PODCAST · news
The Deeper Dig
by VTDigger
From Vermont's only member-supported digital news daily, VTDigger reporters go deep on key stories. Hosted by Sam Gale Rosen.
Episodes
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'It's hard out here'
For the past few years, Vermont has had the second highest per-capita rate of homelessness in the country. During the Covid-19 pandemic, the number of people counted as homeless more than doubled, and the numbers keep going up. Lots of people are trying to grasp: Why is this happening? Why have…
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A plan for what’s left of Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant
For decades, Vermont Yankee, a nuclear power plant in Vernon, was the largest producer of electricity for the state. The plant has been shut down since 2014, and the company that now owns it is in the process of deconstructing it. That company, NorthStar, has recently submitted a plan that...
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Edi Abeneto of Feeding Chittenden on fighting hunger and breaking down cultural barriers
Edi Abeneto is food shelf supervisor at Feeding Chittenden, a Burlington-based nonprofit that focuses on hunger relief and serves more than 12,000 people every year. Abeneto has worked at the organization for more than 17 years. He speaks six languages, and among other duties, he facilitates...
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How to raise emotionally intelligent kids
Managing big emotions is hard for adults, so what must it be like if you’re 3 feet tall and still in diapers? Anyone who’s been around kids knows how they can get overwhelmed by big emotional reactions. Those can run the gamut from despair to rage to laughing fits, sometimes within the same...
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The star-studded history of a small island in Lake Bomoseen
Neshobe Island is a small island located on the Castleton side of Lake Bomoseen. It has two houses, a barn and some surrounding woods, and that’s about it. In the 1920s and ‘30s, though, the island hosted a who’s who of celebrities and intellectuals most summers. These included Noël Coward,...
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Who is the University of Vermont for?
At the University of Vermont, the share of in-state students is dwindling, and it’s raising questions about the role and mission of the state’s flagship public university. VTDigger education reporter Peter D’Auria — with the help of data reporter Erin Petenko — has been looking at the enrollment...
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Synagogue sold — what happens when a historic house of worship becomes something else
Vermont’s oldest synagogue has been sold — and its new owner plans to turn it into a food hall and apartments. The nearly 140-year-old brick synagogue in Burlington’s Old North End served as an important center for the city’s Jewish community for decades. Now deteriorating physically, with its...
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‘It dominates anxiety’ — unpacking the process and impact of health insurance premium hikes
Earlier this month, the Green Mountain Care Board made a decision that would affect most people and companies that get their health care through the state’s health insurance marketplace. The board said that two companies that offer insurance through Vermont Health Connect would be able to…
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How flooding affects Vermont’s wildlife and ecosystems
Vermonters are still coming to terms with the devastating toll of this summer’s flooding, which inundated downtowns, destroyed homes and businesses, and caused two confirmed deaths. Considered from almost any angle, the impact of this extreme weather on the state has been massive. Among the…
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‘I was in shock.’ — Reporters on the impact of Vermont’s catastrophic flooding
Early this month, heavy rains led to historic flooding in many parts of Vermont, causing massive — as yet uncounted — damage to homes, businesses and infrastructure. At the time of this recording, the state has confirmed that one person was killed by the floods. Like in Tropical Storm Irene in...
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The fraught politics of Vermont’s motel housing program
For months, Democratic lawmakers and Republican Gov. Phil Scott insisted that extending the Covid-19-era program providing people with vouchers to live in motels past this summer was a no-go. Federal money had run out, and, they said, the program was just too expensive to continue. Then, at the…
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A spate of deaths focuses attention on Vermont prisons and the Department of Corrections
It’s not unusual for Vermont’s Department of Corrections to be at the center of debate. The department manages six prisons across Vermont, with more than 1,000 incarcerated people in the system. The department is perpetually facing challenges, which only increased during the pressures of the...
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A VTDigger reporter’s guide to the Statehouse
If you follow this podcast, you’ve probably read a lot of the work of reporter Sarah Mearhoff. She covers politics for VTDigger, and, especially when the legislature is in session, is a close watcher of every aspect of state government. That means that she spends a lot of time in the Vermont...
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Deep in the forest, a patch of common ground
There’s a story about forests that you’ve probably heard. Some environmentalists want to protect old trees, and leave the forests alone to sequester carbon. Others say there are good reasons for humans to actively manage forests. Those advocates include loggers and foresters, who earn their...
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What’s happened at Vermont sheriffs’ departments
Several Vermont sheriff departments have come under scrutiny in the past year following drastic turnover, allegations of misconduct or unusual financial activity. Two sheriffs — one former, one recently sworn in — face criminal charges. The Legislature is considering a constitutional amendment…
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To go big, or go bigger, on child care
Despite Vermont parents’ overwhelming demand for spots in child care and preschools, the supply remains limited. Parents all over the state sit on waitlists for months or even years. If they do score a spot, tuition likely could cost them more than if they sent their toddler to an in-state…
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Noah Kahan on ‘existing in a place that you've just written about’
Noah Kahan remembers getting excited when a song he put on SoundCloud hit a thousand plays. Now, his songs have been streamed more than one billion times. Kahan’s metaphorical use of “stick season,” the time between Vermont foliage and proper snow, went viral on TikTok last year and sparked…
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Leveling the funding field for small towns
As Vermont’s Legislature opened its 2023 session and Republican Gov. Phil Scott was inaugurated to his fourth term, one theme got an early spotlight in the Statehouse: Vermont’s urban-rural divide. Much of Vermont’s state population is concentrated in Chittenden County, clustered around the...
