Nonprofit gets a state grant to pursue ‘Wild and Scenic’ status for Deerfield River
The Deerfield River Watershed Association (DRWA) received a state grant that will help it advance an application for a federal Wild and Scenic River designation.
That status would permanently protect the Deerfield River from any new dams and from any “adverse water development” such as hydroelectric projects, channelization, large withdrawals of water, or projects that degrade water quality. Designation as a Wild and Scenic River would also open it to possible federal funding for improvements.
Vermont’s Fish and Wildlife Department gave $5,000 to the volunteer-run nonprofit, which will match the grant. The $10,000 will fund a detailed assessment of the river’s Vermont tributaries and will document its recreational, ecological, historic, cultural, and scenic values.
“This grant is a significant and exciting step forward,” said Chris Curtis, first vice president of the DVWA and lead coordinator of the initiative. He called the state’s support “a strong signal that the case for designation is strong on both sides of the state line” between Vermont and Massachusetts.
The assessment will focus on the Deerfield River’s north, east, and west branches, as well as the Green River and the North River.
The Vermont study has broad support from congressional delegations in both states and letters of support from 18 municipalities in the two states, as well as from other entities, including Trout Unlimited, the Elnu Abenaki Tribe, and the Vermont Agency of Natural Resources.
When completed, the study will be combined with another already done by Massachusetts. They will then go to Congress, which will determine whether the river and its tributaries get the Wild and Scenic designation.
Although the DRWA said it is unaware of any plans to build new dams on the river — which currently accommodates the Somerset, Searsburg, Harriman, and Sherman hydroelectric stations in Vermont — it argued that the designation would permanently protect the river from any future dams.
Across the country, dams that were built in the 18th and 19th centuries are being gradually removed from rivers as the long-disused structures disintegrate, and more is understood about the benefits to wildlife and water quality of allowing rivers to flow unimpeded.
In Delaware’s Brandywine Creek, for example, migratory shad are now swimming farther upstream than they have been able to for at least 200 years after the demolition of some dams restored the natural flow.
DRWA President Christopher Bathurst said the grant reflects “years of community building across the entire watershed.”
The Deerfield River watershed covers 665 square miles in southern Vermont and northwestern Massachusetts. As described by the US Environmental Protection Agency, the system includes “149 named rivers, approximately 345 named river miles, many smaller unnamed rivers, and 24 named lakes, ponds, and impoundments in the watershed comprising 5,262 acres.”
