 So, and as a reminder, I think you've probably already seen this, but for all the groups, the next same priority, the role of the priorities that were up on the slides that are on there that we did in the first place. I have a question for you. Yeah. Do you have an advisory group of volunteer hydrologists? We've not yet, but I think we volunteer. We have one of our neighbors actually at some point before since he was a hydrologist. But I mean, there's a number of people in town. But there's actually a volunteer group that was around doing free volunteer hydrology and stuff for town. Yeah. It's already out there. So, I should, I should, is the microphone ready? Okay. Sorry. Okay. Do we have hydrology volunteers? That's where they are. Yes. So I, my answer of not yet was a little bit too truncated probably. I should say there are two folks who are particular on the commission and in this working group, that being one of them who, I'm not sure, hydraulic, who are very much experts in this, in this category. And we have begun in reaching out to other experts. And then certainly the plan of the commission going forward is, is to do exactly as you're suggesting. So, yes, they're, they're, so while I say no, I also mean yes. I hope that, I hope I'm making sense first. Yeah. I guess the second part of that was on the scientist side. Is there, is there a geologist or somebody else? I was wondering if you were given by your phone. Yeah. Sure. Thank you. Is that on? Sorry, geologist or somebody who knows the, the region around here well, the geology because I don't know that I have been involved in energy in the past. And I know for instance here in New York we have large underground storage facilities for gas for New York City. And I'm wondering whether there's some sultans or some domes underneath here that could be used as a storage facility, which are sometimes pretty substantial. Sure. Sure. A similar answer to the first one, which is the commission will certainly be reaching out to those types of groups. I should also note folks that it's not the commission and any of my colleagues please, Ned in particular, please feel free to jump in. But the commission, it's not our goal and it's not a realistic goal for the commission itself to become the leading expert in the state on these topics. What we are, what we can do in this watershed management is to ensure that the various groups who are working in this field are talking to one another, you know, to connect the dots. Get smarter ourselves certainly and tap into the exactly kind of experts you're talking about, but also to make sure that all the parts are playing together and connected. I hope that makes sense. Ned, do you have any, Ned is one of our experts in watershed management. I'm involved in watershed management and but I'm not a hydrologist or a geologist per se. I'd love to talk with you more. One thing I would say though is that there is a process underway right now, so already in across the state in the highly affected areas, there's work going on to bring in contracts and to bring in hydrologists to do an initial look-see at really particularly high prominence opportunities to do floodplain restoration projects and to reduce flood damage impacts in some of the communities that have been most highly damaged to Berlin and Barrie and Middlesex and Montpelier and right on up to the watershed. So that process is going on in this area and also up in Johnson and Ludlow and other hearted areas and out of that will come a cluster of most likely prominent opportunities and then the commission and the public will be involved in thinking about which ones can really move and where to put additional money to work up more specific plans about what could be done in terms of acquiring and changing situations to restore floodplain functions. So a lot of that is in process and we look forward to having that happen. It will take time to one come up with a big schematic which is likely to take until the fall at least and then after that there'll be a process of looking at that and saying well these are a whole bunch of really good ideas but we got to start somewhere and chase the money we have and begin picking a way at it and continue that process. So that's kind of where we're at with that. Other thoughts, questions? Yes. How's this? Good. Hi, my name is Paul Markowitz. I live here in Montpelier. Comments and questions. One is as you can see like from this gentleman I think there's a wide range of expertise that exists in Montpelier and my hope is that this commission taps into that expertise. I understand that's the plan for the long range. It's not just communication but how can we engage, how can we involve and bring these folks all the expertise. People are itching and really want to get involved and this is a critical issue. So I hope that's the long-term plan expanding the universe of folks that are actively involved in making the change. The other one is a comment and a question and that is around planning versus action and I love that the commission's already gone ahead and identified like a concrete opportunity at the place near Agway. And I also hope and this is the question part that there's a long-term, that the goal is to develop a long-term plan for the entire watershed in terms of flood mitigation. I don't know exactly what