{"id":157781,"date":"2025-08-19T07:07:17","date_gmt":"2025-08-19T07:07:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/157781\/"},"modified":"2025-08-19T07:07:17","modified_gmt":"2025-08-19T07:07:17","slug":"montpelier-plans-to-remove-pioneer-street-dam-and-restore-nearby-floodplain","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/157781\/","title":{"rendered":"Montpelier plans to remove Pioneer Street Dam and restore nearby floodplain"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"AThe Pioneer Street Dam on the Winooski River in Montpelier on Monday, Aug. 18. Photo by Glenn Russell\/VTDigger<\/p>\n

In Montpelier, city officials plan to remove the Pioneer Street Dam and restore a nearby floodplain. Together, the projects are predicted to have compounding positive effects that reduce flood risk in the city.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

The Pioneer Street Dam \u2014 an old mill dam \u2014 is about 1.3 miles upstream from the capital city\u2019s downtown along the Winooski River. Not only is the dam filled with cracks, but engineers consider it a flood hazard.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s got about everything wrong with a dam you can imagine,\u201d said Roy Schiff, an engineer who\u2019s monitoring the dam.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Nearby sits an 18 acre parcel of land at 5 Home Farm Way, where the Stevens Branch of the Winooski River joins the main branch. That land, which houses the Jacob Davis Farmstead, was historically a floodplain. Restoring it to such, coupled with the dam removal just downstream, could significantly reduce flood risk, Schiff said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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The project offers a look at how recovery efforts from the 2023 flood are underway in the city. After years of monitoring water levels and studying the feasibility of the project, officials are starting to seek permitting and funding approval for their plans.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is a real sense of forward momentum and progress,\u201d said Jon Copans, executive director of the Montpelier Commission for Recovery and Resilience.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The Vermont River Conservancy first pushed for Montpelier to take down four dams along the river back in 2021. Along with taking down the Pioneer Street Dam, they encouraged dismantling the Bailey Dam, the North Branch Dam and the Hidden Dam. Removing them<\/a> could mitigate flood risk, improve river ecology and offer recreation opportunities, Randzio said.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

The four old dams hold back a large amount of sediment and a small amount of water, Randzio said. The sediment built up behind their structure pushes water levels even higher during times of peak flow.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"AThe Pioneer Street Dam on the Winooski River in Montpelier on Monday, Aug. 18. Photo by Glenn Russell\/VTDigger<\/p>\n

The conservancy selected consulting firm SLR International to perform feasibility studies of the four dams in 2021, she said. A grant from The Lake Champlain Basin Program paid for those studies, Randzio said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

After floods pummeled the state in 2023 \u2014 and hit Montpelier especially hard \u2014 river experts pointed to thousands of what Schiff calls \u201cdeadbeat dams\u201d around the state<\/a>. Then, city officials and state lawmakers started taking notice<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In Montpelier, Randzio\u2019s proposals became a high priority. Necessary evaluations of the dams were already underway \u2014 putting the project on a fast track, Randzio said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The Pioneer Street Dam dates to when people used water to turn wheels or millboards or grind grains, Schiff said. But dams are expensive to maintain and they deteriorate fast, he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Those working on the project anticipate the sediment built up behind the dam contains pollutants from an old coal facility that once operated along the riverbank upstream, Randzio said. Digging out that sediment while breaking down the dam is an iterative process, Schiff said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cYou have to lower the water a little bit, remove some sediment, lower the dam a little bit,\u201d to prevent sediment from being released downstream, he said.<\/p>\n

Just upstream from the dam, at 5 Home Farm Way, sits The Jacob Davis Farmstead, a historic building declared a public safety hazard<\/a> in 2019, according to The Barre Montpelier Times Argus. The city is currently working with The Preservation Trust of Vermont to remove the building from the property and restore some pieces of it, Copans said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

That way, the 18 acre property would again be a floodplain. By using that land \u201cwe can create more flood storage to help protect the local area and store some more water to protect Montpelier,\u201d Schiff said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The city\u2019s also considering ways it can use the land for recreation and public enjoyment, Copans said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Schiff\u2019s firm worked with city officials and employees at the regional planning commission to submit a list of projects to request funding from the state. The firm concluded the removal of the Pioneer Dam coupled with the floodplain restoration would offer significant flood mitigation risk compared to other proposed projects, and it made sense to tackle the two projects together.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The city hopes to get funding from part of FEMA\u2019s hazard mitigation grant program funding offered to Vermont, Copans said. So far, they\u2019ve received positive signals from the state and remain hopeful, he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Then, the project proposals must clear a number of Act 250 and permitting processes before a contractor is hired and work begins, Schiff said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

But all acknowledge the project is just a piece of the puzzle. Randzio hopes the town can remove all four dams, especially the Bailey Dam by Shaw\u2019s grocery store downtown.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cEach one of these projects is a step forward and there are more projects sort of in the pipeline,\u201d Copans said.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Pioneer Street Dam on the Winooski River in Montpelier on Monday, Aug. 18. Photo by Glenn Russell\/VTDigger…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":157782,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[91697,746,91698,91699,91700,159,67,132,68,91701],"class_list":{"0":"post-157781","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-environment","8":"tag-dam-removal","9":"tag-environment","10":"tag-jon-copans","11":"tag-montpelier","12":"tag-montpelier-commission-for-recovery-and-resilience","13":"tag-science","14":"tag-united-states","15":"tag-unitedstates","16":"tag-us","17":"tag-vermont-river-conservancy"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115054172232148714","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/157781","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=157781"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/157781\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/157782"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=157781"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=157781"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=157781"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}