Students connect evidence of pollution in the McNeil Generating Station/Riverside Ave. neighborhood.

Students from Middlebury College and The University of Vermont, together with professors from their respective institutions collaborated with Judy Dow on a project to identify the scale of a decades-long environmental juggernaut impacting the surrounding neighborhoods and roadways adjacent to the McNeil Generating Plant.

In their draft report titled: The Intervale: Biomass, Public Health and Environmental Justice, Environmental Studies Community-Engaged Practicum, Middlebury College, May 20, 2025, the students came to the inevitable conclusion that the area is long-overdue for air-quality monitoring and stringent rules to safeguard against the potential health inequity impacting residents and the crumbling infrastructure of Riverside Avenue and its surrounding topography.

The students described the purpose of their work as follows, “to explore the potential risks to human health and well-being for the Intervale community, interviewed stakeholders, gathered air quality data, researched the potential polluting impacts of the McNeil Generating Station and looked into a case study from Springfield, Massachusetts to learn from their successes. They stated that their “work aimed to deepen the understanding of the topic of biomass and establish a case for future human health data acquisition for the communities directly around the McNeil Generating Station, in addition to assess[ing] the efficacy of continuing to burn biomass from the standpoint of public and planetary health.”

In the reports’ conclusion the students highlighted the need to installing PurpleAir sensors, in part informed by the success of the Springfield’s Air Quality Monitoring Project. They cautioned for the need to partner with a local academic institutions to support calibration and data validation for overall integrity of the monitoring network.

The policy recommendations were chosen because they have the capacity to be easily utilized by citizens of the area with access to funding potential through the involvement of state and national government.

Read the full report.