Vermont

In Vermont, floods seem to happen faster than communities can recover. How does the state move forward? – The Boston Globe

Published

2 years ago

August 16, 2024

In Vermont, floods seem to happen faster than communities can recover. How does the state move forward? – The Boston Globe

Last week, in a small conference room at the town’s fire station, Whitehead placed a few sticky notes on a map to note the roads that were still too dangerous to fully open to the public. It was the start of yet another flood recovery effort in rural Vermont, a state that’s been pummeled by flood after flood in the last two years, including two last month.

The thoughts at top of mind for him and others: Why here, why now? And what are we going do?

State and local leaders are also asking tough questions about climate adaptation and what it means for the Green Mountain State. The questions span from the immediate: How to pay the cost of recovering the Vermont they knew; to the existential: Could towns be rebuilt differently, to limit flood risks, and should Vermonters retreat from the very rivers that life here has revolved around for centuries?

Across much of New England, heavy rain has become a hallmark of climate change. Vermont now experiences at least two more days of heavy precipitation per year than it did in the 1960s, most often in the summer, according to the state’s climate assessment. Annual precipitation in Vermont has increased by almost 7 inches since that time, and scientists expect the frequency and intensity of floods to increase here as climate change worsens.

It doesn’t help that Vermont, like much of northern New England, can get storms blown in from all directions due to prevailing winds and the state’s position below the jet stream, according to state climatologist Lesley-Ann Dupigny-Giroux and Globe meteorologist Ken Mahan. Nor does Vermont’s scenic topography help, with its rolling hills and mountains that easily allow water to gain power as it rushes down the slopes to meet roads, bridges, homes, and businesses in the valleys.

James Bengston dug up his rakes under dried mud in his garage at his home after a July storm caused flash flooding in St. Johnsbury.Kayla Bartkowski For The Boston Globe

Omar Johnson (left) and Carl Edwards carried a filing cabinet out of Lynda Brill’s garage in St. Johnsbury.Kayla Bartkowski For The Boston Globe

“Should we be doing something different, and should we be pulling back on some of this transportation infrastructure that we have?” said Beverley Wemple, director of the Water Resources Institute at the University of Vermont.

Millions of dollars were spent in Vermont on flood protections in the aftermath of Tropical Storm Irene which, in 2011, delivered 7 inches of rain. At least seven people died in Vermont and hundreds of miles of roads and bridges were damaged. In the following years, state regulators toughened standards for how to build roads, while environmental groups pushed town managers to address decrepit dams and undersized culverts.

Because of those efforts, Vermont’s infrastructure was likely better prepared this summer for floods than it was a little more than a decade ago, experts said. Still, many say that adaptation is not happening quickly enough, and in a largely rural state with more than 200 small towns managing limited budgets, floods seem to be happening faster than communities are able to recover.

“People are really starting to come to terms with the fact that we have a flood problem in this state,” said Lauren Oates, director of policy and governmental affairs for the Nature Conservancy in Vermont.

Across the state, at least 26 homes have been destroyed in Vermont so far this year in flood events and 121 suffered major damage, according to Amanda Wheeler, a spokesperson for the governor’s office who called that a “significant” number given the state’s housing shortage.

Much of that damage was inflicted by Hurricane Beryl which, in early July, caused what scientists call inundation flooding. Water pooled at the bottom of valleys like a bathtub as rivers overtopped their banks. Two people died and more than 100 were rescued.

Some St. Johnsbury residents colloquially call the Beryl event “Flood One.” Just three weeks later, “Flood Two” arrived. Flash flooding at the end of July came after heavy rainstorms left patchy destruction in their wake. (Little more than a week after that, the remnants of Hurricane Debby brought rain, wind damage, and power outages across Vermont, but flooding was limited.)

The vast majority of Vermont’s flood damage tends to occur within river corridors, but outside the floodplain, according to Oates. That means planners need to look beyond traditional flood maps to identify less obvious high-risk areas.