exists but it seems to me that would be an ideal task for this group to look comprehensively at the range of actions that can be taken to reduce flooding and so maybe that's the question part. Hopefully that's part of this. I can take a little bit of a stab at that and that is that the scoping assessment that Ned just referred to will be kind of guided by Vermont Emergency Management and they've secured some funding from FEMA I believe through the hazard grant program to do the scoping assessment up and down the Wanooski, identify a range of projects and try to calibrate them and say how much will this reduce the flood risk and what are the benefits and what are the drawbacks. We see the commission's role is once that analysis gets done and it will be done I believe in part, perhaps even by Jose's neighbors, that the commission can help make sure everyone in the community is aware of those, gets a chance to weigh in, we can all together balance, okay we're going to have to give this up, we're going to gain this and let's see what we can do about better consensus around moving some of those forward because some of these projects are going to be tough, we're going to have to give up something in order to gain some future resilience. So how do we best educate people and bring them in? Ned, did you have something you wanted to add, Ned? Okay, thank you Donna. Well I had a question twofold, one is like resources, we know that the regional planning commission has done a lot with watershed, I've been in one of their committees and so they can really be very helpful and likewise as far as dam removal which we have four non-functioning dams that really need to be removed and several years ago the state did a report recommending them but it's very costly because of the toxic behind the dams. So my question is how soon, let's say I feed you that report, is there any way that the commission can start acting to give the state momentum this legislative session? I mean when do you act on any of this? Is this a review process that you go with publicly and they endorse your actions or do you just decide and do it? We have a little just kind of proactively knowing that it's very much in line with all the goals that I was talking about tonight, so there is a piece of legislation that's moving right now, there hopefully will be a vote tomorrow through the Senate Natural Resources Committee up at the state house that does include river corridor regulations, wetland regulations and dam and it invests in the dam safety program at A&R and funding for dam removals and so we're like, I know Ben on our behalf as the chair has testified in that committee, kind of sharing the story and part of it has been like trying to build the urgency as kind of the role the commission has identified as let's keep talking to them and reminding them why that kind of legislation needs to move and why they need to put money into it. So we've played that role so far trying to support that legislation that has that dam piece in it. I don't know if that answers your question. Yes it does but if you actually read this report, report says Montpelier is the most vulnerable city in Vermont due to these four dams. I mean quote the state, the state's words. Let's do that. Yes email it to me. I had a question on the dams. What's that again sir? Yeah, Ned did you want... Here Ned come to the microphone. Come to the microphone. Yeah we don't have any funding or authority in of ourselves so all we can do is advocate on behalf of the people of Montpelier and in the watershed that these are important priorities to be picking away at and we need leaders and particularly people that can help move projects and indeed we're looking for people that do have an interest in making things happen. So one of the things that really matters is when there's a project that's important and there have been many studies and many great ideas for the city of Montpelier in terms of flood resilience in the past and they've come up with long laundry lists of things that could be done and they're not done and that's because somebody needs to step forward and be the champion, the captain, the person that's going to bird dog it and we need lots of bird dogs. So this is where the community really kind of makes the difference and pushes the commission and works with the commission, works with pushing the legislature and all the different pieces. Where is the bottleneck to make things happen? There's a lot of room for making all these things happen and we don't have the authority to make anything happen but there's a lot of bottlenecks, one of which is money and then the landowners need to say it's a good idea and it takes time and it takes a lot of engineering and a lot of work. So all these things but we need to work away at it. Yeah, just adding right on to the discussion of the dams and I think that it's vitally important that this commission just come out and very clearly say that they support the removal of the dams. I don't know that that has been clear in the materials and the positioning. I think in the same ways of having a press conference and supporting the bringing back the post office like just saying that like yes, we want to remove the dams like let's not get to the question of if. That's been answered. Let's get to the question of how we're going to do