it's just a metal touch like it doesn't have the substrate right it's running too hard and cleaning it away the thing is we now have a buff a river buffer a vegetarian buffer which we didn't have on the pond or at the outlet which all of this is is food fresh food and habitat are you so much more going on here but I don't see a lot of fine material so all the fines are up there and this is what they call sediment stars because it doesn't have that so when these rocks are not like worn you know they're yeah probably because fines aren't coming down and hitting them I mean there's some bed rock here and it's broken off from the Bedrock and there's bubble you see the bubble like this is dissolved oxygen and turbidity and those are whatever needs [Applause] as you would imagine after we remove all this impounded sediment we have and we create this new channel and floodplain the surfaces are really just bare soils so the re-vegetation of these surfaces is it's huge it's a big part of the project okay over the years so over the sort of six years but maybe the design was being done um it was actually an overflow suit and it was starting to crumble and he was cracks were forming and water was squirting out of the middle of it and pipes were being exposed and this little island hair was eroding dramatically and so in a way we were sort of racing against this just collapsing on its own and then not really under knowing what that was going to do to the screen Channel and how it was going to end up versus US putting it where we wanted it to keep it stable at the time and the landowner's brother decided that they didn't want the dam to come out because they love the dam and so there was a lot of just constant drama and trying to work out details so that all partners and neighbors were happy but we actually got to use the eroding trembling portion of the dam over here to convince the brother that if it just comes like went out on its own no one is going to help like it's already done our purpose has been served like it's just gonna go so either he can have it removed in a controlled way and have it look as you know aesthetically pleasing as as he would like or it can go on its own and you can figure it out foreign what's your last name Kilbourne and are you with a specific organization or just volunteering on your own Vermont okay to manage it and work here through his through his life so all this is happening in Partnership and it was his family that built the pond you know with Federal funding as I understand that farm services funding so you know he was part of the discussion and the decision to ultimately remove it and do the restoration project which is a lair I think said earlier was prioritized in the Basin plan for for water quality so I think that's a really interesting Dynamic with you know long-term landowner with tenure and Roots here like coming around and um you know thinking about yeah just the environmental benefits that could happen that's great nice to meet you you tell me what you're planting ah sweet girl um it likes um cracked salty feet and this is run off from the road let's do all the holes first so we know where they are all right because otherwise I plant something I'm just scared is so when there's about two feet of snow here we've started to look at the paper and the plans and we saw a Kiva classroom here so we decided to make it an ethno Botanical classroom so the plants fall into the category of plants for food medicines religion and material culture I don't know so over here when you saw us planting we were planting sweet grass which would be a plant for religion and then we've got right behind here there's a bunch of riddles or Dogwood being planted and that's a plan that's native to this type of wetland and stream setting but it also is a really important plant for basketry and other kind of and it's in connect to it it has uh consistent adds a consistent burn to um the Sweetgrass tobacco and Sage that quickly Burns and it gives them more consistent burn so it lasts a little longer and Judy I know one thing that I we had talked about and I still want to do it sometime here is that we had talked about when you make your first basket you make two right and you bury you plant one of them because the plant the alive you know fresh material will actually grow into another plant so we what I we were talking about maybe doing that here but I what I'm actually thinking is that we have these all these Runners and dogwoods that we're planting maybe in the future we can come and harvest some of that material and make baskets from it yeah yeah foreign [Applause]