“If we keep building in these places, the next home you build in the river corridor is the next buyout that we, the taxpayers, have to pay for,” Oates said.

Diane Boisseau and her husband, Richard, walk down stairs at their home.Kayla Bartkowski For The Boston Globe

Richard Boisseau and his wife, Diane, looked at the height chart they started 50 years ago with their children in their flood-damaged home in St. Johnsbury.Kayla Bartkowski For The Boston Globe

State lawmakers this year approved $45 million for hazard mitigation programs, including buyouts, according to Vermont’s emergency management agency. Lawmakers also passed legislation to prevent developers from building in very high-risk flood areas; the bill became law earlier this summer.

“[They’re] really sick of the taxpayer burden of these disasters,” Oates said of the passage of what’s called the Flood Safety Act.

Town managers and volunteers, meanwhile, are encouraging residents whose homes or businesses were destroyed to relocate by applying for federal- and state-funded buyouts, when those become available.

Retreating from the flood paths could be the best solution to prevent the devastation from happening again, said Arne Bomblies, an associate professor of civil and environmental engineering at the University of Vermont. Vermont communities ought to consider relocating homes, businesses, and roads further from rivers and outside of flood-prone areas, he said, but acknowledged that idea is “politically fraught.”

There’s also the question of where to go: Many of the towns throughout the Green Mountains and in the Northeast Kingdom are tightly nestled close to rivers because it was the flattest place to build, and because the state’s early industries relied on the power generated by dammed rivers.

“We’ve kind of built ourselves into a very rigid situation,” Bomblies said.

Vermont Governor Phil Scott requested federal disaster declarations for both storms. In a statement on Aug. 3, he wrote: “Although FEMA assistance won’t make towns and homeowners whole for the repair costs, if approved, this will help lessen their financial burden.”

Yet such a declaration is not a guarantee, and if the state is successful, the process of doling out the cash can be frustratingly slow. Some towns are just now receiving federal assistance for flooding in 2023, town managers said.

Jeremy Reed, the highway division director and chief engineer for Vermont’s Agency of Transportation, said that flooding last year caused about $200 million in damage to state-owned transportation infrastructure. Each of the 2024 storms likely caused about $15 million in transportation damage, he said, although those are rough estimates that don’t include municipal damages.

Vermont’s infrastructure planners have leaned on the state’s strong regulations governing rebuilding roads. Among the rules: drainage systems under roads need to be larger to handle more rain, roads must be elevated vertically above where water could come during a storm, bridges must be rebuilt with deeper foundations, and ditches should be lined with stone to minimize erosion.

A collapsed road in the aftermath of the flash flooding in St. Johnsbury.Kayla Bartkowski For The Boston Globe

Thanks to those efforts since 2016, Vermont now has among the best road-building standards in the country for weathering heavy precipitation, experts said.

So far, Reed said, the regulations have worked. “When we build it back to our current standards, they do withstand these flood events.”

However, while the state and municipalities have slowly chipped away at rebuilding, very few roads have actually been upgraded, said Wemple, of the University of Vermont.

Particularly hard to address are steep roads that are managed by rural towns with small budgets, she said. “It’s very expensive.”

In St. Johnsbury, the town manager knows that as well as anyone. Whitehead, a civil engineer himself, is nervous that the town’s engineers will find a bridge that has to be entirely rebuilt, which can spike the cost of repairs. “It can add up really fast,” he said.

With a town budget of about $11 million, “we’re definitely extending ourselves.”

Whitehead is banking on a federal disaster declaration. It would mean at least a partial refund from the federal government for municipal expenses, and would allow qualifying residents and businesses to apply for buyouts. He already knows of a handful of businesses and residents interested in relocating.

One house that would likely be bought out if a declaration is made is owned by Richard Boisseau, 77, and his wife, Diane, 77, who have lived in their St. Johnsbury home for 50 years.

“This has been very hard on my family,” said Diane Boisseau.

