Wolcott set to build first sewer system targeting development and flood resilience

This story, written by Report for America member Carly Berlin, was produced in partnership with VTDigger and Vermont Public.

WOLCOTT — On Thursday morning, Margo Baker was preparing to make meat sandwiches for a lunch special at the Wolcott Country Store. They both work at the store between Route 15 and the Lamoille River and live upstairs in one of seven apartments.

Baker saw firsthand the limits of the building’s small septic system. Tenants couldn’t have washing machines, he said, and had to haul their laundry to neighboring Morrisville or Hardwick because there wasn’t a laundromat in town. The country store cannot expand its offerings. The building’s owner, Fred Martin, said the system was too small. The leach field’s narrow riverside location means it cannot be expanded, and the last flood this summer, which brought water into the basement, forced it to have sewage pumped out.

“The leach field was just backed up,” Baker said. “The septic tank is not big enough to support the store and all the apartments.”

Meanwhile, there is no public wastewater system in the district. about 1,500 It poses major obstacles to adding housing to the village.

“We have an old church that is closed, and the property owners had stated that they had hoped to put maybe four apartments there, but were prevented from doing so by lack of wastewater,” said Linda Martin, chairwoman of the town’s board of selectmen. (No relation to Fred).

But a new town sewer system is on the way. Last month, Voters approved plans For the first municipal wastewater system in Wolcott’s main village area. In addition to enabling more redevelopment in the village center, town officials hope the system, which would involve connecting individual septic tanks to a common flushing area located high on a hill, will help alleviate Wolcott’s flooding woes.

Additional wastewater capacity could allow the city store to create a seating area where people can “have their coffee, visit, maybe eat lunch,” Baker said. Martin, the owner of the building, said the new system would also allow him to add another apartment to the building.

“I think it helps the town,” Baker said.

A. Lack of municipal water and wastewater systems In Vermont’s small village centers, development has long been blocked from modest projects like restaurants or small apartment buildings.

“If you want to have seating in a coffee shop or if you want to provide restroom facilities for any establishment, wastewater is the foundation of that,” said Victoria Hellwig, regional planner with the Lamoille County Planning Commission. We support Wolcott’s wastewater project.

But a new focus from both situation And federal Programs like the Covid-19-era American Rescue Plan Act helped make projects like Wolcott’s possible. Town officials have set aside more than $5 million in state and federal funds, which they hope will cover the full costs of getting the new system up and running. Just this week, the town received $750,000 in economic development funding from the Northern Border Regional Commission, which aims to strengthen rural infrastructure to support the project.

Town officials hope the new community septic system will spur revitalization of underutilized buildings in town, which will entice Lamoille Valley Rail Trail users to stop in town. a project renovating an old school building Martin, the chief select officer, said work on a café and meeting space has already begun.

Building the wastewater system could also allow property owners to add much-needed housing to existing lots and allow buildings once repurposed to be converted into housing, Martin said.

Desire to encourage more housing growth Vermont’s acute housing shortage mobilized rural wastewater projects westford with Montgomery In recent years. But residents’ concerns that new public infrastructure would fuel unfettered growth and traffic congestion have negatively impacted some such projects. local discussion.

Wolcott is not immune to this tension either. Some residents forced a new vote on the wastewater system, in part by questioning the potential impacts of new development and adding more development to the floodplain. According to the report from News and Citizen. There are also residents expressed concerns around ongoing maintenance costs for the system. However, the project was approved again second vote at the ballot box.

Floods in recent years caused problems in homes with percolation fields along the riverIncluding sewer backups. Under the new system, waste would be collected from connected properties to a pumping station and then sent to a larger, public washing area at a proposed site on a hill, near the town’s primary school. A. Q&A page on the town’s website The system will be designed to withstand a 500-year flood event, he says, and engineers aim to avoid locating new infrastructure in areas where the risk of flood-induced erosion is high.

But overcoming these challenges underscores a conundrum for Wolcott and many other Vermont towns. Government officials to prevent the spread has long tried to stimulate filler growth And housing density in urban centers and village centers – but in many cases these urban centers are located on the banks of rivers that are increasingly prone to flooding.

Wolcott was hit hard by the floods of the last two summers. Martin, the selectman, said he had given the green light to nine purchases, mostly in the village area that the new wastewater system is set to benefit from.

This will also hit town’s tax baseHe said that would mean the town would not be able to collect user fees from those properties to help with long-term maintenance of the new wastewater system. The system is expected to serve approximately 50 properties, mostly residential, around School Street. according to News and Citizen; This means that losing even a small figure due to purchases can create financial trouble in the future.

Martin said the acquisitions still have a long, bureaucratic road ahead, but moving forward with them “breaks my heart.” Some of the inundated residents were couch surfing, moving to neighboring towns or leaving the state, he said.

Still, he hopes building the new wastewater system could help the town make up for lost housing.

“Whatever happens, it will make the downtown village center brighter,” he said.