it, how we're going to get the funding and to be able to do it and I think that my understanding of the process right now. I mean the the Rivers Coalition is sort of put on an RFP and there's a study going on about you know, removing the dams and you know, I think their last comments to city council about that process was maybe we'll remove the dams like if this report sort of yields that as a recommendation. And I think it's just, you know, important to get our entire legislative state and federal delegation on board to say like yes, like we're going to remove these dams of Montpelier and any of these dams are in the same category in the state of Vermont and just say like we're going to do it and I think that will help tremendously in driving the very extensive permitting process and whatever funding process that ensues down the board. But to this point, I don't think I have seen that forceful, clear like decision that like yes, we're going to remove these. It's just a matter of how we're going to do it. Just an idea that would be a suggestion about as a 15 person commission when you want to make a statement or a stand or maybe a vehicle that allows you to get public opinion quickly on things like that. So it's not you, it's the public saying, yeah, we want to remove the dams. And that could be a system like as Ben has said, this long journey is going to be about systems in place. So perhaps a system that quickly pulls the town on ideas and votes and is able to express an opinion. Thank you. Thanks, Jen. Hi, I'm Jared Duvall. I just wanted to appreciate one of the priorities that's listed here in terms of promoting public understanding and support of watershed functions. I'm somebody who is not an expert in watershed management, but I understand how important it is. And I know enough to understand that it's a very complex nuanced area. And I think that if the timeline in terms of some of the reports you were mentioning, Ned and that have come up in terms of some of that broader looking at opportunities will be towards the fall and that when those decisions are coming up, they're going to be involved difficult tradeoffs. That before that, like in the spring and summer, just want to lend support for having sessions. And I don't know exactly what they would look like. Maybe some site visits, maybe some presentations and discussions so that those of us in town who aren't experts can benefit from some of the folks who are in the latest data and evidence, because I get the sense the more and more I hear about watershed management that sometimes things that sound obvious can have unintended consequences or have the reverse effect. So the more that we can kind of be up to speed and be as informed as possible in advance of some of those difficult decisions with tradeoffs, just very much support that. And thank you for identifying that as a priority. I have a question. I grew up on the North Branch. And when I was a child, they used to drain it periodically and clean out all the trash and just really clean it up. And lately that hasn't happened. And I'm sure there's reasons for it. Again, I'm not an expert, so I don't know. But I also know that the North Branch is much shallower and it is filling in on the sides. So we're not, is it the man-made dams that need to go away to allow the river to flow the way it should to give it more resilience? I mean, is it the human factor that's screwing up the North Branch? Let's get our actual watershed expert. Yeah, that's a great question. And so you're asking about the functioning of the North Branch and is it constrained in some way and is that a problem? And there's a whole nest of questions in there that come out of that. And I, like many people, have been out with the church groups going up and down the river hauling out shopping carts and tires and blocks of stuff that had been tossed into the river. And that's an ongoing chore up and down the roads of Vermont and the rivers of Vermont and North Branch as well. And yeah, definitely there's different, there's some grass that grows along the edge of the North Branch. But that's really not a big issue on the North Branch. It's mostly a fairly rocky-bottomed channel. But the whole existence of Montpelier has been really in antagonism with the river channelizing, it's squishing it in, creating walls, and it's very much more of a conveyance. I think I just heard a bell. So it's a problem of thinking about water more broadly and that's one of the many things we can think about together. But it's probably not actually a big problem on the North Branch though. Yeah. I just want to point out that if you'd like to, Mark was just ringing the bell. If you would like to transition to one of the other working groups to hear from them as well, now's a good time to do that. And those other two rooms are just straight down the hall. They're the first two classrooms on the left as you go down the hall that way. Otherwise, you're welcome to stay here and continue the discussion with us here. The other thing is that we try to capture all your questions here. If you want to take a look and make sure I got your question or suggestion down, happy to have you do that. Yes. I just want to congratulate you guys for the leadership you're taking. I think it's crucially important. The one thing that I would say is it was really