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View ProfilesPublished August 23, 2023 at 10:00 a.m.
Update, August 23, 2023: The new bridge opened to traffic on this date.
Floodwaters that swamped homes and businesses in central Vermont last month also wrecked a Marshfield bridge that was the only link connecting Onion River Campground — an offbeat seasonal camp tucked away on a dirt lane — with Route 2 and the rest of the world.
Short-term campers were able to pack up their sodden tents and s'more fixings and hightail it for their dry homes before the raging Winooski River toppled the bridge. But others had no place to go.
For a dozen or so people, Onion River Campground is the closest thing to home. These longer-term campers — representing a range of ages and personal circumstances — reside there for months at a time. Some have been priced out of the housing market, while others have fled abusive situations. For now, though, they are effectively stranded, cut off from the main road and outside services until a replacement bridge is completed.
For several days after the flood, residents trudged up a path behind the campground and down neighboring Nasmith Brook Road to get in and out — a journey that took about an hour. Since then, the town devised a crude, makeshift bypass from the severed Onion River Road, where the campground sits, to the parking lot of the neighboring Twinfield Union School. But that muddy track is at best a stopgap. The school board resolved to come up with an alternative route before classes start on August 28. Meanwhile, the Marshfield Selectboard hired a company to install a temporary bridge where the ruins of the last one still stand.
While other bridges in Marshfield were destroyed on July 10, the flood laid bare the particular vulnerabilities of those who had taken refuge at Onion River Campground, where life for many was already difficult. The campground, tucked between rolling hills and the Winooski River, has served increasingly as a haven from a dire housing market and personal crises. The campers and people stuck there in ramshackle RVs face conditions that are now even more precarious until the fate of the bridge is sorted out.
Following the storm, the campground was a mess. Campers worked around the clock to haul out water and clear pathways. "It's kind of hard to stay in the same traumatic area that you experienced all of these things," said Katie Bailey, a young camper who has shared an RV with her boyfriend at Onion River for the past two years.
The campground features a greenhouse, a garden and 26 campsites. Jaquelyn Rieke, founder of the chocolate company Nutty Steph's, since rebranded as Rabble-Rouser Chocolate & Craft, purchased the property in 2012 with the intention of "making it affordable to practice the arts and farming," she said. Campers are generally only allowed from May 1 to October 31. For the most part, the campground has hosted an assortment of outdoorsy types, traveling nurses and retired couples over the past decade.
But this season, more people with a tenuous hold on shelter joined the mix — an increase that Rieke suspects is tied to the end of the state's motel voucher program. "I've had regulations [in place] with the campground that unless you have another home, it's not probably a good fit," Rieke said. "But this year, we made more exceptions than ever. We had 10 to 12 campers that were here because they had nowhere else to go."
When flooding hit the campground — damaging the plumbing, electricity and water systems and inundating part of the land — some short-term campers left. Now, roughly 12 people remain.
They've retreated to a grassy knoll near the Winooski River that was just high enough to escape the flooding. A semicircle of weather-beaten campers rings the central lawn, where a local food bank has set up a tent to provide food to the residents.
Rieke said she didn't intend to bring in so many people with nowhere else to stay. "I wouldn't say it's a conscious choice or that I even have the capacity," Rieke said. "But it's just something that over the past three years I've eased into."
Bailey, who is a student at the Community College of Vermont, said the $650 monthly fee that she and her boyfriend pay for an RV parking spot is the most they can manage. "We're trying to find a little spot of our own, but in the meantime, this is an affordable place to live," she said. After the flood, Bailey said, she has felt isolated, without access to the same resources offered to flood victims in other parts of Marshfield. "It kind of feels like we've been brushed aside," she said.
Permanent residents in homes on Onion River Road voiced similar frustrations.
But the uncertain housing situation at the campground has caused some Twinfield Union School Board members to raise security concerns over allowing campers to use school property as a provisional throughway once school begins on August 28, if the temporary bridge is not finished.
Debate surrounding how to handle the campers took up much of the school board meeting on August 8. The district's lawyer, Pietro Lynn, advised Caledonia Central Supervisory Union superintendent Mark Tucker not to allow road access once school starts, due to concerns of safety and liability.
Tucker questioned why anyone was still staying at the campground.
"In my mind, there's a difference between the permanent residents who can't just pick up and go somewhere else versus people who are in tents on the campground or RVs," the superintendent said. "Those are the people who should not be on the campground property."
Sara Cain, a school board member, disagreed. "If they live there, they are residents," she said. "Shouldn't they be treated with the same respect and trust that the residents are?"
Some campers say they are unable to leave, especially with a bumpy road as the only way out. Tammy Bernier arrived at the campground in July, just weeks before the flood, to escape what she said was an abusive living situation. When asked whether she would remain in her RV if the makeshift road closed, she replied: "We have no choice. We have no home."
Bernier worries about how she could be reached in the event of a medical emergency if the road closes. "I have a heart condition, asthma, diabetes and sleep apnea," she said. "I have a lot going on."
The town already has made progress building a temporary bridge, reducing the likelihood that an alternative route would be needed before school starts. On August 8, the Marshfield Selectboard accepted a bid from a contractor to assemble a temporary bridge by the first day of school. Just a day later, construction began.
In the meantime, the school board has penned a memorandum of understanding that Rieke has signed off on: Campers can keep their cars parked on the road that leads to the school. They can access the makeshift road, but only before 7 a.m. or after 5 p.m. on Monday through Friday. Those with mobility issues can use the road as needed.
Those steps amount to potential relief for the campers. Further, the local food pantry started daily trips to the campground. That has been a boost for people such as Bailey, who was picking up food at the pop-up pantry on a recent day.
"These people here, they really can't afford much," Bailey said, gesturing to the make-do village of RVs that surrounded her. "This is kind of what we have."
The original print version of this article was headlined "Marooned in Marshfield | The July flooding destroyed a bridge, stranding long-term campers at a private campsite"
Tags: News, Our Towns, Marshfield, Onion River Campground, 2023 flood
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