Jodi Turner, Owner of Imagine that Honey, spoke next, sharing her passion for bees and other pollinators. There is a growing body of evidence that pesticide use is contributing significantly to the decimation of bee populations. Turner shared that while far more work needs to be done, the White House issued the Presidential Memorandum -- Creating a Federal Strategy to Promote the Health of Honey Bees and Other Pollinators in June 2014 as a first and important step. The memorandum commits to organizing a task force to develop a National Pollinator Health Strategy to protect and support pollinator populations. Each one of us can support pollinators in our backyards by creating habitat. Some simple things to start: plant flowering species (especially if done strategically), avoid (or eliminate!) the use of pesticides, and be mindful of the plants and seeds that you purchase at any garden supply store (many have been treated with pesticides). 

  

The WRC in
Washington, D.C.

 

In May I had the opportunity to travel to Washington, D.C. at the invitation of the National Association of Development Organizations (NADO) and the International Economic Development Council to participate in a discussion titled "Making Resilience the New Normal:  A Convening of Local, Regional and Federal Leaders."  Two Rivers-Ottauquechee Regional Commission and Chittenden County Regional Planning Commission were also invited.  The 1.5-day convening brought federal partners together with experienced local and regional leaders for a discussion about how we can work together to achieve better resilience outcomes - the ability to withstand and bounce back from natural disasters and climate change.  Representatives from regional development organizations and local governments whose communities have all been impacted by natural disasters in the past five years shared how their recovery experiences have changed their approaches to everyday decision-making and how they are finding creative ways to use federal resources to fortify their regions against future hazards and disruptions. Federal partners from a range of agencies highlighted recent efforts to support disaster and climate resilience through new and existing policies, programs, and investments. It was a worthwhile conversation. 

 

Having had many places I know and love "disastered" over the last decade, including the Gulf Coast, I never feel like we can do enough around resilience planning.  But we have done a lot over the last 4 years.  When we were first asked by NADO to share what we had done, I compiled a list.  If there's a theme here, it's the importance of partnerships.

• Collaborated with the Brattleboro Development Credit Corporation and the Bennington County Regional Commission in securing a grant for $470,000 from the U.S. Economic Development Administration Disaster Recovery program to fund a project that provided capacity to work with businesses throughout the region on revitalization and resiliency, to work with villages and downtown organizations to develop revitalization strategies, and to develop a sustainable southern Vermont marketing strategy.  The project description can be found here.
• Received a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts through which we collaborated with the Marlboro College Center for Creative Solutions and residents of the Town of Londonderry to explore design solutions on the use of buyout properties along the West River to both build community and provide greater resilience in the face of future flooding.  The report from this work can be found here.
• Working with the region's long-term recovery committee that was organized to coordinate long-term recovery needs and casework for individuals who suffered damage to homes during Irene into a Windham Region COAD (Community Organizations Active in Disaster) in order to respond to future crises that involve individuals (as opposed to public infrastructure).
• Encouraging towns to broaden the stakeholder base they engage in the creation of local hazard mitigation plans.  We draft each town's local hazard mitigation plan and shepherd it through the state and FEMA regional review process.  The towns are necessarily very involved in the drafting process, including the identification of hazards and mitigation strategies.
• Working with town planning commissions to incorporate local hazard mitigation plans into town plans.
• Used our Local Emergency Planning Committee to develop an individual damage reporting form for use by town emergency management directors in the event of a disaster. DEMHS has indicated they'll use this as a statewide template.  Local collection of individual damage status and needs was an observed weakness during Irene, due in large part to the fact that past disasters had primarily affected infrastructure rather than individuals.
• Conducted a river science and physics workshop for town officials and the general public with the goal of expanding understanding how rivers and streams "work" and why they behave the way they do.
• Continuing to streamline processes by which we most effectively collect information about damage to town infrastructure in collaboration with our VTrans District leaders. Regional commissions in the state have signed an agreement with the VT Department of Emergency Management and Homeland Security to serve as the state's local liaison to our towns. Part of this includes assisting towns with damage reporting in the wake of an event.
• Assisted towns with the pursuit of CDBG-DR grants to repair Irene-affected infrastructure that was not covered by FEMA.  This included collaboration with UVM researchers on the use of a drone/unmanned aerial vehicle to gather stream and river geomorphic data in the towns of Readsboro and Wardsboro.
• Training multiple staff in river science and resilient infrastructure design.
• Preparing comprehensive bridge and culvert inventories for our towns.

• Participated in the Vermont Economic Resiliency Initiative (VERI), led by the Agency of Commerce and Community Development and funded by the U.S. EDA, to evaluate areas in Brattleboro where economic activity and associated infrastructure are at a high risk of flooding. The goal was to better understand local flood risks and identify projects that reduce, avoid or minimize these risks. 

If there's an area where we are lacking outreach, I'd say it's at the household level.  What happened during Irene could easily happen again in any year and will happen again.  More localized events, like last year's storm and flooding in Windham, Ludlow and Chester, happen with almost annual frequency and can produce Irene-type damage but at a smaller scale geographically. It's also important to be mindful that we are at risk of storms and flooding that rival Irene.  Every household should have a plan whether near a stream or not, and should refrain from putting structures or anything else within harm's way.

 

While in D.C. I also had the opportunity to meet with our federal delegation.  In Vermont we talk about ease of access to all of our elected officials and our Congressman and Senators are no exception.  I met with their staff to discuss the need to convene communities that are hosts to nuclear power stations to provide meaningful, substantive input into the Nuclear Regulatory Commission's decommissioning policymaking process.  They were generous with their time, attentive, and follow-up has been outstanding.  Having worked on federal policy in the past I can say that such access and attention is more the exception than the rule, and another great thing about Vermont that we should not take for granted.