Field Notes

Flood safety and clean water in Vermont: Natural, lasting solutions

6 min read / July 31, 2023

The rivers, streams, and wetlands you see in Vermont today are far from their natural state

Four hundred years ago, Abenaki families lived in a densely forested, mossy land, with winding streams full of dead wood and fallen trees, and many beaver ponds slowing – but not stopping – the flow of water. Larger rivers flowed through forested floodplains that would fill during spring thaw and heavy rains. Over time, rivers would move back and forth across the valleys, altering the land as they moved.

While there were still floods, this landscape would have absorbed, slowed, and spread floodwater more than our modern one.

Undoing a dangerous legacy

All this changed when Europeans settling in Vermont cleared 80 percent of forests, straightened streams, reinforced riverbanks, drained land, cleared debris from waterways, and killed nearly every beaver. When massive amounts of rain fell on this newly exposed land, it moved fast and hard, taking soil and everything in its path downstream. This is the legacy Vermont has been slowly undoing.

Efforts to save forests first began in the late 1800s. Thanks to that work, and economically driven changes in farming practices, most of the state is again wooded. More recently, conservation and restoration work has been reversing some of the past damage to our wetlands and waterways.

The Vermont Land Trust has been conserving land since 1977. We’ve protected over 450,000 acres of forests that help filter and slow water. And, over the past 15 years, we’ve focused more on restoring the natural state of our rivers, streams, and wetlands. We are playing the long game, as there is no comprehensive quick fix. With increasingly intense storms connected to a changing climate this work has made clean water and flood safety more urgent.

Natural solutions for clean water and flood protection

Slow

Rushing water can destroy buildings, damage roads, and scour topsoil. Slower water has less destructive power; everything from sand grains to tree trunks can drop out of the current. Floodplains hold water during floods and help streams and rivers take a slower, meandering course. Beaver wetlands and fallen trees also slow water.

Filter

During heavy rain, the fine roots and rootlike structures of fungi, plants and trees along rivers and streams filter excess nutrients, such as phosphorous and nitrogen, by taking them up into their roots. Floodplains and wetlands can also detoxify and help break down some other pollutants that may end up in water. This helps keep water clean.

Absorb

Upland forests—full of tall trees, moss, and fallen wood—absorb water and keep it from rushing downhill. Floodplains and wetlands help water—and what the water carries— absorb into the earth. Soil particles and excess nutrients from fertilizers used on farms and lawns settle out of slow-moving water and return to soil in the floodplain.

Thrive

Healthy floodplains and wetlands are incredibly biodiverse places. Wetland plants support wildlife from mayflies to moose, trout to thrushes, wood turtles to warblers. Fish and amphibians breed in shady pools, birds nest on sandy banks, otters play, and beavers create wetlands that grow the shrubs they love to eat.

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How we are working with farmers to put clean water and flood safety work into action

A dam removed, a creek restored, on the Button Farm in Colchester

In the 1960s a dam was built on the Button farm in Colchester. It created a small pond near a dairy barn.

Many decades later, with the cows gone, the dam was causing erosion due to a failing culvert. It was also keeping water from reaching its natural floodplain downstream. In summer, the pond’s warm, stagnant water was full of algae that blocked light and oxygen, limiting aquatic life.

The dam was removed and a healthy stream valley is where the pond once was.

We designed a new creek bed that gave the creek room to fill and move. We also added dead wood as well as hundreds of live trees and shrubs to create a natural environment.

Today, the creek responds to storms by rising and filling its floodplain, helping replenish the creek valley and supporting clean water. Many birds, amphibians, mammals, and insects are thriving here.

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Protecting the spaces where streams and rivers meet

Healthy rivers move around their floodplains; they will curve into tight bends in some areas and straighten out in others. In places where rivers and streams meet up (called a confluence) even more space is needed because of the increase in water volume.

For the past few centuries, people tried to control river movement by adding rock to riverbanks. While this might protect fields, roads, or buildings, in the short term, over time this can cause erosion in other areas. It increases the risk of the river bursting its channel in a destructive way that impedes flood safety.

Jericho Settlers Farm restores a confluence

Mill Brook flows into the Winooski River at Jericho Settlers Farm in Jericho. Earlier farmers and the federal government had placed rocks along the banks on the brook and river. Because of this, the brook eroded several acres of farmland after big storms in the early 2010s. The field was no longer a good place to farm.

We worked with the farmers to devise a solution that helped the river and the farm. Grant funding for a floodplain protection easement compensated the farmers for fields they were giving up. The easement means that this confluence will never be constrained.

To give the restoration a head start, volunteers planted 1,000 trees that will eventually grow into floodplain forest.

During the floods of July 2023, the fields filled with water and stored and slowed floodwater for several days. With more intense storms from climate change, these natural solutions are becoming more important than ever.

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Restoring wetlands for water, wildlife, and flood safety

Wetlands aren’t great places to farm, and farmers tend to stay out of them. But in the past, farmers would sometimes drain wetlands to convert the land to farm fields. When this happens, the water the wetland used to store moves quickly away—especially during big storms—often rushing into nearby streams loaded with sediment and nutrients.

Farmer in Sheldon restores a wetland on the Missisquoi River

Decades ago, on a farm along the Missisquoi River in Sheldon, a ditch was dug to drain a wetland, but the resulting field was still very wet and hard to farm.

We worked with the farmer to restore the wetland and place a conservation easement on the land that protects the nearby river. Grant funding for the easement compensated the farmer for the farmland lost because of the restoration of the wetland.

We worked with engineers, contractors, and our partner, the Missisquoi River Basin Association, to lower the level of the land, plug the ditch, and plant trees, shrubs, and other plants that are happy to grow in wetlands.

This new wetland supports clean water. It stores and filters water that would otherwise rush into the river after heavy storms. Deer, dragonflies, songbirds, and frogs are just some of the animals we’ve seen using the restored wetland.

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Working with farmers to give rivers their freedom

A river likes to be free to move around as it wants, just like people do. Nothing makes a river happier than being able to meander through its natural floodplain (the flat land right next to it).

Meandering rivers have slower, less damaging currents and contribute to flood safety. And, rivers that spread their water across a floodplain become less destructive when there’s a lot of rain or snow melt. The floodwater held by a floodplain is water not rushing through communities down river.

Since floodplains are flat and fertile, they are often home to farms. But moving rivers can challenge farmers who invest in their fields. To address this, we work with willing farmers to get funding for conservation measures that give the rivers their freedom and compensate the farmer for giving up total control of the land.

Valley Dream Farm frees a section of the Seymour River

Valley Dream Farm in Cambridge is an example of this work in action. Farmers Joe and Anne Tisbert protected 64 acres with floodplains, wetlands, streams, plus 1.5 miles of the Seymour River (pictured), which flows into the Lamoille. We were able to get state funding to compensate Joe and Anne for the land they lost from farming.

Protecting rivers in this way can be a win-win for both farmers and rivers, and everyone that depends on them.