smart to choose one place where you could have a quick early success at that confluence and that you should be doing that sequentially and aggressively. And the question of moral of authority here, because you're leading and because you're representing the city and you're really representing the people, you have as much authority as you take in terms of rallying the public and engaging them to put their power on the line for project to project. Sometimes that's going to mean political pressure. Sometimes it's going to mean communication. But all those studies from the past are all out there. You don't wait for somebody to do it and you don't study it again. You say, what's the priority thing that we're going to do this next six months that we could line up around? And then you're engaging the power. You build trajectory and people will be with you and be leading for you. Yeah. And I think on that topic of authority and just sort of what we can do. This is my own in my head and my personal view on this is we are essentially there to ensure that resiliency has a seat at the table for all these discussions where oftentimes it hasn't in the past. Or and to make sure that when projects like that list of projects on our resources page that have been floated a month there before eventually sort of die on the vine because the flywheel stops spinning. We hope that the commission can play a part in making sure that that flywheel does not start spinning and ensure that the way we're also in a different time. Now, I mean, the floods, you know, the weight of what's happened. I think it's on everyone's mind and it's the commission's position and job to make sure that that urgency, again, it's a flywheel that the urgency keeps spinning and make sure that those those thoughts are brought to all of these discussions. Any other questions? Yes. Hi, my name is Kasia. I'm with Vermont River Conservancy and this is in part response to the previous half conversation. But I wanted to thank you first for recognizing that work that happens both upstream and downstream of Montpelier is critical to improving things in Montpelier. The reality is that this community is going to need to support floodplain restoration, river corridor easements that are outside the boundaries of this town wholeheartedly. So really appreciate that. Specifically, the Home Farm Project came up, which I'm very excited to see happen. That's at the confluence of the Upper Winooski and the Stevens Branch. I think that that place would love to be a beautiful floodplain and wetland and the Home Farm is critical to that. And I would encourage the commission to also look more broadly at that at the Castela's Waste Site that is immediately adjacent, the UVM Records Facility with significant parking lots that I see mostly unused adjacent to that facility. There's also a gun club just across the way and then a state owned V-Trans property that has flooded five times in the last 12 years. So I hope that all of those can be part of a broader wetland floodplain restoration that I suspect would have significant impacts here. And then the dam feasibility studies came up in the last conversation. Our organization is leading that work right now. We are in the middle of the feasibility studies. They just started. It will take probably 12 to 18 months to complete the feasibility studies. And the intent, the hope, is to remove all four of these dams. They are owned by four different people, four different entities. They have different sediment behind them. We really want to move forward with implementation. That's the plan. That's why we're doing the studies. But it's not possible to do implementation without the studies. So we were working on this before the floods even happened. So the project is a bit accelerated in some ways. And that's in process. And I think what we're going to need is the funding for the implementation and the community support to make sure that these have the political will to move forward. Yeah. So those four dams, I'll start right in downtown Montpelier. The most visible is the Bailey Dam, which is right next to Shaw's. Everybody knows right where that is. Just around the corner under the pedestrian bridge where the north branch comes into the Winooski, there's a very small dam kind of locally known as the rat dam or the trestle dam. That's already partially breached. If you go upstream on the Winooski, if you go past Bar Hill, past the veterinary clinic, if you walk the bike path out of town, there's a dam there. The Pioneer Street Dam that probably has the most sediment and the most carcinogens in that sediment that's behind it. We're going to learn about what that is. And then again, upstream from that is a dam that's called Hidden Dam. It is in fact a little bit hidden. It's right at the base of U32 High School. And so that's the four dams. Hi. My name is Steve Gold. I've lived on the north branch since 1978. When the depth of the water behind the Wrightsville Dam was raised for power to create a low-head power plant, the dynamics in the north branch changed dramatically. I have a drain in my basement that goes out to the river. The north branch had never backed up so that water came into my basement prior to the level in the Wrightsville Dam being raised to say nothing of the fact that it wiped out a magnificent stretch