Come hear from CRVTU Vice President Charles Soucy about their chapter’s newly awarded TU Embrace A Stream grant to fund this work and ways that you can help support this project. Charles will share his chapter’s experience and offer tips for applying to the grant and working with TU National Staff on a local cold-water conservation project.

Utley Brook is high quality wild brook trout habitat that begins high in the southern Green Mountains and flows through the towns of Wallingford, Mt Tabor, Weston, Peru, and Landgrove before joining the West River in Londonderry. Like many headwater streams in Vermont, the land around Utley Brook was once cleared for farming all the way to the banks of the brook and many sections remain that way today. Lacking theroot structure of trees and bushes to stabilize its banks, portions of Utley Brook’s banks and floodplain area eroding away. With extreme flooding events becoming more common, the habitat in Utley Brook that supports a robust fish population is at risk of severe degradation.

The Connecticut River Valley Chapter of Trout Unlimited #450 (CRVTU) is working with TU National Staff to replant a riparian buffer along the banks of Utley Brook and restore the active floodplain in Landgrove.