DEC dam safety chief outlines staffing, post‑flood repairs and $80–90 million Waterbury spillway project

Ben Green, section chief of the Dam Safety Program in the Vermont Department of Environmental Conservation, briefed the Natural Resources & Energy committee on the state’s dam inventory, recent storm damage, staffing increases and several large projects, including a planned reconstruction of the Waterbury Dam spillway.

The briefing is significant because more frequent high water events have increased demands on dam infrastructure and emergency planning; the committee discussed resources, inventories and regulatory work needed to reduce public safety and infrastructure risk.

Green said DEC regulates non‑hydropower, non‑federal dams in Vermont and currently staffs five people in the dam safety unit; the agency has four new positions authorized under recent legislation that will bring staffing to nine once filled. He described the program’s responsibilities as dam regulation and ownership and said Vermont was the first state to enact a dam safety law (following the 1936 New England failures cited during his…