of river that used to be above the Wrightsville Dam and before you got to Putnamville. So that's one comment that I think that needs to be checked out. What the water level in Wrightsville is doing in terms of the dynamics of the north branch, especially as it fills up even higher with floodwater. The second comment I have is that right now a very hot topic is what's going to happen to the Worcester Range. There's been all kinds of comments about that written. I just saw a very interesting report from the Conservancy in Natural Resources Council rather that endorsed the state plan for timber harvesting in the Worcester Range. And there have been a lot of letters vocalizing against that. My concern is that the efforts of the commission make sure that the issues of upstream and headwaters flood control is seriously considered in the final version of that plan. That's one of the concerns I have. If they're exposing half acre open parcels all over the place, what's that going to do to the drainage when we get these incredible deluges? Jan, do you want to? No, the microphone. I was just going to say Ned can probably feel him, but we believe that the Department of Environmental Conservation has requested some assistance from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineer to take a look at Wrightsville and see how if there are changes in the management that can happen there that might address some of all of our concerns. Thank you so much for all the work you're doing. I'm curious about individual action that people can take, and I don't recall seeing anything around stormwater management on individual properties. Is that something this working group will be doing? I think the short answer is yes, because it certainly fits with the adaptive downtown watershed management. Certainly that's a piece of it. I, what's that? Oh, sorry. The short answer is yes. We're obviously early stages in the commission in terms of what that might look like, what efforts we can support or will support, that sort of thing. But thank you for bringing it up. I love what's being floated in this room because it's, you're capturing really the breadth of the challenges. And if you have more to your question, is there? I think it's really about what individuals can do, because a lot of people are thinking, okay, yes, a lot of things are going to take 12 months, 18 months, two months, two years, who knows how long, but there are things I know that individuals can start to do, especially on people who have larger parcels. So having education around that, I know there are ongoing projects that a lot of nonprofits are doing already, but having that be a little bit more targeted to individuals with parcels where water is actively flowing into the rivers into the trips would be something to look into. And that's another example where, you know, the Vermont River Conservancy and others, there are experts in the state working on exactly these kinds of issues, and that's where the commission, we're going to do our best we can to help to bolster, amplify, connect those. And I love, I think what I was starting to say is that you brought up sort of personal property storm management issues, you brought up like ahead and let, you know, way, way, way, right when the rain first falls on the highest peak, and I thank you for doing that because you guys are really encapsulating the breadth of what needs to be taken into account. And it's huge, but there are experts out there working on this, and there's more to be done, and there are the connections to be made, but you're really wonderfully capturing, I think, where the thought needs to go into the various places that water can be captured, slowed down, controlled a little bit better, knowing that we are going to get that water, and how can we reduce, or in some cases, minimize, mitigate whatever the flooding that happens. So thank you. I'm Becky McCullough, and I wanted to bring up a similar thing about in the beginning when people were talking about what we could do. Someone would routinely say, well, there are things that individual homeowners in town can do to slow the water down. We live up on the hill and we weren't flooded, but there was so much water coming down that we've lost a couple of trees. And so I'm planning on doing a water garden in our house, you know, the things like that. So I would second that. And I was also wondering about how there were going to be connections made with other communities. Anyone on the connections piece? So again, on the home, on the individuals, I think that it's certainly on our radar to help, again, bolster, amplify those. And to the idea of hosting learning events going forward, I think that would certainly be a wonderful one in addition to, you know, what's happening way out of eyesight for most people beyond the river corridors to help this issue. What was the last piece of your thing? Oh, yeah, the connections, yeah. James, I can take a crack at that. And one piece is through this obscoping assessment that's going to be happening up and down the Winnowsky. Those projects are going to be interrelated and hit a lot of different communities. So I think once that report comes out and there are projects along there, we're going to be in communication with other communities around, okay, what do we think is feasible? What do