Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Representative Amy Sheldon (Chair)]: Thank you. Next presenter is John. Could you give your

[John Copand, Director, Montpelier Commission for Recovery and Resilience]: your own introduction? I would be happy to do that. I appreciate the invitation to be with you today. My name is John Copand. My title is I serve as the director of an organization called the Montpelier Commission for Recovery and Resilience. And I want to share a little bit with you about that organization before providing some testimony on this dam safety bill, H. Seven seventy eight. The Montpelier Commission for Recovery and Resilience was formed after the twenty twenty three floods in Montpelier. That, as you all know, those that was a devastating event for our city and sort of an existential moment for the community as we grappled with what we had just experienced, which wasn't really an inundation event, Not like an erosion sort of a flood. Our downtown was inundated and inundated in large part because well, obviously, because we we sit at the confluence of the main branch of the Winooski, the Stevens branch of the Winooski that comes over from Barry, the North branch of the Winooski, and then ultimately the Dog River that comes from Northfield. All of those rivers come together, and we've settled our community of sort of right there at the juncture, particularly of the North Branch and the and the main branch of the Winooski. And so in that sort of moment of sort of existential crisis, we came together as a community at a series of forums facilitated by the former executive director, my former boss at the Vermont Council on Rural Development, Paul Costello, who really, brought the community together. Well over a thousand people participated in a series of three forums to really think together. First of all, we processed a little bit about what what we experienced, as a community, but then really came together to think about what we should do as a community to be prepared for the next the next flood. How do we become more resilient as a city? And from those community forums and that sort of collective prioritization of these of these action items as a community formed this organization called the Montpelier Commission for Recovery and Resilience. Essentially, a call went out for volunteers to serve as commissioners on the commission. And then I was hired to serve as the staff director in the 2024. And then we actually have expanded, we have an AmeriCorps Vista member, Jillian Turkola, who's sitting here as well. And essentially our work as an organization is I to to help Montpelier come become more resilient, but I would give it sort of three scales of work. We work at the broadest what we know in Montpelier is that flooding is not a challenge that you can solve within the borders of your community. The reality is we live in a watershed, and we are interconnected with all of those towns, particularly for Montpelier. We're connected to all of the towns that are upstream from us. And what happens in those communities and how the sort of water flows in those communities has an impact on how much water flows through Montpelier. And then we have a similar relationship with those downstream communities. And so, so one of the priorities of the commission has been really to work at a watershed scale to try to build a sense of connection amongst the towns of the Winooski River watershed, and not just a sense of connection, but also a sense of common direction as the towns that make up the watershed. Ultimately, we're not going to solve this on a town by town basis. We need to solve this sort of at a watershed scale, and we need to come together and pull in the same direction. And so in fact, we've initiated something called the Winooski flood resilience collaborative. It was just funded with CDBG acronym, but with CDBG Doctor funding, it's housed at the Central Vermont Regional Planning Commission, but also the Friends of the Winooski River is a key organizer of this effort. Are bringing together the towns that make up the Winooski Watershed because we know we need to work together to address flood resilience. So that's one scale of our work. Another scale of our work is really at that sort of downtown level. As I've already described, our downtown is vulnerable because of where it's located. It's also the lifeblood of our community. You can't really separate the town. And you know this because you spend the week here. You can't separate our identity and our sense of place from our downtown. It's not like we can simply abandon that downtown because it's vulnerable to floods. What we believe is that there are opportunities to make our downtown more resilient. You can, in fact, in a multiple of different ways make these historic buildings more resilient. So that's another area of work for us is working with the building owners, and with the community at large to figure out how we can make our downtown more resilient to future floods. And then finally, the final area of work for us, and this is where we, I think, really want to focus today is really around emergency preparedness as a community. There was a fair number of lessons learned from the twenty twenty three flood about sort of who is responsible for what in a time of crisis and emergency. And the sense was, while on one hand, we were tremendously proud of both the municipal response and the community response to the twenty twenty three floods, there was also a really strong sense that we could do it better. And so what we did as an organization in partnership with the city is we actually work to craft a new we called it the Montpelier action plan for local emergency. But essentially, and you all, I'm sure know this every community in the state is required on an annual basis to have a local emergency management plan. A typical local emergency management plan is is like one to two pages long. It has some names and phone numbers, it maybe has some designated roles, but it's not, I would say, you know what, it's better than nothing. But what we found is that we needed a much more comprehensive emergency management plan. So in fact, we hired a consultant. We spent about $45,000 with that consultant, and we went through a deep and robust community process to write this Montpelier action plan for local emergency. It just so happened that we hired a new fire chief. And I do understand not every community hires a fire chief, right? We have the luxury of having a professional fire department, a professional police department. So I I do understand that that's not every community circumstance. But the reality is that fire chief now has a new emergency management plan, but it wasn't just about the municipal officials and their responsibility. Emergency preparedness is very much a community activity. Part of what we see as our mission as an organization is to do what we call growing a culture of emergency preparedness. The people who respond to emergency first are the are individuals. Right? Ultimately, you need first responders. You need the municipality in places where there are gaps, and, they are obviously critical critical players in any emergency response. But what happens, we are all stronger and we say this a lot. Community preparedness is really the result of individual preparedness. And so a lot of our work with the