Montgomery Flood Study
Montgomery Flood Resilience and Hazard Mitigation Study - 2024
Throughout 2024, the Franklin County Natural Resources Conservation District, in close partnership with the Montgomery Conservation Commission, Selectboard, and other groups such as the Vermont River Conservancy, Upper Missisquoi and Trout River Wild and Scenic Committee, and VT Dept. of Environmental Conservation Rivers Program, is working with an engineering firm, SLR International, to better understand the flooding patterns and impacts of the Trout River, Black Falls Brook, and West Hill Brook in Montgomery, VT. Using this information, the team will identify possible flood risk reduction alternatives and locations where floodplain restoration, buyouts, infrastructure upgrades, etc. may be beneficial for hazard mitigation and watershed health.
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This webpage will continue to be updated with additional collected data, model results, and reports as the project progresses.
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Get Involved
Community input throughout this process is important and strongly encouraged. To receive regular updates and invitations to future public meetings, please send a note to lauren@franklincountynrcd.org or call 802-528-4176 to get on our list, or if you have any comments or questions at any time!
The Project Team will host another public meeting on Wednesday, November 6th at 5:30 pm at the Public Safety Building - Conference Room, 86 Mountain Rd. / VT-242, Montgomery Center, VT 05471. We hope to see you there! Please spread the word and invite your neighbors and friends to attend!
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More Details:
On Wednesday, November 6th at 5:30 pm, there will be a presentation on potential flood resilience projects for the Trout River, Black Falls Brook, and West Hill Brook in Montgomery, VT. The Franklin County Natural Resources Conservation District, in close partnership with the Montgomery Conservation Commission, Selectboard, and other groups, have been working with an engineering firm, SLR Consulting, to evaluate potential projects for consideration by the residents of Montgomery to improve flood resilience.
Montgomery's input throughout this process is important and strongly encouraged! If you reside in a Montgomery flood zone, this information will be meaningful to you.
The agenda is to share feedback from the hydraulic modelling of the projects that were proposed in August and further developed over the last few months. We hope to talk directly to landowners and community members to discuss projects that might be possible on their own land, their neighbors land, or town-owned land.
We hope to see you there and please invite your neighbors and friends to attend!
If you have any questions, please don't hesitate to reach out to lauren@franklincountynrcd.org or 802-528-4176. If you aren't able to join us on November 6th, please feel free to contact Lauren with any information or ideas at any time.
Kickoff Meeting
On March 18th at 5 pm, there was a project kickoff meeting where all community members were invited to bring their knowledge of flooding in the area, discuss potential mitigation ideas, and ask questions. At the meeting, we reviewed existing conditions, previous flood and erosion damage, and confirmed project goals.
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Existing Conditions and Initial Alternatives Meeting #2
On August 7th at 5:30 pm, there was a meeting to provide an update on the existing conditions flood model that SLR has created to try to get feedback about the accuracy of the model. There were also the proposals of 15 different potential locations for future flood resilience implementation projects. 32 community members attended and provided history, ideas, and knowledge about these locations and expressed interest in seeing how much benefit each option might provide to Montgomery. The results of a future analysis of these potential projects will be presented in October 2024.
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View the Presentation - PDF version
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Review Existing Flood Mapping for a Small Sized Storm
Overview // Center Close Up // Village Close Up
Review Existing Flood Mapping for a Medium Sized Storm
Overview // Center Close Up // Village Close Up
Review Existing Flood Mapping for a Large Sized Storm
Overview // Center Close Up // Village Close Up
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Watch a recording of the meeting below:
Funding Source
This project is being funded by the FY 2023 Flood Resilience Communities Fund.
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Overview of the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) Funding for the State of Vermont: Vermont was awarded $1.05 billion in Coronavirus State and Local Fiscal Recovery Funds (Recovery Funding) as part of the federal American Rescue Plan Act of 2021. The Governor’s Recovery Plan is focused on transparent
investments in key infrastructure needs including housing, broadband, wastewater and sewer systems, climate change prevention and mitigation, and economic development. The explicit objective of this Plan is to provide long term economic recovery opportunities to communities statewide, with a focus on
those regions or counties struggling the most with job losses and declines in demographics and income levels.
The explicit objective of the ARPA funding through the Flood Resilient Communities Fund (FRCF) is to improving landscape and community resilience and reducing the future public safety and water quality impacts of climate-related flood hazards in Vermont, focusing on buyouts of flood-vulnerable properties and floodplain restoration.
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Read the Grant Application for the project
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