we think is doable? Maybe there's a short, mid, and long-range plan I think it may be. Well, there aren't our kind of commissions in other towns, someone that would happen through the Central Vermont Regional Planning Commission, but I also want to highlight that Pat Molten is here. And she works for the governor and is particularly tasked with Central Vermont Recovery and is working particularly with the communities of Berry, Waterbury, and Montpelier. And she's living that connection and connecting those. I don't know if there's anything you want to add, Pat. Thanks, Jen. Hi, I'm Pat Molten. I'm your Central Vermont Recovery Officer. I'm all things long-term recovery, good to see so many familiar faces. Eventually, and I can't tell you when, we want to convene a river quarter summit, if you will, of the communities, probably municipal leadership, maybe, I'm still thinking about what that's going to be. But when those communities have a better sense of what the actions are that they're going to take, I mean, Berry's looking at how can we reclaim floodplain, you're looking at that, trying to get a beat on where it's Marshfield, Cabot, Waterbury, et cetera. So that will be one venue for that sort of collaboration. But I think Jen's spot on Central Vermont Regional Planning Commission will also be. The scoping study will also be. So it may take a bit, but that will be happening. Another wonderful example where the experts and the work is being done and the commission I think is going to be playing the role of, again, an amplifier connector doing our part to support, bring to the table anything that isn't already there that can help these efforts. Just some of the individual comment about what individuals can do, kind of prompted this idea. Because we have a big spring in our backyard. And so when we get a lot of rain, there's a lot of water there. And I don't know if that's something that needs to get collected for the bigger whole. And or if there's something that, you know, you all would recommend for us that have that kind of spring to, I don't know what, you know, I don't know what it is, but now it's just running down. And everybody's springs are probably just running down. So I don't know if there's some kind of collection that needs to happen. If that's a serious, if it's a serious like way that more water is getting into the system, I'm not sure. But I just thought about that. Ned, do you have any? Yeah, that's a great thing. I'll be interested to talk with you later. But groundwater is an important resource as well. And so springs and clean water are really important. There'll be times where Montpelier is looking at drought. And the functioning of our groundwater and access to it is going to be critical. So we have both sides of the coin to deal with here. And so, and the flooding that comes into our communities is not from springs per se. But we do need to be mindful of water and how we manage it. And typically we want it to be in the ground where we can and saturating the forests and saturating the soil structure and taking a long time to come into the city so that we don't have it all arrive at the same time and do a lot of damage. Really basically bending the curve as we know. Reducing the flow, having it all come asynchronously over time. And so all of our places are good, our springs are good places to think about water and groundwater and what's going on. When your spring is running really heavy and the rain is coming, that's the scary point. Because the ground is saturated or frozen and we're much more susceptible to damage from overland flow. But your spring is not causing the flooding, it's okay. Hi, I'm Jack McCullough. I want to mention that for the last couple of years the city's been working on developing stormwater utility. And like many things, it kind of paused during the post flood time. But the idea is that for the city to handle and manage stormwater and all the things we do with stormwater cost money. And so the stormwater utility is a way to assess the cost of those stormwater according to property and property characteristics and use that to generate funds that we will then use to do big things like capital projects all the way down to little things like street sweeping. So things don't get clogged up and so that's in the works and it continues to be a priority for us. And one of the benefits of doing a stormwater utility is you can structure it in a way that if you have good stormwater practices kind of to your point you can have reduced fees depending on how you set it up. So it can be structured potentially to incentivize individual action to kind of reduce your impact on our water system. And I'd just like to compliment the city actually. There's been some really wonderful communication coming out of the city in the past several months about different activities. The one that really caught my eye, I don't know if you all saw it, it was a few months back like maybe November, October about the work on the water mains. And it was a detailed look at what those water mains were made of, the history of them, the work they're doing, why it's hard, what has to happen. My entire, for the past 25 years, my livelihood has been spent trying to communicate the topics of science and the environment to the rest of the world. I help scientists and engineers translate