Plainfield, Vermont – Scottie H. has lived along Great Brook for almost thirty years and during this time, she has seen the landscape of the brook completely change. Landslides near her house in 2011 ripped out old swimming holes and widened the river significantly.
“It’s active and alive, changing. It’s a real gift to feel a part of that,” she said.
Scottie contacted staff from the Friends of the Winooski River (FWR) in 2022 when she heard through their newsletter that they were offering a program called Stream Wise. Stream Wise offers free and voluntary site assessments of land located along rivers or streams and provides recommendations for increasing stream health and flood resiliency on property you own or manage.
“In the same way that I got educated from floods and Hurricane Irene in 2011, the flooding this past summer has been a great teacher for a lot of us.”
Scottie expressed appreciation for the opportunity to have a Stream Wise assessment completed. While touring the property with Michele Braun, Executive Director of FWR, they discussed what it means to be Stream Wise, looking at various metrics within the first fifty plus feet from the river’s edge including width of the buffer, signs of compaction or erosion, and presence of native versus invasive species.
Allowing a stream to move freely though its historic corridor and spread out over its floodplains helps slow down floodwaters during heavy rain events. Maintaining a healthy stream buffer is also beneficial for fish habitat, nutrient and pollution removal and retention, and sediment trapping.
Michele noted an extensive buffer throughout Scottie’s stream side property with a mature overstory of native tree species including sugar maple, basswood, yellow birch, red maple, white pine, and quaking aspen and a robust forest understory. While some invasive species were present, they were not yet creating monocultures. Active management to contain the invasives, which included honeysuckle, knotweed, and burning bush, was advised.
Scottie’s maintenance of the property along the stream earned her the Stream Wise Award for Best Management Practices in a Vegetated Buffer, an award she now hangs on her garage near the road. Sites that are awarded this Stream Wise Award represent model, stream-friendly properties.
“I really appreciate the work that Friends of the Winooski River and Stream Wise are doing. It’s really essential at this time to keep educating people so that we can be better prepared for floods and have less disasters due to flooding and lack of awareness about how to work along a water corridor,” Scottie said.
If you want to show off your beautiful stream buffer or learn more about your land and opportunities to improve stream health and flood resiliency, contact a Stream Wise Assessor today!