PUTNEY — On Tuesday, July 10, at 7 p.m., at the Putney Fire House, a public hearing will be held to consider regulating development in the Sacketts Brook and East Putney Brook river corridors.
According to a news release, the state has designated these corridors as hazardous areas where significant erosion and channel shifts are likely to occur. The regulations also call for 50-foot setbacks from the tops of banks for certain smaller streams.
Since 1985, Putney has followed Federal Emergency Management Agency regulations for areas which FEMA mapped as in danger of inundation during a 100-year flood.
These FEMA regulations have been merged with new River Corridor regulations in the proposed “Town of Putney Flood and Fluvial Erosion Hazard Regulations.”
Phillip Bannister, chair of the Putney Planning Commission that developed the proposed regulations during the past year, will be at the hearing. He will be joined by John Broker-Campbell, flood plain manager at the Vermont Agency of Natural Resources, and Alyssa Sabetto of the Windham Regional Commission, who helped draft the regulations, to review the proposed regulations and answer questions.
All Putney residents are encouraged to attend the hearing. Many costs associated with erosion damage along river corridors and with inundation damage during severe flooding are borne by the entire town. By adopting the proposed regulations, Putney will qualify to receive additional funds from the state to help pay for repairs following a nationally-declared flood disaster.
The Putney Conservation Commission says it strongly supports the adoption of the proposed regulation.