Advocates for streams and rivers in Bennington County get together every month or so to talk about where we'd like to be as regards water quality. At a recent meeting, some of us got more concrete, sharing where we'd like to be literally - our favorite places in our watersheds.
One person mentioned the River Walkway in downtown Bennington, and indeed it's a wonderful resource for the community. The riffle in the Walloomsac River beginning at School Street gurgles loudly enough to nearly drown out the sound of traffic, and sends up burst H2O molecules sufficient to fill the air with the fragrance of clean water.
Another Bennington favorite place is on the Walloomsac upstream of the Route 9 bridge, where two moss-covered historic trolley abutments still stand. On South Stream below Morgan Street, the remnants of a historic dam and a series of ledges mark the site of a 19th century "shoddy" (or rag-reworking) mill. (Both locations should be accessed from the river, not from adjoining private lands.)
In the North Shire, Little Mad Tom Brook cascades very steeply over room-size boulders, through a narrow quartzite gorge, then nearly disappears into the gravels underlying this portion of the Valley of Vermont. (The walk from top to bottom is challenging. Start off Forest Road 21 after spotting a car on the dirt road near the Route 7 overpass.)
On Lye Brook a little east of Route 7, remnants of a complex millworks can still be seen. Substantial rock walls, foundation holes, huge sugar maples, an old sluiceway - and in the river, the ruins of a dam large enough to contain a roaring watercourse - all attest to a work site that must have employed large numbers of laborers. (You can get to this site by heading west from the Lye Brook trailhead.)
Going about our conservation duties, we've also stumbled upon streamside rail beds and iron staves marching down a slope where once a wooden pipe returned water from the mill to the stream. We've looked longingly at plunge pools too cold still to swim in. We've admired masses of flowering floating bogbean. We've enjoyed lunch watching a loon with a young 'un on its back. One of our colleagues recently kicked up a sixteen inch brown trout in the Batten Kill.
These sites and scenes are the tip of the watershed iceberg here. At the first couple of meetings of the Basin 1 Watershed Planning initiative last summer, people came up with dozens of reasons we should value our streams and rivers. (Basin 1 is the DEC's name for the drainage area that empties into the Hudson River, the Hoosic and Batten Kill watersheds.) Wild trout, clean and plentiful drinking water, history and foundation of the community, wildlife habitat, farms and farmers - these were just a few of the water assets people listed as important. And how to protect them?
Maybe that's where you come in. Our groups have some ideas we think are good ones. But we bet you have some too, and we'd welcome them. They could become part of the new Basin 1 Watershed Plan. The plan will help direct state investments in the basin in years to come, and help local groups pursue their missions more effectively.
We're next getting together on June 5th and again on June 12th at 5:30 pm on the Bennington campus of the Community College of Vermont. The focus the first night will be the Hoosic watershed, the second the Batten Kill. Contact DEC basin planner Josh Gorman at 802 447-6501 or Joshua.Gorman@state.vt.us for more information.
Meanwhile, find a stream and walk up it. Go fishing, or hop in a canoe. Visit your streams and rivers. They'll clear your head and fill your heart.
Shelly Stiles is district manager of the Bennington County Conservation District, whose mission is promoting rural livelihoods and protecting natural resources in southwestern Vermont. She can be contacted at 442-2275 or .
This column appeared in the Bennington Banner in June 2008, as one of the BCCD's Conservation Currents pieces, a bi-weekly feature written by BCCD board and staff members since August 2006.