State dam-safety chief outlines $500,000 annual capital request and $89 million Waterbury Dam rehab

Ben Green, section chief of the Dam Safety Program at the Vermont Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC), told the Senate Committee on Institutions on April 4 that the agency is seeking $500,000 in capital construction funding for each of fiscal years 2026 and 2027 to support repairs and assessments of state-owned dams.

The request is part of a broader capital plan that uses leftover fiscal year 2023 funds and additional fiscal 2026–27 requests to move dams through a multi-step process of comprehensive assessment, design, permitting and construction. "We regulate about a thousand dams, statewide," Green said, and the DEC directly owns 14 dams that it manages for flood control and public safety.

Why it matters: the presentation highlighted a large, state-federal rehabilitation project at Waterbury Dam that officials say is necessary to restore the facility’s full flood-control function and reduce long-term risks to downstream communities and infrastructure.

Green told the committee that routine gate testing in February revealed jammed floodgates and concrete deterioration at Waterbury Dam. He said structural work is required to restore full functionality and that the current combined federal-state cost estimate for the Waterbury project is about $89,000,000. "The current estimate to do this project to basically restore full,…