Montpelier Action Plan for local emergency was really engaging the larger community, helping them understand what is an individual's responsibility and what is the city's responsibility when it comes to being prepared and responding to emergencies. Now, how does this connect to this H seven seventy eight? Let me share an anecdote, which is so I live on Cliff Street, which is literally like, you know, two blocks that way, but up. And I was actually out of town when we were flooded in 2023. My family was out of town and so sort of watch things develop with horror over over over my phone. At some point in the night when when the flooding was most severe, we heard from friends of ours who lived in the Meadows neighborhood. And if folks don't know the Meadows neighborhood is sort of right down in the flats on the way out of town on Route 12. It's and we heard from friends in that neighborhood, and they had decided to leave their house. And they literally walked up through Hubbard Park to get to our house because they felt like they needed to seek refuge there. And what prompted them to do that was a text message that went out through VT alerts to Montpelier residents from our city manager that raised the specter that, Wrightsville Dam was essentially going to be that water was going to go over the dam and that there was real danger that downtown would be inundated in a in a in a very sort of abrupt way. The reality now, let's be clear. We came about six inches from the water going into the spillway at Wrightsville Dam. The water has never gone over the spillway since that dam was constructed back in in the 1930s. So I don't want to downplay how serious that circumstance was. But at the same time, the communication from our city manager lacked some nuance in terms of the reality is the dam was not in danger of failure at that point. In fact, it was going to work as designed where water was going to flow over the spillway. It would have had impacts, to be clear, because more water would have been coming into our city. But it's not like it would have been sort of a mass failure. And so the level of fear experienced in this community was probably disproportionate to the nature of the flap of the threat. And that's why this bill is so important because what what needs to happen in moments like that is people understand the nature of the threat and need to have essentially and we have this now in Montpelier. I'm not sure other communities do, but we have two things that we didn't have before the the twenty twenty three flood. One is we have a stronger relationship between our city emergency responders and the dam safety engineers with Department of Environmental Conservation because ultimately they are responsible for Wrightsville Dam. So there is now a line of communication. There was not a great line of communication in 2023. So that was a point of failure. But the other thing we have is literally, we have redrafted messages, emergency messages in the case that people need to be notified, in the case that in in the inconceivable scenario where people need to evacuate. So so work has been done in Montpelier to be much more prepared for those scenarios. And that's part of what a planning exercise produces. I mean, it's also part of what an event produces is a sense of, geez, what went right and what went wrong. And so here's here's how I think to I think to get to more specifics about this, first of all, I think it's imperative that we think more seriously about our dams and that, you know, the truth is Wrightsville plays a really important flood control role for Montpelier and other communities. It's a really important asset, but we also need to be prepared for what could happen if it it fails and all of the vulnerable population that lives below. One thing that I know is that ultimately it will be the municipalities that I think are on the front lines, both individuals and the municipality that are on the front lines if that scenario were to come to pass. And so I think when we think about developing emergent an emergency operations plan for rights, municipal involvement in that process and and and to be clear, H seven seventy eight certainly talks about having VEM consult with municipalities as they as they develop this plan. But I will say I have some apprehension about sort of ultimately who's responsible for plan development and what that consultation looks like, because my sense is the most important thing is not a plan that VEM holds, but in fact, the most important thing is a plan that the city of Montpelier holds and the city of Middlesex or Worcester, right, the the towns that are in fact vulnerable to these dam failures, it is the it is essentially an appendix to their emergency management plan that imagines the scenario of what happens if there's the threat of dam failure and and what what does evacuation look like? What does notification look like? And so I I think it's in and I these are the kind of things that in my experience can be a little bit tough to legislate. But in in our experience with the Montpelier action plan for local emergency, what was most, powerful about it was as much the process and the bringing the community together, the interviews we did with various impacted, stakeholders, and the relationships we developed around the planning table, that is as important, if not more important, than ultimately the 65 page document that we call the Mumpuler action plan for local emergency. And so, for me, what feels imperative as we think about developing emergency operations plans for these high hazard dams is ensuring that there is robust local sort of participation in that process because ultimately most of the emergency response tends to happen at the local level. They really need to understand the threat and understand how to address those threats. So I think maybe I'll pause there and take questions or comments. I guess one other thing you'll see I have a book here. Vermont River Conservancy hosted a book group in Montpelier, and we read this book called Seek Higher Ground. It's all about our history in Vermont. No, our history as a country in trying to live with rivers and how we've addressed flooding over over the course of of our history. There are a couple of chapters in here are about levees and dams and the fact that like we as a as a nation actually have an enormous challenge ahead of us in terms of this infrastructure. It's expensive infrastructure. It's really important infrastructure. But what we did is we built all of these dams and levees, and then we settled all of these communities, right? We decided, you know what? We've created safety zones and we've put a lot of value in property and people behind those dams and levees and the reality is those dams and levees require constant maintenance, a, and b, we are seeing different levels of precipitation than we, I think, planned for when we constructed these dams and levees. And so it really it's it's both of those forces coming into play, more precipitation and an aging aging infrastructure that we all should be grappling with. And ultimately, a component of that is having a really strong emergency operations plan so that when people are in harm's way, we know that we can, a, notify them and that they know what to do when that when that event, god forbid that event happens, but if and when that event happens.