The house is likely unsafe since the foundation is compromised and the home took on so much water, Richard Boisseau said. The carport on their property also collapsed into a stream.

Diane Boisseau was a first grade teacher and feels tied to the town through former students and neighbors. But they’re one of the Vermont households that have decided to retreat. They’re going all the way to New Hampshire, where Richard Boisseau’s family gifted them a bit of property to build a new home.

To make that work, the couple will take a big chunk out of retirement savings, which upsets Diane Boisseau. The silver lining is that they’ll be closer to family. She said that her grandson, 14, is already pitching them on good spots to build and warning, of some areas, “not here, it’s wet.”

Erin Douglas can be reached at erin.douglas@globe.com. Follow her @erinmdouglas23.

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Vermont

Can filmmakers grow VT’s movie industry?; ‘Leather Clad’ ready to try

Published

1 hour ago

April 9, 2026

Press Room

Can filmmakers grow VT’s movie industry?; ‘Leather Clad’ ready to try

MONTPELIER — A local filmmaker’s latest movie is headed to Montpelier’s Savoy Theater next week as part of a larger effort to bring more movie-making to the state.

Hosted by the Vermont Production Collective, the April 16 event will feature the latest version of “Leather Clad,” written and directed by Thomas Benton. The movie itself was filmed in Vermont, after Benton and co-producer (and lead actor) Matt Munroe wanted to see what they’d be able to bring to the big screen.

Years later, the film has been shot and edited into this final version, now ready for its larger release.

“There’s something special about bringing it to Montpelier and exposing the lawmakers to this ground level of debauchery,” Benton said. “There’s something exciting about that.”

Filming in Vermont

Benton is one of many people across Vermont interested in growing the movie industry in the Green Mountains. Because, Hollywood isn’t doing so great. Worldwide box office numbers continue to deteriorate post-pandemic and few movies — outside of James Cameron’s “Avatar” films and endless CGI movies for kids — have been able to bring in the revenue that was common just a decade ago.

Could Vermont fill the gap? Maybe.

Benton and his team have tried to answer that entertainment problem by going niche. Using a low budget and unique approach, the goal was to film something that felt a little more real.

“We’ve gotten to such a corporate, mass media perspective, where we’re at such a point where nothing looks like life as we know it,” he said. “You look at movies in the ‘70s and ‘80s, and it was like, you look at the actors and think, they remind me of someone, or maybe I could be that. You can find that there was a still tangible connection in reality. There’s none of that now.”

Eventually, he was able to find the talent to do it. After a little searching, it turns out Vermont has an abundance of people with movie-making experience.

“We clearly have a really bizarre amount of film industry expats in the state who are just looking for work and going elsewhere,” Benton said.

In many ways, it’s how his own movie got off the ground. Benton ran into Munroe — who has performed in a handful of roles in movies and television — and found a shared vision about wanting to get a movie together. So they pushed ahead.

The result is “Leather Clad.” Due to budgetary constraints, they stuck to simple locations and cast Munroe to play the main character while bringing on multiple actors — some from New England — to fill out the ensemble.

Benton and his team then took care of much of the production crew work as well as post-production to edit the movie down into its current version. Benton already showed a first cut of the movie, rolling it out at the Welden Theatre at an event this past September, but he said that version has since been updated extensively for the showing at Montpelier’s Savoy.

“The first cut is – I think it should be this. The second cut is – okay, it’s not that. Maybe it could be this? And then the third cut is – this is what it is. Here’s what we actually shot. Here’s how it works,” he said.

VPC and movies

If “Leather Clad” entertains audiences and gains fans, then Benton is hoping that Vermont’s moviemaking industry might gain some momentum. The Vermont Production Collective is definitely trying to push the needle by featuring the local movie. It’s the second feature to be a part of the new series rolled out by the organization, called VPC Presents, to focus on grassroot perspectives.

Altogether, the group has identified 55 separate movies — some features and some shorts — which have had portions shot in Vermont. Some are well-known, like “Beetlejuice,” but most come from Vermont’s slate of independent filmmakers, many of them organized under the VPC name.

