A goal of the Vermont Rivers Program is to properly size bridges and culverts to pass a range of higher flood flows and the sediment, tree debris, infrastructure debris, and winter’s ice that otherwise might plug the road crossing structure and cause a road washout and disrupt travel or cause property damage to a neighbor. … Continue reading
Monthly Archives: January 2014
Call for Papers – New England Association of Environmental Biologists
NEAEB Abstracts Due This Friday January 31st! Abstracts are due this coming Friday, January 31st for the 38th annual conference of the New England Association of Environmental Biologists to be held at the Hilton in Burlington March 26th – 28th. NEAEB focuses on work associated with achieving the goals of the Clean Water Act. Abstracts … Continue reading
Tactical Basin Plan Released for the Deerfield River and Lower CT River Basin!
The Watershed Management Division has just released a draft Deerfield River and Lower Connecticut River Basin (Basins 12 – 13) Water Quality Management Tactical Basin Plan for public comment. This plan is the first comprehensive and integrated water resources management plan ever released for the Deerfield River. The Basin 12-13 Tactical Basin Plan provides an … Continue reading
Hidden Stream Life as Indicators of Water Quality
The Watershed Management Division has had one of the nation’s premier stream biological monitoring programs for over 30 years. Biological monitoring, or “biomonitoring”, refers to the use of biological organisms and biological responses to assess changes in Vermont’s surface waters. The scientists in this program focus specifically on monitoring the biology of wadeable streams throughout … Continue reading
Un-muddying the Water!
Sometimes, it only takes a little bit of misdirected water to cause very big problems. This was more than evident in Brattleboro just off Route I-91, where runoff from a parking lot and the highway collected in a tiny two-foot wide ditch leading to Crosby Brook. Within a few hundred feet, the accumulated runoff effectively … Continue reading
Get in the Know! Low Impact Development Info Sheets Released.
The Green Infrastructure Initiative, a Vermont Department of Environmental Conservation led project to promote and implement innovative infrastructure approaches to stormwater management, is happy to announce the release of its Low Impact Development (LID) Series. LID is an innovative planning and design approach used in land development to better manage stormwater runoff – runoff, caused … Continue reading
Vermont Lakeshores – Vulnerable Places
Vermont has more than 800 lakes with roughly 1,500 miles of shoreline offering home and habitat to people and wildlife. People love Vermont lakeshores for access to fishing and water sports, beautiful landscape, seasonal retreat, and year-round living. That makes our lakeshores valuable real estate, with an estimated 45 percent having some type of development … Continue reading
Who is taking the vital signs of “your” stream??
Last week in FLOW, the Watershed Management Division reported on the dedicated and outstanding efforts of the volunteers in the Lay Monitoring and Vermont Invasive Patrollers. This week, we would like to highlight the complementary efforts of citizen scientists who participate in the Department of Environmental Conservation’s (DEC) LaRosa Partnership Program to test rivers and … Continue reading
Did you know That Vermont has its’ own “Fishes of” Book?
The Fishes of Vermont was published in 2006 by the Vermont Fish and Wildlife Department, but its lead author is from the Monitoring Assessment and Planning Program of the Watershed Management Division. This 320 page authoritative volume is the first comprehensive account of Vermont fishes proving the first state-specific identification key, distribution maps, and descriptions … Continue reading