This is the town's one chance to create a critical feature on an important town-owned asset, at the heart of Irasville. For at least five years, the town planning commission has been working on updating the zoning for Irasville and has identified the area near the town pond as an ideal location for an arts and entertainment zone and for mixed use commercial and residential.
It is critical, then, to think about the dam in terms of how that area of town will be used in 50 to 100 years, rather than in terms of how to fix it quickly and cheaply.
The cost of replacing the earthen dam is $70,000 to $80,000. The cost of replacing it with an open spillway is the same. The replacement dam does not have to be an open spillway; there could be any number of aesthetic solutions that better suit the location.
The state does not have jurisdiction over the type of dam that the town selects and choosing a type that the state does not prefer changes nothing for the town in terms of permitting, engineering, liability, etc. It is not the state's decision.
The Valley is full of creative thinkers who could come up with ideas on how to make what could be Waitsfield's most beautiful public park into a spectacular public asset for the town. We need a solution for the dam that will work now and in the future.
Fifty to one hundred years from now, when that area of Irasville hosts a vibrant neighborhood with an artists' colony co-existing with residents and businesses, will we wish we had done more than simply replace a failed earthen berm with another earthen berm?
Will we regret that we had an opportunity to envision the best forward thinking solution for that area and we opted for political expediency?
This project needs to be looked at from a long-term planning perspective rather than a timorous "don't aggravate the state" perspective. Waitsfield needs to do the right thing for the right reason with the dam replacement project.
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