I Saw It First

One of my earliest memories as a child was to be the first kid in the car to proclaim, "I saw it first!" No matter if we were coming from Georgia, Kansas or as close as Burlington's North End, the first of us to spy the waters of Lake Champlain on our way to my grandparent's house in South Hero would holler out those words.  I continued to play that game by myself in college, as a mother with my own children when my parents lived there and even today with Wayne at what is now my sister's home.

It's funny how a body of water can mean different things to different people. Wayne, who was born and raised in Bellows Falls, remembers the CT River as the place that he went fishing but would never dare eat the fish. His memories of the polluted river have persisted and even now while watching Vernon families swim below the dam, Wayne refuses to swim or fish in the CT.

I stopped at the town hall recently to ask Mr Arsenault, how many miles of Vernon are borderd by the CT, in typical Tim fashion he anserwerd, "all of them." Unlike some of the historically commercial and industrial areas of the valley, Vernon has never turned it's back to the river. Brattleboro built the canyon that is Main street with its tall buildings between its residents and the river; but when the Europeans arrived in Vernon, they took advantage of the rich soils deposited here by the water to farm and farms remain here still.

Over the decades, progress did manage to catch up with Vernon, a hydroelectric dam was constructed, and in 1972 the now closed Vermont Yankee came online using the CT as its source for cooling water. With progress came a fence that separated resident from river.  Like many others, it was VY and the river that brought us to Vernon. With jobs came housing, pavement and other development that devided up the land and met the needs of the people. 

At our Town Meeting last night it was clear that Vernon continues to grapple with moving forward post Vermont Yankee. We are at a crossroads trying to strike a balance between meeting our civic obligations  and retaining Vernon's rural heritage. What becomes of the parcel between Governor Hunt rd and the river will be determined over the next decade.  

Last night the town voted to set aside money for legal consultation for future industrial development and we voted to set aside additional funds for Farmland Conservation. My hope is that in genarations to come, families in Vernon will look to the river - I saw it first! -Norma Manning