Shelley Kruszewski, AVCOG regional planner, left, and Catherine Mardosa, AVCOG community resilience coordinator, give a presentation April 1 about a project they are working on with Jay, Livermore and Livermore Falls to identify natural hazards and develop actions to address them. Pam Harnden/Livermore Falls Advertiser

LIVERMORE FALLS — Selectmen are looking for feedback from residents on the town’s vulnerabilities and will be handing out surveys as part of a partnership with the Androscoggin Valley Council of Governments.

The surveys will be included as part of the Community Resiliency Partnership and vulnerability assessment project underway in Jay, Livermore and Livermore Falls. The surveys will be made available at the April 29 town meeting.

In July selectmen charged Town Manager Carrie Castonguay to work with AVCOG. The partnership provides up to $50,000 grants for potential projects ranging from heat pump installation to environmental assessments to increasing the overall building envelope and window upgrades. The state funded program requires no matching funds, it was noted then.

“We worked with the towns of Livermore Falls, Jay and Livermore to apply for funding to be able to write vulnerability assessments so that each of the towns can be thinking about vulnerabilities to natural hazards and planning for them,” Shelley Kruszewski, AVCOG regional planner said in a meeting earlier this month.

Kruszewski said they want feedback to help shape the type of research and information being gathered.

“This project will work to identify vulnerable community members, infrastructure, natural areas and other assets, as well as potential natural hazards,” she noted. Then the assessments will report on potential impacts and associated risks of those natural hazards to those identified community members, infrastructure, natural areas and other assets. Then this information will be utilized to develop recommendations to address vulnerabilities and further prioritize action projects for implementation.”

Kruszewski said they expect to complete the report by early 2026.

“We’ll be having community meetings and outreach continuing through the winter of 2026,” she said. “Once the report is written AVCOG will then be helping each of the towns apply for funding to try to address some of the priorities that are identified.”

A town’s vulnerability can be measured in terms of hazards, sensitivity and adaptive capacity, according to Catherine Mardosa, AVCOG community resilience coordinator.

“It increases with increasing exposure to natural hazards,” Mardosa said. “It also increases the sensitivity to the impacts of changing conditions.”

People are more sensitive to temperature extremes in a building without sufficient cooling, Mardosa said.

“There’s social vulnerability, which refers to the factors which make a particular community or group more susceptible to the negative impacts of external stressors like disasters and amplify those impacts that can be due to poverty, age or lack of access to transportation,” she said.

Vulnerability can be reduced by increasing adaptive capacity (resiliency) which is the ability to cope and persist under changing conditions, Mardosa said.

“This assessment we will look at the extent that impacts may occur and help identify areas that are potentially more susceptible or more challenging to recover from in the event of a disaster,” she said.

Prioritizing resources to better plan evacuation and emergency responses, building a stronger economy and improving public health are goals for the assessment.

“We also hope that it will lead to a deepened understanding of our common concerns, of what matters most to the community, and possible connections between projects that are happening, so that we can put our efforts towards more preparedness,” Mardosa added.

Objectives, examples

According to information provided, objectives include:

• Identifying potential natural hazards

• Identifying vulnerable community members, infrastructure, natural areas and other assets

Examples include roads, bridges, buildings, electricity and water/ sewage treatment facilities, homes, natural    areas that contribute to quality of life and recreation opportunities, natural areas that provide services, water bodies, agricultural land, locations with economic value, etc.

• Engaging community members, especially the vulnerable to better understand potential impacts

• Reporting on the potential impacts and associated risk of identified natural hazards to the identified community members, infrastructure, natural areas and other assets

• Developing actionable recommendations to address vulnerabilities and further prioritize action

Examples of natural hazards shared are:

• Flooding (river and flash flooding)

• Extreme storms

• Drought

• Wildfire

• Extreme temperatures

• Earthquakes

• Hailstorms

• Landslides

• Tornadoes

• Windstorms

Impacts

Impacts from natural hazards include:

• Strain on public services and budgets due to extreme events

• Damage to infrastructure, increased costs and decreased property value

• Economic impacts to businesses, challenges to the sustainability and resilience of local businesses and tourism, challenges to agriculture and food production

• Public health impacts: tick born illnesses, extreme temperatures, health challenges from extreme storms, impacts to drinking water

• Challenges to recreation [access and impacts to fish populations

• Erosion, changes to the natural environment including loss of species and habitats, more invasive species and shifting agricultural and forest conditions

Feedback

“We are looking for feedback from you,” Kruszewski said. As you think about these hazards and their impacts, what is most important for us to be researching and collecting data on, what’s most affecting your community, she asked.

“As we get started on this project we need to pull together all the existing data that we can find on infrastructure, assets and known hazards, but we’re also going to be gathering feedback from the community about their priorities and about locations that might not be on the radar currently that you want to protect,” Mardosa explained. “This assessment needs the input of the entire community. We want to reach out to people that are not typically involved in decision making processes. We’ll be gathering feedback by going to meetings like this. that happen throughout the town. We’ll also be interviewing, and consulting with public works staff, state agencies as well as members of these vulnerable communities.”

In addition to having paper surveys and the QR code at the April 29 town meeting, it will be distributed at the town office, community events and meeting places, Mardosa shared.

“Soon we’re going to be scheduling a sounding board meeting,” she said. “It sounded like there are a lot of people in this community that really want to get more involved, and we would love to have them come and hear about what their priorities are for this assessment.”

An implementation task force will work on enacting priorities the community comes up with, Mardosa noted.

“By the end of the fall we’ll have a community meeting for everybody to have their voice be heard about the draft and any feedback they want to give us about the direction that we take,” she said.

Responses

Kruszewski then asked for responses to several questions she presented.

In regards to what hazards and/or impacts to focus on, resident Ann Schwab mentioned excessive heat and cold.

Flooding was mentioned by Selectman Jim Long. He also said the river area is important with the wastewater treatment facility so close to it.

Chair William Kenniston said high winds were an issue.

A warming center, a generator for the fire station, new heating and cooling system and new windows at the town office, loss of parking spaces along Main Street were other areas of concern noted.

Regarding a question about who might be most vulnerable to natural hazards, Schwab suggested the MaineHealth Livermore Falls Medical Arts Center could provide some information, would know who to talk to.

Area churches, food pantries, libraries and Western Maine Transportation Services were other entities to touch base with, it was noted.

When asked about deliverables the assessment will accomplish, Tim Schwab said it will be determined by what is found. “We don’t know what we don’t know,” he stressed.

“You could just give us everything we want,” Selectman Bruce Peary said.

There are dispersed population pockets that could affect what is being looked for, Ann Schwab stated. “The needs of East Livermore might be different than the needs of people in town, than people who live on Moose Hill,” she noted.

Arin Quintel asked if the town could opt out of the program.

That was talked about when the board approved joining the partnership, Kenniston replied. It is not binding, he added.

For more information about survey access call the Livermore Falls Town Office 207-897-3321.

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