Annual Meeting

Registration- can be paid on-line via Credit Card, PayPal or Venmo. Registration for this event was closed  March 14, 2024 

• Registration for Current 2024 members=$40.00

• Registration for current students=$25.00

• Registration for Non-members= $70.00

Registration includes parking, breakfast, lunch deli buffet, and an all-day opportunity of networking and presentations. 

Website will be updated and a final Agenda will be sent to registrants

Consider becoming a Sponsor of the Annual Meeting. Find details on on Sponsorship page

The VAWS Annual Membership meeting will be held:

 March 29, 2024, 8:30 am -3:00 pm with networking and social 3:00-6:00pm

at The DoubleTree by Hilton; 870 Williston Rd, South Burlington, VT 05403   See MAP

All Day In-person Event  Focused on the theme of resiliency    To see Presenter Biographies, please click here.

• 8:30-9:30 am: Registration/Networking/Breakfast of pastries and fresh fruit, coffee and test your skills on Winter Bud ID

• 9:30-10:00 am: Opening Remarks/ Keynote speaker: Elizabeth (Liz) Thompson, coauthor of Wetland, Woodland, Wildland; a definitive guide to Vermont’s natural communities.  Resilience of Wetland Natural Communities. Liz Thompson will open the meeting with a call to inspired action. The inspiration comes from the beauty of wetlands, an understanding of the threats to them—climate change, human population, and biodiversity loss—and the incredible resilience of nature. A focus on bogs and fens will feed our inspiration.  

• 10:00-10:45 am: Shayne Jaquith (TNC) Process-Based Riverscape Restoration in the Clayplain Setting. 

The Nature Conservancy recently implemented a riverscape restoration project on their Hubbardton River Clayplain Preserve in West Haven, Vermont.  The restoration approach used a combination of low and high-tech process-based techniques to reconnect the ditched streams to surrounding floodplains and wetlands, and restart the dynamic river processes that create and maintain healthy riverscapes. Two years following the initial implementation, outcomes are beginning to emerge.

• Dr. Elizabeth Doran (UVM) Vermont’s Functioning Floodplain Initiative (FFI) Tool: Prioritizing floodplain Restoration and Conservation to Improve Ecohydrological River Corridor Function

The Vermont Functioning Floodplain Initiative (FFI) Tool is helping prioritize floodplain restoration and conservation projects, and will enable project tracking over time. This talk will introduce the three prioritization lenses of the tool with a focus on ongoing work to build the habitat-based ecological function lens which consists of both instream and floodplain habitat components. 

• 10:45-11:00 am: BREAK

• 11:00-11:30: Karina Dailey (VNRC) with Julie Butler (USFWS)-Wetlands Restoration through Dam Removal and River Reconnection- A Natural Based Approach to Community Resilience  This presentation will provide an overview of how VT dam removals can provide significant floodplain and wetland restoration opportunities by restoring natural hydrology, native vegetation, and natural sediment transport process, and increasing biodiversity and flood resilience.  Our presentation will provide specific examples of past dam removal designs that include wetlands restoration and provide detail into design objectives, including existing and proposed conditions, and final site outcomes and ongoing monitoring 

• 11:30 am- 12:30 ish: Deli Buffet Lunch of salads and sandwich fixings and Business Meeting, appointing two (2) new Members-at-Large

• 12:30-1:00 pm:Deicing Material Storage as a Point Source for Chloride Pollution Deicing Material (road salt) is important for road safety in Vermont. Its impacts to terrestrial and aquatic environments has been studied primarily in the context of road networks and parking lots where its impacts tend to be distributed and seasonal. However, little attention has been paid to deicing material storage facilities ('salt sheds') and the potential impact that they may have on adjacent water bodies. We will present the findings of multiple years of continuous chloride monitoring of a large-scale modern deicing material storage facility located in Shelburne, VT adjacent to a state-designated Class I wetland. We will also discuss findings related to soil and vegetation in proximity to the facility.  

• 1:00-1:30 pm: Army Corps of Engineers-Water of the US: Representatives of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers will discuss the latest Regulatory Program updates including the New England Wetland Functional Assessment, changes to jurisdiction under the Clean Water Act, and mitigation requirements.  Other program efficiencies, such as use of the Regulatory Request System (beta version now available at: https://rrs.usace.army.mil/rrs) and coordination under the Endangered Species Act, will also be discussed. 

• 1:30-1:45 pm: BREAK

•  1:45-2:00 pm: Spencer Ogden, Environmental Science major at UVM as well as the Vice President of UVM’s Birding Club. Research into potentially increasing birding access at the Dorset Marsh, a Class I Wetland in VT.  This presentation will provide the results of the semester long project.

• 2:00-2:30 pm:  Winter Bud ID Answer reveal ....drumroll

• 2:30-3:00 pm: Wetland Bingo

• 3:00 pm: Closing Remarks

• 3:30-6:00 pm: Happy Hour at the onsite atrium

Raffle items will include a $150.00 gift certificate to Lenny's for a new pair of wetland boots! Rumor is we will have some syrup from a combination of sugar and RED maple sap, a piece of wetland themed pottery, artwork, handmade turkey tail whisk broom for field cleaning your car, books etc.