their work to the rest of the world, largely in sustainability but other things too. And I read that post, it was sort of a master class in how to do it. It was really wonderfully done. And I compliment the city for, because I think that's the kind of information and the way to get that information out that the commission is going to be taking to heart too with all of these complicated topics and making sure that very smart people in our community, you all, all of us who aren't trained in these topic areas, get this information in a way that it means something to us we can understand and we can act on. So, in other words, the city's doing, I think, some wonderful things in that regard, and I hope the commission's plan is to do the same with these other topics. I apologize. No, thank you. I'm Zach Porter and a resident here, like many or all of you. The executive director of standing trees, which is a public land advocacy organization that works all over New England but spends a lot of time working on public land issues here in Vermont. And I want to thank the gentleman who spoke about the importance of our headwaters and the Worcester range, which is a huge decision that the state has in front of it right now that we can have a significant impact on over the next several months. The agency of natural resources is working on a management plan that will not just last the next 20 years, but really set in motion management for this landscape for potentially generations to come. And this coming fall is when the final plan is expected to come out, but there's, you know, there's time, but not a lot of time for our community to speak out. And the towns of our surrounding towns haven't waited and it's great to see that Middlesex and Worcester have both, both of their planning commissions and the conservation commission, I believe in Middlesex, have all called for a pause. They're all experiencing the same flooding, of course, that we are. And so not only do I hope that we join our surrounding communities in calling for changes in the state land management, but I also hope that we might think about, if we haven't already, just something that came to me a moment ago. I don't know if this is already under consideration, but why not partner with the communities around us to actually pool resources to protect more wetlands, to protect more headwaters. If we're not already talking about that, you know, Montpelier is small, right? That's one of our greatest challenges. We don't have the tax base to do a great many things that we would like to do in this town. Let's join forces with the communities around us, but I do hope that the city leadership and this commission will use the pedestal that you have to speak out for changes in this Worcester Range Management Unit, Long Range Management Plan. The comment period closed on the draft plan on February 2nd, but that should not stop anybody in city leadership from speaking out. Just today, FPR Fish and Wildlife were in front of the House Environment and Energy Committee testifying on their draft plan, and there's time to make a huge difference at the state house and with ANR. So anyways, thank you to the commission for the great work that you're doing and for this forum today. Thanks, Zach. Who's next? So the others are going to join us back here in about eight minutes for our closing sort of piece on this evening. So any other questions, comments, ideas, things you want us to be thinking about, people you want us to know about? Any other, yeah. Hi, I'm Dick Muller from here in town. And to help with the woman's question in the back about how homeowners can be helped, when the site visits happen, you were talking about going on site visits up and down the river. If people, if there were wetland specialists there, plant specialists that could help people, give them ideas right on the spot what they could plant. Maybe they've got enough willow around so they could cut some more and put it in their fields but get to work on it. Wonderful, thank you. Thank you, Lauren. Lauren, do you want to break on that again? No. I'm wondering, Front Porch Forum seems to be a very active site of conversations about all these issues and about the work of the commission. Fairly often, things seem to come up on Front Porch Forum like, oh, why not dredge the rivers or do this or do that? It's the kind of thing I think it might be helpful. I tend to respond to some of these things from the extremely adjacent perspective of a spouse or somebody involved in this but I don't actually know what I'm talking about most of the time. And I think it would be really helpful if people on the commission could be, particularly those interested in communication could be actively monitoring this stuff and responding to it really quickly from a position of knowing what you're talking about and having some credibility on the issue and explaining, well, this is, yes, there is somebody, there is land available for floodplains even though a cynical person posting said that will never happen or yes, really there is, it's really a very bad idea to dredge the rivers and this is why. So I just would encourage that kind of, you know, sort of monitoring what's going on at least on that piece of social media and responding very quickly with some expertise. Thank you. We've got time for, yes. On