HARDWICK – In a small town like Hardwick, it’s easy to put off big decisions.
Projects are expensive. The timing never feels quite right. When something is still working, at least most of the time, it can be hard to justify making a change.
Concern about the cost of projects is real. Affordability matters in Hardwick, and people are feeling it. Every investment the town makes has to be weighed carefully.
But waiting has a cost.
In Hardwick, the fire station is one of the clearest examples.
It sits at the meeting point of the Lamoille River and Cooper Brook, in a location that has flooded repeatedly over decades. This isn’t theoretical. It’s something we’ve seen recently, both in 2023 and 2024.
When flooding happens at that site, the impacts are immediate. Emergency vehicles have to be moved or protected. Access can become limited. The people we rely on during an emergency are working around the very conditions they are trying to respond to.
After each event, there are repairs. Cleaning. Assessment. Getting the building back into service. That takes time and money, but more importantly, it takes focus away from what the Hardwick Fire Department is there to do.
In many cases, those repairs have been supported by insurance or FEMA funding. That has helped. But those sources are not infinite, and they won’t always be there in the same way.
And then, for a while, things return to normal.
Until they don’t.
The cycle of impact, repair, recovery, repeat, is what “doing nothing” can look like in practice.
It doesn’t feel like inaction, because there is always work happening. But it is a way of accepting the same outcome, over and over again.
Over time, the question begins to shift.
It’s no longer just: Can we fix this again?
It becomes: What is it costing us to keep fixing it?
Those costs aren’t only financial, although those matter. They show up in the strain on a critical public safety service, the uncertainty during flood events and the growing complexity of maintaining a facility in a location we know is vulnerable.
They also show up in the same place residents are already feeling pressure: the overall cost of keeping the town running.
At the same time, communities like Hardwick are being offered opportunities to address risks like that in a more lasting way.
State and federal programs exist because repeated damage has proven to be more expensive than prevention. These funds can help reduce the burden on local taxpayers, but they don’t last forever.
Choosing not to act doesn’t avoid cost. It usually means paying later, with fewer resources and fewer options.
These are not simple decisions. They involve trade-offs, long timelines, and real investment. And they require public support, which takes time to build.
But the fire station conversation makes one thing clear: Doing nothing doesn’t mean nothing happens. It means the cycle continues.
The impacts don’t go away.
In a place like Hardwick, where we’ve seen what water can do, and where affordability matters, that’s a choice worth looking at.
Kristen Leahy is the Town of Hardwick zoning and floodplain administrator.
