NEWS RELEASE — Vermont Folklife Center
August 27, 2013
CONTACT
Bob Hooker
(802) 388-4964 or bhooker@vermontfolklifecenter.org
Join river scientists Mike Kline and Amy Sheldon for a brown bag “seminar” at noon on Thursday, September 5, at the Vermont Folklife Center, 88 Main Street, in Middlebury. Organized in conjunction with our current exhibition, “The Power of Water: Reflections on Rivers and Lessons from Irene,” Mike and Amy will each focus on strategies for avoiding post-flood impacts through river corridor and flood plain protection.
Mike Kline will set the stage by looking at the history of post-flood river management in Vermont and how past practice has increased hazards and our vulnerability. He will then transition to the ways that reliance on river management may be reduced over time with a commitment, at the local and state level, to reduce encroachments on streams, rivers, and floodplains.
Amy Sheldon will localize the discussion by focusing on her study of—and recommendations for—the Middlebury River basin and discuss how the residents of Ripton and East Middlebury are working with the river to reduce conflict, expense, and heartache over the long term.
Mike Kline has worked at the Vermont Department for Environmental Conservation for 25 years and helped begin the Department’s Rivers Program, which works to restore, manage, and protect rivers and floodplains. Mike holds a Masters Degree in River Ecology from the University of Colorado and is the Rivers Program Manager at the Department of Environmental Conservation’s Watershed Management Division.
In 2005 Amy Sheldon founded Landslide Natural Resource Planning where her emphasis has been on watershed assessment and conservation planning. The objective of her work is to link people to their landscapes through holistic, transparent, and inclusive planning processes that are based on sound science. Amy earned a B.A. in Economics from Middlebury College and an M.S. in Natural Resource Planning from the University of Vermont.
Vermonters are encountering difficult questions about sustainable community planning, river conservation and management, and flood mitigation. The Vermont Folklife Center seeks to use the “Power of Water” exhibit as a platform that will stimulate awareness and conversation around these questions. It is our hope that this will move us forward in our readiness to respond effectively to the changing world in which we live.