Flood Information

Zoning & Floodplain Administrator

Kristen Leahy
802-472-1686
zoning.administrator@hardwickvt.gov

Winter 2025-2026 Office Hours

Monday – 11 am to 1 pm Tuesday – 8:30 am to 2 pm 12/23/25 – open 1-5 pm Wednesday – 9:30 am to 2 pm Closed 12/24/25 Thursday – 8:30 am to 2 pm Closed 12/25/25 Friday – By Appointment Closed 12/26/25 Saturday – By Appointment
Outside of daily stated hours, by appointment.

FLOOD RELATED ZONING REGULATIONS

Unified Zoning Bylaws with integrated Flood Hazard Area Overlay regulations – 2024

Understanding Floodplains, Floodways, and River Corridors (2025)

HISTORIC STRUCTURES IN THE FLOODPLAIN

Guidelines on Flood Adaptation for Rehabilitating Historic Buildings – 2021

Guidelines for Reducing Flood Risk to Residential Buildings that cannot be elevated – 2015

AFTER A FLOOD

Prioritize Your Health and Safety – 2024 (Neighbor to Neighbor)

Mental Health Resources for Flood Recovery – 2024 (The Vermont Department of Mental Health)

Guide for Cleaning up Mold After a Flood – 2015 (FEMA)

Four Ways to Reduce Flood Insurance Costs (FEMA)

Flood Resistant Materials for Rebuilding After a Flood – 2024 (State of Vermont)

Repairing Your Flooded Home – 2010 (FEMA)

Protecting Building Utility Systems from Flood Damage – 2017 (FEMA)

Flood Damage Resistant Materials – 2008 (FEMA)

Post Flooding Technical Assistance Toolkit for Agriculture – 2024 (State of Vermont)

FLOOD RELATED PLANNING DOCUMENTS

Understanding Flood Storage and Floodplain Restoration (2025)

Lamoille River Tactical Basin Plan – 2021

Lamoille River Tactical Basin Plan – Story map – please note that this link takes you away from our website to a story map – Lamoille River Tactical Basin Plan Overview

Basin 7 Lamoille Assessment Report -2016

A Strategy to Protect Communities and Ensure Clean Water by Mike Kline – 2016

Notes from the Draft Tactical Basin Plan – 2016

Upper Lamoille River Geomorphic Assessment – 2009

River Recovery in the Wake of Large Floods – 2024 (Jordan Fields at Trout Unlimited) (YouTube Video)

LAMOILLE RIVER and COOPER BROOK HYDRAULIC STUDY – SLR

Funding provided by the Economic Development Administration (through Lamoille County Planning Commission) – EDA grant.

Presentation Slides from SLR – December 3, 2025 at Hardwick

Overview of next steps from the study – 12/18/25 – created for the Select Board

HCTV video of the presentation – recording was inadvertently damaged. No video will follow

JACKSON DAM

Who Gives a Dam?! – Understanding the Difference Between Flood Control Dams and Run-of-River Dams (2025)

Hardwick Lake Dam 2019 Visual Inspection

Hardwick Lake Today and Tomorrow by the Northern Rivers Land Trust – 2013

Report on the Jackson Bridge Dam by the Vermont Natural Resources Council – 2001

Hardwick Lake Dam 2024 Visual Inspection

ADDITIONAL DAMS IN THE LAMOILLE WATERSHED NEAR HARDWICK

EAP for East Long Pond, Nichols Pond and Mackville Pond – 2012

EAP for Mackville Pond Dam – 2016

Mackville Dam 2022 Visual Inspection

East Long Pond Dam 2022 Visual Inspection

Nichols Dam 2023 Visual Inspection

Ripple Effects – Watershed Forum in September and October 2025

September 3, 2025 – Dredging Rivers with Roy Schiff from SLR International Corporation and Shayne Jaquith from the Nature Conservancy. HCTV video link

SLR Slides

The Nature Conservancy Slides

Understanding Flood Storage and Floodplain Restoration

Understanding Floodplains, Floodways, and River Corridors

Dredging Makes Floods More Dangerous

September 10, 2025 – Beavers and Natural Infrastructure with Tyler Brown from Vermont Fish and Wildlife, Meg Carter from the NorthWoods Stewardship Center and Erin Rodgers from Trout Unlimited. HCTV video link

Beavers and Natural Infrastructure Slides

Beaver FAQ

BMP – Beaver Conflicts Factsheet

BMP – Beaver and Human Conflicts Factsheet

September 24, 2025 – Dam Removal & Rivers with Karina Dailey from Vermont Natural Resources Council and Kassia Randzio from Vermont River Conservancy. HCTV video link

Dam Removal and Rivers Presentation Slides

Who Gives a Dam?! – Understanding the Difference Between Flood Control Dams and Run-of-River Dams (2025)

The Four Dimensions of River Connectivity

How a Dam Affects a River

Let Them Flow

October 1, 2025 – Droughts and Floods – Climatology with Lesley-Anne Dupigny-Giroux, Ph.D.
Distinguished Professor & VT State Climatologist. HCTV video link to follow.

