Thanks to heavy damages suffered in July’s flooding, the city of Barre’s finances are completely up in the air. How much so? City Council has agreed to postpone Town Meeting Day elections until May because, per the Times Argus, “they didn’t have enough good information to comfortably adopt a budget to present to voters on the first Tuesday in March.”

Ouch. Fair to say that the last thing the city needs right now is another piece of big, bad, expensive news.

And here it is! The Barre City Wastewater Treatment Facility and its management have been found to be grossly inadequate. An agreement with the state lists 18 violations in 2020 and 2021 that depict the plant as pretty much a complete disaster. It’s officially called an “Assurance of Discontinuance,” meaning the city promises to cut it the hell out. The full agreement, signed last week by Superior Court Judge Thomas Walsh, can be downloaded here.

You might be thinking that many of Vermont’s municipal wastewater systems are trash, so what makes Barre stand out in that crowd? Well, let me tell you.

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