A river buffer is “a vegetated area near a stream, usually forested, which helps shade and partially protect the stream from the impact of adjacent land uses”. Buffers are important in any river community, and Montpelier is no exception. Historically, buffers have been completely destroyed and neglected. We now understand the importance of these areas, but the damage of history is hard to recover from. Buffers and healthy rivers go hand in hand. A strong buffer will filter out pollution from runoff, shade the water for aquatic organism’s habitats, and provide an important riverside ecosystem for land organisms. Their role is crucial to the health of a river. We see very few healthy buffers in Montpelier. Downtown there is often little to no separation between pavement and river, allowing all sorts of polluted runoff to enter the rivers. This is a result of the neglect often observed in riverside communities.
The issue of insufficient buffers is a hard problem to solve, but there are some solutions and improvements that can be made. One improvement could be infrastructure such as rain gardens, bioswales, and permeable pavement. These clean runoff before they enter the river. Say it rains–the water flows over parking lots and directly into the river, picking up pollutants along the way. With the new infrastructure, this water would instead flow into a rain garden, which will clean pollutants from the water.
Another piece is protecting the present buffers through zoning laws. These are already in place in most places to some extent. There is no replacement for a natural, healthy, strong riparian buffer. Keeping the natural buffers we have now is essential to river health. The most impactful places for buffers are near roads, farms, and other high runoff areas.
Buffers are a wonderful part of riverside ecosystems and are of great value to any community. They need to be protected and cherished. A river is nothing without its buffers.
Sam Brondyke is a senior at Montpelier High School. As a sophomore, he was a student in Face the River, a hands-on class kickstarted by Vermont River Conservancy in which students get their boots muddy studying the abiotic, biotic, and cultural aspects of rivers. Sam spent fall 2024 doing a Community Based Learning internship with Vermont River Conservancy – investigating dams with an expert engineer, getting out on-the-ground with our Stewardship Manager, and writing a series of blogs to share reflections on how his hometown Montpelier community relates to local rivers.