Here is the link to CMOR:

https://droughtimpacts.unl.edu/tools/conditionmonitoringobservations.aspx

To join the CoCoRaHS precipitation observing program, please have folks send a note to Seth Kutikoff at the National Weather Service Burlington

Seth.Kutikoff@noaa.gov

FLOOD RESILIENCE PROJECTS

Town of Hardwick – Flood Recovery and Resilience Update
Understanding Our Five Neighborhood Approach

As Hardwick continues to recover from the July and December 2023 and July 2024 flood events, the Resilience & Adaptation Office and the Zoning and Floodplain Office have adopted a five-neighborhood approach to guide response, recovery, and future resilience investments. This method recognizes that different areas of town face different risks and levels of engagement and allows us to better match our time, capacity, and available funding to each area’s unique needs.

The five neighborhoods currently include:

East Hardwick Village Center
Granite Street Historic District and Cooper Brook Area
Vermont Route 14 South Corridor
Wolcott Street and Commercial District
North Main, Mill Street, and Core Downtown

This structure helps ensure that less vocal or more dispersed areas are not overlooked and resources are distributed in a way that reflects both the severity of flood impacts and the realities of community communication and capacity. This approach also allows the Town to align engineering, land use decisions, emergency response, and community engagement within the same geographic frame, improving coordination while respecting limited municipal capacity.

TOWN-WIDE INITIATIVES (updated 12/22/25)

*EDA grant for Flood Models of the Lamoille River and the Cooper Brook. SLR International Incorporated recently concluded the modeling work and is finishing the analysis. Two presentations on the Lamoille River were held on December 3, 2025. A future presentation on the Cooper Brook will be held in early 2026.

*The Hardwick Plan – 2025 has been adopted and includes a Volunteer Amendment with four new local categories: Emergency Volunteer Mobilization, Emergency Communications, Emergency Shelter, and the Supply and Support Center. This local management plan provides guidance to each component of the community, including businesses, farms, and residences.

*The Emergency Response Supply Center is a sustainable and ready-to-go element of emergency response – with Hardwick Neighbor to Neighbor.

*The Town Flood Resilience Website pages at Hardwickvt.gov have been updated and have more information for the public.

*The Hardwick Unified Development Bylaws were updated in September 2024 and the Flood Hazard Area Overlay rules now match the requirements from the State of Vermont and FEMA and will be ready for the anticipated update to the Floodplain maps.

*The Hardwick Unified Development Bylaws have a proposed 2026 update which includes the addition of a River Corridor Overlay to further improve hazard mitigation funding matches and advance conversation around erosion-impacted properties.

*Six bridges will have engineering under way for permanent replacements/upgrades.

*Eleven damaged roads will have updated culverts by the end of 2026. Additional mitigation projects are ongoing on all roads in town.

*The expanded Emergency Alert notification system (TextMyGov) and VT Alert system have been implemented.

*High-water Mark Documentation Project documenting July 2023, December 2023, and July 2024 flood elevations across multiple neighborhoods to support public education, engineering calibration, and future mitigation design.

*Community Flood Education Series (Spring 2026) will focus on floodplain processes, insurance, mitigation options, and household-scale resilience strategies.

*Emergency Volunteer Training Series (Winter-Spring 2026) will be aligned with the Volunteer Amendment to the Hardwick Plan, including communications, supply center operations, and neighborhood-based response roles.

*Neighborhood-Based Resilience Coordination piloted through Granite Street Neighbors and extended to other impacted areas to strengthen communication, preparedness, and recovery capacity.

*Historic Flood Documentation and Archival Coordination has occurred in partnership with the Hardwick Historical Society to support public understanding of long-term flood patterns and risk.

*Coordinated sequencing of buyouts, infrastructure upgrades, and floodplain restoration has been designed to avoid isolated investments and maximize cumulative risk reduction.

*A watershed alert system is under construction and will be ready for implementation by 2027.

Neighborhood priorities are sequenced based on flood impact severity, readiness of property owners, availability of matching funds, and the Town’s capacity to advance projects responsibly and effectively.