50 Vermont licensed designers, state regional engineers, and regulators met at the Cote Recreational Field in Starksboro, Vermont on September 4 to talk about soil, hydrology, and wetlands and to get some hands on training.
Layered Landscapes, a half-day soils training geared specifically for Vermont septic designers, was underway.
Bruce Douglas, the program manager, and Spencer Harris, local septic designer, gave an introduction to the site, the history, and the test pits. Bruce reviewed terminology and talked about the wastewater permit program.
Kyle Madesh from the Vermont River Corridor Program talked about rivers and siting concerns and new VT regulations. “Give the river some room to deposit and erode,” Mahesh explained.
Zapata Courage, regional wetland specialist, talked about wetland delineation, wetland buffers, and involvement with the Wetlands Team early in the design phase. “Wetlands maps are notoriously inaccurate,” Courage repeated. The Wetland program processes over 1,000 projects per year. A new online portal allows designers to see where wetlands reviews have been made and enter in new project requests.
From 9:30 until 11:30 folks divided into groups of eight and cycled through six test pits spread out around the property. Pits had been dug by a local excavating contractor and evaluated by six volunteer soils experts the previous day. Those six volunteers manned their pits throughout the field exercise, giving guidance and taking note of the discussions.
Afterward, everyone met back at the recreation field pavilion and all six pits were reviewed and discussed with the six volunteer designers leading those discussions. The group was very engaged and related discussions were plenty. The group disbanded shortly before 1:00 pm, agreeing that more field training events should be held in the future.
Participants holding a professional license were granted four TCHs (Training Credit Hours).