Enosburgh’s own Shayna Sherwood, for example, serves on the group’s advisory board. As an experienced casting director, she too would like to see movie-making take off in Vermont.

“I personally believe we are at a turning point in film, television and media. The way we create and consume content has changed dramatically and is changing daily,” she said in a written statement. “My hope for this (VPC Presents) event is we start to build a bridge between Vermont’s creative community, its policymakers and the out-of-state professionals who have a connection to this beautiful place. Because there is a real opportunity in front of us.”

Benton agreed, although he sees three obstacles to that goal — funding, branding and bankability. Essentially, much of Vermont’s film industry consists of smaller productions, sometimes self-funded, and there needs to be more financial backers who are comfortable taking the chance to invest in something larger.

Most states offer incentive programs to help, but Vermont has shied away from the approach after the legislature put together a report researching the idea.

There also needs to be a few more advocates for filmmakers, especially on the state level. While Vermont likes to brand itself as being a “remote worker” hub in order to grow its workforce, few lump film professionals into that list. That could be changed to help re-orient people’s ideas of what the state could be if there was a larger industry.

And finally, Benton said the local film industry could use a bigger hit — a movie that gets people talking on a wider regional level — in order to be able to expand and grow. Until that happens, any “grassroots” efforts will likely continue to be overshadowed by Hollywood’s glossy content factory.

“This isn’t a huge industry anyway, so how do you budge the needle? You’ve got to have, honestly, even just a big success splash or something, to get it going,” Benton said.

“Leather Clad” could be it. The movie starts at Montpelier’s Savoy Theater (located at 26 Main St.) at 7 p.m. on April 16. A pre-film reception is also planned at 5:30 p.m. at Hugo’s Bar & Grill

Following the showing, Benton said there will also be a panel discussion featuring moviemakers and film advocates for those interested.

As for “Leather Clad,” VPC provided the following movie summary: “After a shooting sends them running for cover, a newly released ex-con and a game warden’s daughter realize they’re being hunted—and neither knows why.” From Vermont filmmaker Thomas Benton, starring Vermonter Matt Munroe, Anne Clark, Paul Romero, Jeff Elam and Jamison Jones. Runtime: 82 minutes.

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Vermont

Vermonters reimagine solar farms with sheep and pollinators

Published

13 hours ago

April 8, 2026

Press Room

Vermonters reimagine solar farms with sheep and pollinators

Via Community News Service, a University of Vermont journalism internship, in partnership with Vermont Public

🎧 This story was produced for the ear. We highly recommend listening to the audio. We’ve also provided a print version of the story below.

On solar farms, the ground beneath the solar panels is often planted with turf grass and left alone. But some Vermonters are experimenting with productive ways to use that land: grazing livestock, growing crops, and creating habitat for threatened pollinators and birds.

Solar makes up about 16% of the energy Vermont generates, and that number has been growing for over a decade. As solar grows, so does Vermont’s capacity for agrivoltaics — the dual use of land on solar farms for agriculture.

Lewis Fox is a sheep farmer in Leicester, Vermont. With his wife, Niko Kochendoerfer, he runs a business called Agrivoltaic Solutions. They are hired by solar companies to manage the vegetation on solar farms. “We’re in charge of keeping the vegetation within certain limits, and the sheep are the tools that we use to do it,” Fox said.

Maeve Fairfax

Community News Service

Lewis Fox of Agrivoltaic Solutions herds sheep into his trailer after grazing a solar field in Colchester on Oct. 23, 2025. Fox brings the sheep to solar sites within a two hour radius of Leicester.

Fox said that sheep are ready-made for solar farms. “They’re pretty short stature, so they can really fit into nooks and crannies,” he said. “They’re also not really interested in chewing on wires or jumping on panels.” The panels also provide sheep with protection from the elements and shade, which means that the sheep don’t need to drink as much water on hot days.

