HARDWICK – Flooding July 10 and 11 left East Hardwick’s Riverside Farm without the bridge that has reliably given Bruce Kaufman and Judy Jarvis access to their home and barn for 39 years. The flood lifted the bridge from its abutments and washed it away. Kaufman says the river has never been so high during those 39 years; not in the floods of 1995, 1998, 2011 or even last year.
He says he’s lost three acres of planting this year. It would have been $25,000 in crops.
That’s better than the $50,000 to $60,000 he lost in last year’s flood only because Kaufman’s experience then caused him to cut back his planting in the bottom lands along the Lamoille River this year. The flooded river took four acres of good river-bottom soil and cropland that can’t be replaced.
Kaufman said, “I can’t do it any longer,” explaining that he doesn’t plan to plant in land along the river anymore. He’ll continue to plant crops away from the river, he says, and maybe start to look for something else to do.
This bridge on Riverside Farm Lane in East Hardwick was lost from the rising Lamoille River during this year’s July 10 to July 11 flood.
Paul Fixx is editor of The Hardwick Gazette and lives in Hardwick.
