Summer 2024 Update
Your Fayston Conservation Commission (FCC) has been working steadily to manage and maintain our town’s natural resources since 2008. This newsletter is the first of a seasonal communication we plan to deliver to keep you informed of our current progress and upcoming initiatives.
The Commission has six members, one open seat, and one open alternate seat. Current commissioners include Brian Litmans (co-chair), Andrea Henderson (co-chair), Amy Dalton, Patty Pasley, Woody Dugan, and Peter Colgan. Corrie Miller retired from the team this past spring after serving for six years on the FCC; we thank her deeply for her conservation leadership and caring of Fayston’s natural spaces.
The projects we are actively engaged in on your behalf include the following:
Boyce Hill Town Forest management and maintenance: Work underway includes mowing of trails, a trailhead sign, a pet waste bag dispenser, and establishing a Friends of Boyce Hill Committee.
Chase Brook Town Forest management and maintenance: We’ve been regularly weed whacking, pulling and smothering knotweed, and keeping the parking lot and barn trash-free for three years now – in partnership with the stewardMRV program. We’ve found knotweed working its way closer to the Chase Brook, so we’re pulling what we find and hope to keep it from amassing on the stream banks.
The Town Forest Management Plan for this site is overdue for its required update. We’ve been meeting with conservation experts and consultants to determine next steps for a new plan.
Invasives/Japanese Knotweed control: The FCC has partnered closely with the Waitsfield and Warren Conservation Commissions on a tri-town effort to educate our communities about the impacts of knotweed and to organize work crews (and goats) to help manage its spread. While knotweed has powerful medicinal qualities, it’s classified as one of the world’s worst invasive species as it threatens biodiversity, destroys native plant habitats, and erodes river and stream banks. Every Wednesday throughout the summer, FCC is working with UVM interns to cut back and/or dig/pull knotweed from sites along our brooks and roadsides. We invite community volunteers to join knotweed work sessions every Wednesday from 4-6p. Watch for announcements in Front Porch Forum about weekly work sessions or email [email protected] if you’d like to be added to our knotweed volunteer list.
The tri-town invasives team is fundraising to help support the work of our interns and goats as well as the development of a strategic plan for managing invasives in the Valley (see May 12 article in The Valley Reporter). If you’d like to help weed out invasives with a tax-deductible contribution, visit www.friendsofthemadriver.org and specify “INVASIVES” in the memo/notes when making your donation. Our trails, streams, rivers, meadows, and forests thank you in advance!
Conservation & Recreation Visioning: The CRV process is a community-wide effort to create a vision for balancing ecological integrity with recreation and trails across the Valley. The FCC has a representative on the CRV Committee that is currently drafting a “desired conditions” statement as outlined in this article in The Valley Reporter on June 6. You can learn more about the CRV process here.
MRV Bear Initiative: An FCC representative also sits on the MRV Bear Initiative committee, which develops resources for educating residents and visitors on how to safely co-exists with our black bear population. These resources, including a free short-term rental resource Toolkit about keeping bears wild, are available here on the Chamber of Commerce’s Mad River Valley website.
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Our team operates with the philosophy that small acts of community add up to large ones, and we invite all interested neighbors to join us. If you’d like to be a Fayston Conservation Commissioner or volunteer to support our activities, please contact us at [email protected].
You can learn more about the Commission on our Fayston Town webpage.