MONDAY EDITION
ADDISON COUNTY
INDEPENDENT
Vol. 28 No. 31
Middlebury, Vermont
Monday, November 7, 2016
32 Pages
$1.00
Change to forest rules generates discussion
VOTE!
• Election Day will finally arrive on Tuesday. See who’s on the ballot in our story on Page 2, check out candidate Q&As on addisonindependent. com, and cast your ballot.
Locals differ on how to promote water quality By GAEN MURPHREE ADDISON COUNTY — Although only about half of Addison County is forested, its mountains and the green forests that give them their name hold an even an larger place in many residents’ hearts. Small wonder then, that even though Vermont Department of Forests, Parks and Recreation Forester Gary Sabourin described revised logging Acceptable Management Practices designed to protect Lake Champlain water quality as “tweaks” and “clarifications” (see related story), local responses were impassioned. Bill Sayre, co-owner of Bristol’s A. Johnson Company, pointed to what he called the industry’s strong commitment to water quality over the near 30 years that AMPs have been in effect. “We felt in general they (AMPs) were working well, and they were working better every year. You have a strong commitment from the industry to finding ways to harvest the forest and manage the land and at the same time protect water quality,” said (See Logging, Page 22)
Ferrisburgh man killed in crash
• A 22-year-old in a small car was hit by a tractor-trailer on Route 7 in Charlotte. See story on Page 2.
Football squads play in semis
• The Tigers were at Hartford in D-I, and in D-III OV visited Woodstock as both sought finals berths. See Page 16.
Audubon to laud Ripton’s Warren King Rock on film is wrapping up
• The Academy Awardwinning film “Woodstock” will screen at THT this week. See Arts Beat on Page 10.
WORKERS install new flooring in the Mount Abraham Union High School gymnasium last Friday morning. The flooring project faced a setback last week and now won’t be completed until early December.
Independent photo/Trent Campbell
Gym floor setback hits Mt. Abe Teachers, officials scramble
By ANDY KIRKALDY BRISTOL — Mount Abraham Union High School Athletic Director Devin Wendl summed up in a Thursday email the latest news about the school’s gym floor project: “OUCH.” On Wednesday afternoon, the contracting firm installing the new floor and fixing the water leaks that ruined
the old gym flooring informed Mount Abe administrators that the company had to send workers to deal with an emergency at the University of New Hampshire. Earlier last week, the company had told Wendl the project would be done on Nov. 25. Suddenly the target date was Dec. 12 — after the start of the winter basketball season and long after practices are set to begin on Nov. 28. “Originally it sounds like we basically had a second (See Gym floor, Page 15)
By JOHN FLOWERS RIPTON — Longtime Otter Creek Audubon Society (OCAS) member Warren King helped establish the group’s “Silver Feather Award” in 1995, bestowed each year to a county resident exhibiting “notable devotion, dedication, and untiring effort on behalf of the preservation and appreciation of the birds, other wildlife and natural communities of Addison County.” King has fit that definition to a ‘T,’ but has been more than content to see the Silver Feather wing its way to such local environmental luminaries as Steve Parren, director of the Vermont Fish & Wildlife Depart(See Silver Feather, Page 14)