Fox and Kochendoerfer work with farmers from Buffalo, New York to Bangor, Maine, helping them learn the ropes of solar grazing. Fox is also a founding member of the American Solar Grazing Association, an organization that promotes solar grazing and provides educational materials for farmers who want to get into it.

In the winter, when there is no grazing to be done, Fox and Kochendoerfer breed the sheep and sell grass-fed lamb. Fox said that the additional revenue they earn from agrivoltaics is a huge help financially. “For us as livestock producers, being able to use the animals in another way is very significant in terms of farm viability,” he said.

Solar grazing has exploded in recent years. There are currently about 130,000 acres of solar arrays in the United States grazed by sheep. “We think it’s got a bright future,” Fox said.

A man unlocks a gate to a grassy field of solar panels. — Mike Kiernan, co-founder of Bee the Change, opens the gate to a solar site in Stowe on Oct. 21, 2025.

Sheep aren’t the only animals that can find food on a solar farm.

The Weybridge-based nonprofit Bee the Change is turning solar fields into habitat for bees and other pollinators. Since 2015, they’ve created habitat on 30 solar sites.

Mike Kiernan is a co-founder of Bee the Change. He said one of the organization’s main goals is to support Vermont’s native bees, many of which are threatened by loss of habitat, disease or pesticides.

Kiernan said that although some invasive plant species can be helpful to pollinators, the team at Bee the Change tries to plant native species at these sites. “Our goal is to get the highest percentage possible of native plants, because they have the longest relationship with these species,” Kiernan said.

And their efforts are working.

Grass and flowers grow in a field of solar panels. — Asters on a solar farm managed by Bee the Change in Stowe on Oct. 21, 2025.

Through careful monitoring, the leaders at Bee the Change have seen pollinator populations on their sites increase dramatically in both number and diversity.

Supporting pollinators also helps support the plants they pollinate, which helps people, too. “We’re all actually connected, and our survival is connected,” said Kiernan. “And when people see a habitat that is enriched with pollinators, they are appreciative.”

Encore Renewable Energy, a Vermont-based B Corp, has hired both Kiernan and Fox to manage the vegetation on its solar sites. The company specializes in community-scale solar projects.

Chad Farrell is the co-CEO of Encore Renewable Energy. He said the company prioritizes using agrivoltaics because it’s good for local economies and good for the environment.

Solar grazing is often cheaper than mowing, and it cuts down on emissions because mowers, which run on fossil fuels, are not needed as often.

Planting native plants to build pollinator habitat can increase the soil’s potential to store carbon by 65%. It’s also good for the soil’s overall health — potentially paving the way for future agriculture on the land. “At the end of the useful life of the project, we’re actually able to return that land in a better condition than what we found,” Farrell said.

Sheep stand in and around of a livestock trailer in a field. — Sheep on a solar farm in Colchester on Oct. 23, 2025.

Some Vermonters don’t like to see agricultural land repurposed for energy production, but agrivoltaics can help alleviate this tension. “Everybody loves driving by one of our projects and seeing a bunch of sheep out there doing their thing,” Farrell said.

Lewis Fox, the sheep farmer, agrees.

“It’s often difficult for people to see solar being built on ag land, for various reasons, and I think you could argue the merits either way,” he said. “But we can help bridge the gap in that. What we’re able to do is have solar production coexist with agriculture. And it’s not just window dressing. It’s real agriculture.”

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Vermont

Tourism Leaders To Gather In Killington For Vermont Tourism Summit

Published

1 day ago

April 8, 2026

Press Room

Tourism Leaders To Gather In Killington For Vermont Tourism Summit

Tuesday, April 28-Wednesday, April 29 —KILLINGTON— The Killington Grand Resort Hotel & Conference Center will host the 41st Annual Vermont Tourism Summit, bringing together business owners, operators, and industry professionals from across the state for two days focused on collaboration, strategy, and growth within Vermont’s tourism economy.

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