Interview: Rick Hopkins

            

Interview by Griffin Menzies of Richard Hopkins

           I was lucky enough to interview Richard Hopkins who works for the state of Vermont as an Environmental Analyst in the Ecosystem Restoration sector. For many years he has been working in Waterbury Vermont, but their office building was flooded during Irene and they are now temporarily located in the VSAC building in Winooski. I choose to interview Mr. Hopkins because he works in the Ecosystem Restoration sector of government, and has also worked near Moretown for several decades.

             Throughout our discussion he emphasized that rivers and streams are dynamic systems, but can be predictable to some extent. We need to use this knowledge in order to manage our rivers and streams as best we know how, so that we reduce our impact on them. As well as, during a storm event like Irene, we will be more prepared for how the river will behave and what damages it could have. Therefore, we talked about the process of rebuilding infrastructure when a bridge like the one in Moretown become non-navigable. The immediate response is to rebuild them however we can to restore the network of roads that our society is so dependent on. But how does this benefit us in the long run? Have we solved the problem? As we discussed the topic we both agreed that immediate response and construction is necessary, but we should learn from our mistakes and re-design accordingly. Although this is ideal, it is unlikely that we will see a replacement bridge in Moretown due to how expensive it would be to replace even a small bridge.

            One surprise to me was the impacts of the supposed restoration projects that occurred last fall. Mr. Hopkins talked about how people were going into rivers and removing massive amounts of gravel and sediments creating major sink wholes greatly disturbing the hydraulics of the river. He also was concerned about excessive amounts of stream bank restoration that occurred last fall. He emphasized that storm events are natural processes and just because a stream bank existed there prior to Irene doesn't mean that there should be one there now. This ties in with the concept that streams and rivers are dynamic systems and we don't know where the equilibrium point will be for a couple years after such a disturbance like Irene. For example, during storm events this spring the water has been significantly more turgid than years past due to the increase in sediments from Irene.

http://www.vtwaterquality.org/contacts.htm