Vermont restoration group presents Colli Pond dam removal as a $1 million flood‑reduction and habitat restoration project

Karina Daley, restoration ecologist with the Vermont Natural Resources Council, told the Natural Resources & Energy committee that an engineered removal of the earthen Colli Pond dam in Shrewsbury would reconnect a headwater wetland, improve fish passage and reduce flood risk for nearby homes. Daley said preliminary engineering shows the removal would lower the 100‑year flood elevation for about 10 homes by roughly 2 feet and that the construction cost is “approximately a million dollars.”

Daley, who showed drone footage and before‑and‑after renderings, said the site is a headwater wetland that had been ‘‘suffocated full of water’’ by the pond. She said removing the dam will restore groundwater seep and surface flow to the stream, allow brook trout passage and reconnect tributary channels that had been buried under the pond. Daley said the project is being advanced with FEMA support but will be funded by a mix of federal, state and local sources: ‘‘It’s piecemeal. It’s a puzzle...there’s an art to it,’’ she said, describing three common funding buckets — fish passage grants (for example, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service or state fish and wildlife funding), flood‑resilience funding (including FEMA), and water‑quality funding.

Daley told the committee that the removal is a more economical investment than repeated home buyouts after floods: ‘‘Changing the flood elevation by 2 feet for 10 homes is a much better investment economically than buying out 2.’’ She said projects like the Colli Pond removal typically require multiple phases of fundraising and design and that most projects take roughly three years, although some larger restorations can take up to 10 years.

Committee members asked about how funding matches are met. Daley said FEMA frequently requires a 25 percent local match and that obtaining that match is ‘‘often the hardest’’ part of advancing a FEMA‑supported project. She also explained that some projects meet multiple funding priorities — fish passage, flood resilience and water quality — which can allow implementers to combine sources.

Daley closed by urging watershed‑scale thinking: ‘‘We really need to think of reconnecting these systems and restoring function, natural function, to our rivers,’’ she said. The presentation ended with a short question period and the project remains in planning; no committee action or vote was recorded in the transcript.

The Colli Pond example was presented as part of a larger overview of freshwater restoration approaches and funding strategies; Daley identified the Dog River and Mill River work as other examples where nonprofit and federal funds have been used to plan or design restorations.