Via Community News Service, a University of Vermont journalism internship
MORRISVILLE — On Wednesday nights in the summer, Morrisville residents file into Oxbow Park prepared for a night of music. With views of the Lamoille River, long stretches of grass, and mountains peaking out beyond, the park is a picturesque site to enjoy tunes all summer long.
Along with live music, the green space at the park has been used by town members for soccer games, gatherings, and a half-acre community garden where flowers and vegetables blossom during the growing season.
But in 2023 and 2024, the park flooded significantly, costing thousands of dollars in damages. In 2023, repairs cost $34,460 dollars. The Federal Emergency Management Agency paid 90% of that cost. In 2024, damages cost $6,000 and the town paid around $1,000 out of pocket, according to Judith Alberi, the Morristown executive assistant. With the risk of flooding in future years, town residents are questioning the continued use of the park. Towns members have discussed retiring parts of the park closer to the river and moving the live music at the park and community garden. Others have suggested mitigating the risk of flooding by planting more trees and letting areas near the water grow out with vegetation.
“There was a lot of flooding and a lot of damage,” said Donald McDowell, selectboard chair, of the back to back years of floods. “So that really got the conversation going, you know, what we are doing, should we put money into it, and if so, what kind of money should we be putting into it?”
The park has what community members call a lower and an upper deck. The lower deck is an area closer to the river shore and is more susceptible to flooding while the upper deck is further back and includes the site of the garden and the stage for live music.
In 2024, flood water flowed over the park, washing away the community garden. The plants were drowned with water forcing gardeners to throw out the little produce that survived the flood. Mason Kemerer became the Community Garden Steward following the flooding that year.
Following the flooding, Kemerer said, the gardeners began looking for an alternative location for the garden but struggled to find somewhere with optimal space, sunlight, and soil quality.
Lamoille County Conservation District hosted an event in May for community members to voice their concerns about the park and try to come up with a plan for the park’s future. There will be a follow-up meeting in the fall to talk about potential action steps.
One popular sentiment among community members, according to McDowell, was retiring the use of the lower deck and stopping mowing in the area so natural vegetation can act as a buffer against flooding. The town stopped mowing this summer, allowing vegetation to sprout up.
“It took a lot of time and money to maintain and mow the lower deck and repair damage there after floods, so I think letting it restore itself to a natural environment and letting the grass grow is beneficial, and having more vegetation will help hold the soil in place and restore the boundary of Oxbow better,” Kemerer said.
The flooding in 2023 was so excessive, they were forced to move the site of the concert series, said McDowell. Because of this risk, community members have proposed permanently moving the site of the concert series to the high school or another venue.
“Part of the controversy is what kind of restoration work we should be doing. In particular, with tree planting. It is an area that has been mowed over pretty consistently in the past,” McDowell said.
Peter Danforth, the Director of the Lamoille County Conservation District, has helped plant trees across 0.7 acres of land at the park to mitigate the risk of flooding in the park. “By planting trees, we are creating flood water storage; it’s the easy sort of bang for your buck solution,” Danforth said.
To find a solution for flooding at the park, Lamoille County Planning Commission, an organization based on protecting the environment in Lamoille County, has drafted long-term plans to mitigate against flood.
“One thing that you look at in a public green space is to design parks so they provide flood storage to protect surrounding infrastructure,” said Seth Johnson, deputy director at the Lamoille County Planning Commission.
Johnson said features like pavement, roads, or gazebos should be situated away from the river, as water can flow faster through developed land. By planting trees on the shore, Johnson said, water can be stored in the floodplain.
“If we get many more of the events like in 2023 and 2024 I think that towns residents’ palate for putting money into the park and trying to keep it survive is going to sway,” McDowell said.