the lane shops, I guess it's a bridge, the thing that, the bridge, there was a lot of debris that had built up there for years and it was there, it was there, and then after the flood, it was at the Spring Street Bridge blocking it and that caused a lot of the flooding. Is there something that we can do to make sure that the debris that flows down the river doesn't kind of get caught up and then cause a problem later on? Ned, do you want to, or Laura, sorry. I was just going to say, I know that that issue has been raised, for example, to our great Central Vermont recovery officer of how, you know, in particular is the kind of thing that we need state help to do and support, so looking for how we can bring those resources kind of on an ongoing basis and is there a way for towns could then share machinery or things that it takes to clean up that debris, so that idea is definitely being explored, I hope. But it's being raised for sure, so yeah, thanks for raising that, it's important. I just had a question, I don't see Kasia anymore, I mentioned the four dams on the main branch of the Winooski, but I know there's a bunch of dams along the north branch other than that very first one by Shaw's, so I'm wondering where that fits in in terms of affecting the river and dam removal potentially. Ned, do you know the status of any of those? Yeah, the lane shops has a dam there by the pedestrian bridge, which I live right next to, and so it's a problematic dam. It does, you know, it was created for some of the first industries, you know, water power in the city and the lane shops, which we went on later with the advent of coal to become a foundry, so it's a historic feature. It's also very problematic. The owner would love to sell it if he would like to buy it for a dollar, and there's a big insurance risk to this, and it's hard to maintain and probably can't make any money from hydroelectric power off of it, so it's a real problematic thing. It's also a dam where a lot of people love the feature of the pond behind it because they're used to that, and so it's very scary for people that are trying to talk about restoring aquatic movement of fish and habitat up and down the rivers and reducing the flood risk on the north branch to even stir the pot of talking to the neighbors. So I think that's one of the biggest problems, but it may be the sort of thing that, you know, when it blows out and causes a huge deposit in the north branch and it back up and chokes up downtown, we may decide it's all going at that moment. I'm sorry, it's just a very tricky place for people to get into politically fraught, but it might have some value. During the peak of the flooding, I was up on the pedestrian bridge and you could see the water backed up behind the dam and then there was like a six-inch difference between that and the water that was backing up from the Winooski. So what's that? You could canoe right over it, right? I guess I'm just not sure how much flood. It's not in and of itself causing damage to structures upstream of the dam, but if it blew out, it would be a big problem downstream of the dam. I think one more, and then the other groups are about to join us, I think. This is about the dam. The people living adjacent to the dam actually had an informal agreement with the personal owns at the dam by the lane shops five years ago, which would at the least have involved a transfer of ownership and responsibility of some of the property. But when we tried to comply with the city requirements for making this transfer property happen, we hit a point where we were told that we had to get a survey of all of the properties involved that it might cost something like $12,000 and that these surveyors were not confident at all given the amount of bodies of water involved that they could actually do a survey. And at a certain point after working very hard on this for about two years, I kind of threw my hands up because by that time everybody else had kind of given up and I was like, well, I give up too. But this was the situation where the city could have and actually still could take some action to assist in this process. And that might help solve part of the issue about the dam. So I would be grateful to hear from anybody about that. Thank you. Thank you very much. So folks, as you've seen, the other folks are joining us. We're going to have a little bit of a closing session to wrap things up, announce what's sort of coming down the pike as well. But I just want to thank, for those of you in the room and those of you coming into the room, thank you very much for your feedback, your questions, your ideas. We have been noting them down. They've been noted down in the other rooms. They remain, they will read until the end of the evening, post-it notes at the back of the room if there are any ideas or thoughts or questions or resources that you want to continue to float. Because those will go to use in the commission, I promise you. And just again, thank you. And know again that this is the first, this is the beginning of our communication, two-way communication with you. Not sort of a pinpoint along the way. And absolutely not the end of it along the way. So thank you very much. We'll wait for the other folks to come back in. And then I think our fearless leader, Ben, will take us into the closing of the evening.