LONDONDERRY — Londonderry residents and a team from Marlboro College's Center for Creative Solutions (CCS), in partnership with Windham Regional Commission (WRC), recently explored how to best use soon-to-be town-owned properties severely damaged by flooding from Tropical Storm Irene.
Participants in the six-day planning workshop, held in early August, generated three different options for how the buyout properties provide opportunities for flood control and can serve as a commons for residents and visitors.
Conventionally, the pairing of these purposes could be seen as mutually exclusive. However, there was nothing conventional about this community planning process.
Two FEMA buyout properties at the intersection of routes 11 and 100 at the entrance to Londonderry's commercial district were the focus of the workshop.
During Tropical Storm Irene, the West River, held back by the Williams Dam, spilled over the banks of the millpond and inundated the two properties before continuing down the main street.
On the first day of the workshop, WRC Executive Director Chris Campany talked about the town being “disastered on” by the 1973, 1976, and 2011 floods, and that the outlook is for more frequent and more severe storms.
Three Londonderry residents, Trevor Bickford, Georgianne Mora, and Tom Platt, participated full-time in the planning workshop, along with artists, planners, environmental designers, engineers, historians, landscape designers, and several students.
Moreover, members of the Planning Commission and Conservation Commission, and other officials, participated in the workshop and engaging the community.
“The project is about their home, not just any place,” observed one workshop participant.
Fellows at the Center for Creative Solutions - renowned choreographer, dancer and educator Liz Lerman and Richard Rabinowitz, a leading public historian - engaged with the workshop team and Londonderry residents over two days, learning about the constancy of the river in shaping life in Londonderry, as well as the significance of a community center to the vitality and social life of the community both past and present.
Their work on day three of the workshop culminated in a powerful community event attended by more than 50 people in which community members expressed the loss from Irene, redefining it into working together to rebuild and imagine a future for the town.
The workshop invited different perspectives on flood mitigation and the program options developed benefited from expertise provided by CCS fellows Calen Colby, a civil engineer, and Jono Neiger, designer of landscapes that mimic and regenerate natural systems.
Throughout the workshop, residents engaged with ideas as they were being developed. While residents initially resisted the idea of dam removal, they came to new understandings about the role of the dam in intensifying flood conditions by talking with Colby and engaging with the different ways to control floodwaters, one of which is to remove the dam.
The workshop team developed three options for the ways the buyout properties could address the critical issue of flood control and at the same time be a community place with multiple uses:
• Remove the Williams Dam so that the river's natural channel can return and consequently the millpond above the dam will drain.
Fairly rapidly thereafter, bulrushes and other aquatic plants beneficial to water quality and habitat will return and fill in the land once occupied by the millpond. Silt and sediment built up over years in the millpond will need to be dredged prior to removing the dam.
Todd Menees, River Management Engineer with the state of Vermont, indicated dam removal is the best solution in terms of the health of the river and flood control.
In developing this option workshop participants proposed to replace this iconic town feature by reusing the granite stones for a water feature that creates the sound of falling water.
• Partial and phased removal of the dam, implementing short-term strategies to realize long-term flood mitigation.
Recognizing that natural systems respond to a disturbance with a variety of solutions not just one, this phased approach permits studying the impact of breaching the dam on the river channel, wildlife, and habitat.
• Maintain the dam and engineer flood control by building naturalized berms on the two buyout properties so as to contain water in times of flooding.
Each of these options includes a wealth of ideas for using these sites for recreation, events, and public information.
Williams Park, which abuts one of the buyout properties, is the site for the lively Saturday farmers' market. Each of the options incorporates the farmers' market and one plan includes a naturalized amphitheater for music and other events.
In addition, particular features of an option lend themselves to particular opportunities.
Each plan also considers ways to connect the two sites, which are separated by Route 11, traffic calming, pedestrian access, parking, sound buffering, staging ground for activities and seasonal and night uses.
A fourth option is for the town to make modest programmatic improvements to the sites and not address the issue of flood mitigation.
Catalyzed by the CCS workshop, Londonderry residents are energized and forming a task group to widen the conversation in the town. A report detailing each of the options will be produced.
“Londonderry stepping forward to grapple with the critical issue of flood mitigation will be an example for other towns,” said Sharon Crossman, chair of the Londonderry Planning Commission.
The issue of flood mitigation is not just local, but regional, as actions shaping the river by one town will affect the towns below it.
“If each town lying along the river did its part, it would significantly limit the devastation and loss experienced in recent storms,” Crossman said.