[Representative Amy Sheldon (Chair)]: Okay. Representative Chittenden. Thanks,

[Representative Chittenden]: John. It's really helpful. I was curious to hear a little bit more about this. Could you imagine the regional coordination of the EOP, which is really EOPs multiple plus maybe a state or regional entity, being done without the RPC, like just VEM and communities working together. Is the RPC like an integral part of that process? Should they be? That's one question. And then the other is, can you just tease out a little bit more how you would like to see VEM's involvement? If as a state entity, we choose to make sure there's a state entity ultimately responsible to coordinate and pay for and make sure the thing happens, do we design that role most effectively from your perspective?

[John Copand, Director, Montpelier Commission for Recovery and Resilience]: In answer to your first question, I think the answer is yes. The RPC needs to and should be involved. I will say that this answer feels a little different depending on the scale of the community. Right? The reality is we are a city with 128 employees, a professional fire department, a professional police department and a professional planning department. Right? So so sometimes what we need from an RPC is very well, always, it is very different from what an East Montpelier or a Worcester or a Middlesex needs from the regional planning commission. They don't have the same capacity. And frankly, where the RPC is powerful is as the convener. I mean, as I was describing around the watershed flood resilience work, I think the same principle applies around emergency response, which is that we should be thinking less. And this is I realize this sort of contradicts a little bit what I just said, but the truth is we've gotta work together across town lines with emergency response in the same way that we need to work together across town lines on flood resilience. And the truth is right now in Vermont, the venue for working across town lines is our regional planning commissions. They are our partner. They because of the nature of the very diverse workload that they have, they really have the best relationship with municipalities as opposed to the state entity VEM or another town, You can always engage your RPC when you're trying to engage other neighboring towns and I think that can be a real successful partnership. So I do think and the truth is they already do a fair amount of work supporting communities in developing their local emergency management plan. And in fact, our RPC hosts some sort of a regional emergency gathering on maybe a quarterly basis. So they already are in this space. And I know I think you heard from Christian Meyer and Keith Cuban, they I do think it's imperative actually that the RPCs are at the table for for this for this work. Oh, gosh. Now I've forgotten the second part of Yeah. Your

[Representative Chittenden]: how to How do you see their involvement?

[John Copand, Director, Montpelier Commission for Recovery and Resilience]: It's a great question. I mean, I will say that I think this feels a little bit different when you have a dam like Wrightsville or Waterbury that is ultimately a state owned facility. Right. So and yes, ultimately that's owned by DC and not VM, but like to some degree, the state has some responsibility when they own the facility to to be the responsible dam owner. You just in the way that I think you can charge other dam owners with some of those responsibilities because they own this asset that is that they need to be responsible for. I also, though, think that VEM really does in terms of expertise, and they also have regional staff that are very helpful in terms of some of that facilitation work. So I think I here's what my apprehension is just to restate it is is if, like, VM just goes out there, hires a consultant. That consultant goes in a room, types out a plan, sort of shares it with VM, and then shares it with the municipalities and says, what do you think? Like, honestly, I don't think that is gonna get us where I assume you want us to go, which is actually to get all of the players around the table as the process is launched to craft that plan. Right? And that is a the truth is if you're short staffed and you've been thrown another obligation as a state and you're like, you know what? We need to check this box. You you're gonna do it in the most efficient way possible. And I don't I've worked at the state. The truth is I was I I worked at DEC. Like, I really am sensitive to these demands that they face. And, but I would be apprehensive about that being the approach. And so if there is a way to ensure sort of municipal participation, and maybe the RPC is sort of the key linchpin in that, I really think that's critical because, ultimately, it's the relationships developed around that planning table that are as important as the actual document that is, is produced.

[Representative Amy Sheldon (Chair)]: Questions? If not, thank you very

[Representative Chittenden]: much for your presentation. Thank you so much.

[John Copand, Director, Montpelier Commission for Recovery and Resilience]: I really appreciate the opportunity. Thank you.

[Representative Amy Sheldon (Chair)]: We are adjourned.