Regional planners describe $1,000,000 CDBG planning grant and brownfields work for Johnson flood recovery

Tash Wallace of the Lamoille County Planning Commission told the Johnson select board that LCPC received "1000000 dollar planning grant through CDBG disaster recovery to work with communities on flood restoration and mitigation planning." She said the grant covers mitigation planning, critical facilities planning and community adaptation work, and that Johnson appears twice in project listings for the Lamoille and Guyon rivers.

Wallace outlined how the program pairs buyout assistance with brownfields assessment funding: community buyouts will rely on assessment to determine contamination, and LCPC has assessment funds but not guaranteed cleanup funds. "The brownfields will pay for assessment. We don't have cleanup funds, but possibly pay for cleanup funds," she said, and added that assessments are the essential first step before reuse planning. Board members asked whether buyout properties would transfer liability and how cleanup responsibilities would be allocated; Wallace said ownership typically passes to the municipality after buyout and that cleanup needs depend on the findings and intended reuse.

The presentation flagged coordination needs across agencies (ANR, FEMA) and recommended a joint trusteesselect-board meeting and early public outreach during planning. Wallace said the grant is competitive and that LCPC aimed to direct as much funding as possible to the county. The board thanked LCPC and asked staff to continue coordination on buyouts, brownfields assessments and project prioritization.