By Eric Brattstrom
Warren was founded, as were many East Coast settlements, alongside a river with enough volume and fall to sustain the residents and small businesses with power and clean water. Most of those towns still exist, but few have remaining evidence of why they’re there. Crib dams, most constructed of rot-resistant hemlock, were the standard design for powering New England’s small mills.
Many of us in this community are unaware of how our crib dam is designed, some don’t even know of its existence and others only see it as an eyesore. Our dam was originally built in the late 1700s and was one of about 50 such structures providing clean power to many small industries along the Mad River. Lenord Robinson (one of my favorite Vermonters) worked at a sawmill powered by our crib dam in 1946. Our crib dam is the real McCoy, not just an oil painting of one hanging in the State House. Hopefully, our legislators are aware of its significance.
Green Mountain Power operates a crib dam built in the late 1800s on the Winooski River at Bolton that still supplies us with electrical power. Like all crib dams, it requires maintenance every 25 years or so. Vermont’s Agency of Natural Resources (ANR) allows that maintenance work to be done. But, the ANR will not allow any maintenance work to be done on our crib dam, hence the “eyesore” comment at Town Meeting. Perhaps, just perhaps, the loss of another part of our still visible past is not important to the ANR. Perhaps the ANR is more caught up in the general science of river hydraulics than in the specifics of this particular stretch of river.
Our barns, small farms, covered bridges, general stores, husband-and-wife trees framing the entrances to old homes and even a crib dam or two are Vermont. At the same time we are national leaders in rooftop and community solar, inconspicuous wind turbines, IT availability, smart meters, grid-tied battery backup (both firsts in the nation) and, to top it off, thousands of Vermonters are fighters and demonstrators against climate change.
If we are to survive the climate crisis that is already upon us, wouldn't it be ironic if power from a 200-year-old crib dam could provide the electricity to recharge electric vehicles parked at The Warren Store? That was a suggestion by our select board last year.
Our crib dam is one of many man-made structures and influences in the half mile or so of the Mad River flowing through Warren Village. The bridge abutments, bank riprapping, and retaining walls protecting old home sites all work together (river hydraulics) and have done so for a long time. We know that they worked well together through at least three major floods since 1927. No one really knows what will happen with the loss of even one those in the Village River Zone.
Brattstrom lives in Warren.
