BURLINGTON, Vt. (WCAX) – Last summer’s flooding affected many parts of the Green Mountains, with some losing their homes and others their crops. Burlington’s Intervale was one of the areas in Chittenden County particularly hard hit. Farmers there say the past 11 months have been a challenge, but they’re relieved to get back on their feet.
As the one-year anniversary of last July’s flooding approaches, many farmers in the Intervale are still recovering.
“That was pretty daunting and exhausting,” said Eric Seitz with Pitchfork Farm.
“We had about a month of just kind of a roller coaster ride emotionally,” said Hilary Martin, so owner of the Digger’s Mirth Collective.
Martin says like many others, they lost all of their crops last summer, ringing in between $250,000 and $300,000 lost. With help from the state, nonprofits, and the agriculture community, they were able to bounce back. “We were able to replant and we kind of gave it a window to wait for the soil to dry out to do some testing of the soils and to just kind of like regroup in a lot of different ways. But we replanted and had an incredible fall and had a great harvest,” she said.
As their fields are currently overflowing with cabbages and lettuce, Martin said the catastrophe helped her prepare for whatever natural disasters the future has in store. “We are in a floodplain and really just kind of coming to terms with the current moment and the future with increased risk of flooding with climate change,” she said.
Seitz says like many, last summer’s floods caught him off guard, but he says Tropical Storm Irene in 2011 taught them a lesson. “We’ve been tailoring it to cope with flooding, just knowing that it’s gonna happen again, and it certainly did last year,” he said. “On one hand, it’s a risk, but on the other hand, when it’s not flooding, it’s the best, best soil by far to grow crops.”
Despite the difficulties, it’s a risk he and others are willing to take.
Those farmers still in need of flood recovery help are urged to call 211.