12/22/2025 - Bolton, Vt. –  VEDA helps Bolton Valley Community Water and Sewer repair its faulty and wasteful water system.

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Bolton, Vt. – Visitors at Bolton Valley Resort and hundreds of year-round residents who live along the Bolton Valley Access Road have easy access to some of the best outdoor recreation Vermont has to offer. But they didn’t always have access to clean, plentiful drinking water.

For years, the water system serving the mountain was in desperate need of repair. Multiple, unidentified leaks in the distribution system wasted millions of gallons of water. Those leaks also compromised wells by forcing them to work overtime.

In 2017, the area’s drinking water was “pretty much in a crisis,” said Bolton Valley Resort CEO Lindsay DesLauriers.

So, the privately-owned Bolton Valley Community Water and Sewer (BVCWS) incorporated, DesLauriers was named manager, and BVCWS took ownership of the water and wastewater facilities.

Then the hard work began. The team got an emergency permit to install a new well and implemented new leak detection initiatives.

“We ultimately had to find what we now call ‘The Mother Leak,” she said.

By Summer 2018, they found it and fixed it.

“It was like, all of a sudden it went whoop, and the reservoir filled,” she said. “The initial, sort of SOS and most critical time period that first year, was done with support of the Drinking Water Revolving Loan Fund.”

The Drinking Water Revolving Loan Fund is run by the Vermont Department of Environmental Conservation and administered by VEDA. The fund makes available low-cost financing for drinking water system planning and design work, as well as construction.

“Revolving loan funds have really made all of this possible. We are a tiny community with a lot of repair work and a very small rate base. Our goal throughout has been to systematically address the most critical needs methodically and with real purpose,” she said.

While continuing to engage in aggressive leak detection and repair, they’ve been upgrading pumps and other components of the water system. They also had to build a new roof over the reservoir after the old one collapsed. It’s work that has paid off.

“For many years now, we have been really stable,” DesLauriers said. “To me, that is probably one of the achievements I’m most proud of in my life. It is getting that water system under control.”

BVCWS recently closed on its largest state-funded loan to date to make comprehensive upgrades to the drinking water system and modernize its aging wastewater system. DesLauriers said improving both will allow the village to continue to grow and support economic development, something that will benefit the region for generations to come.

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