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What 97 acres means to Williston
A 97-acre parcel of undeveloped land off Mountainview Road in Williston is home to a wetland, views of Camel’s Hump and Mount Mansfield, and most days, some horses out to pasture from a neighboring farm. It is also the site of a conflict that is forcing one of Vermont’s fastest growing...
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What’s next for Montpelier’s water system?
Montpelier residents put up with an unusually high number of water main breaks, which, in recent years, have led to boil water notices, expensive emergency repairs and school and business closures. The city’s aging pipe system, some of it nearly a century old, is straining under unusually high...
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What keeps Vermonters together across a widening income divide?
Data from 21 billion Facebook friendships shows that when you know more high-income people, your income is more likely to rise over time, according to an analysis from Opportunity Insights, a nonprofit based out of Harvard University. The data puts numbers to something that’s pretty intuitive:...
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Vermont wasn’t always a safe haven for reproductive rights
Next week, Vermont voters could write abortion protections into the state constitution. But 50 years ago, Vermont was a state where most people went elsewhere to end a pregnancy. The Vermont Supreme Court had legalized abortion in 1972, with its decision in Beecham v. Leahy. But while elective...
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Competition in the Kingdom
For the past two years, Reps. Katherine Sims, D-Craftsbury, and Vicki Strong, R-Albany, have served alongside each other in the Vermont House, jointly representing seven towns in the Northeast Kingdom. But this year, due to redistricting, Sims and Strong are competing for a single seat. It is the...
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Exiting education
Over the summer, and into the first few months of the school year, school districts across the state scrambled to fill not just teaching positions, but also support staff roles, such as custodians, bus drivers and paraprofessionals. Earlier this week, two Vermont schools — U-32 in East Montpelier...
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Building a Vermont haven for Ukrainian families
At first, the Shapovalov family thought they’d be able to avoid the worst of the fighting. Their village, Skelky, along the Dnipro River in Ukraine, was close to a large nuclear power plant. They didn’t think the invading Russian army would dare to shoot anywhere nearby. But the tanks rolled in....
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How to get a truck unstuck from Smugglers Notch
The Vermont Agency of Transportation has an internal word for when a tractor trailer wedges itself on the windy mountain road between Stowe and Jeffersonville: a “stuckage.” And while they’re working on a handful of ways to prevent stuck trucks, it remains a persistent, vaguely goofy, problem....
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Buzz’s quest for a hardy Vermont persimmon
Buzz Ferver is on a mission. The proprietor of Perfect Circle Farm in Berlin wants to find a persimmon that will grow well in central Vermont. So far, he’s planted more than 15,000 seeds. Last winter, just one plant survived. But Ferver is working on something bigger, too. He is cultivating a…
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Can Covid be tracked without widespread testing?
Last week, Vermont shut down its Covid-19 testing sites. These sites operated for more than two years and accounted for most of the 3.6 million results recorded by the state Department of Health over the course of the pandemic. State officials have pointed to the increased use of antigen tests as...
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Why Vermont’s 150-year old school tuition system might have to change
A recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling struck down state-level rules that barred public money from going to schools that teach religious beliefs. According to some legal scholars, that decision has unique consequences for Vermont — and could require the state to rethink how it funds K-12 education.…
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A new wave of inflation
After two years of pandemic-related supply chain issues, Vermont businesses are facing a new wave of price increases on everything ranging from seitan deliveries to two-by-fours. Now, they're cutting costs, raising their own prices and wondering how long the trend can continue.
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Sandy and Marie-Pierre
Sandy Sumner became a reluctant advocate for efforts to hold an international plastics company accountable for PFOA contamination in Bennington. Now, months after his death from an aggressive cancer that he believed was caused by his exposure to toxic chemicals, legislators are making their third...
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The pain of long Covid
For some, the long-term effects of a coronavirus infection can be debilitating. And while clinical understanding of the disease evolves, many worry that Vermont's rural health system is ill-equipped to treat it.
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The lessons of nursing home lockdowns
Nursing homes reopened their doors to visitors last November, but advocates still worry that another Covid-19 spike could once again lock family members out from seeing and caring for their relatives. What have we learned from nursing home lockdowns? And what does it mean for the future of...
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After Omicron
Recent trends in Vermont’s Covid-19 case counts have officials and experts feeling optimistic about the course of the pandemic — but all warn it would be premature to brush off the Omicron threat just yet. As of Friday, the state’s seven-day average for daily new cases had fallen by more than…
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Students and the Omicron surge
Students are back in school for their third week of the new year. Or at least, some of them are. The Omicron variant has caused a massive spike in Covid-19 cases and a massive spike in absences among students, teachers and school staff. As a result, dozens of schools across the state have already...
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How Vermont hospitals are handling the Covid-19 surge
Vermont hospitals are feeling the strain from the recent surge of Covid-19 cases — and so are patients. Doctors and nurses are caring for an overwhelming number of people. Many are sick with severe Covid, and even more are crowding facilities after delaying care earlier in the pandemic. That’s...
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Could activists end hound hunting?
Opponents of hound hunting in Vermont have spent this fall ramping up their calls for the state to restrict the practice. And while it’s too soon to tell if they’ll be successful, their tactics have brought statewide attention to what was once a niche hunting technique.
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Turning climate goals into action
A new 300-page report represents Vermont’s first comprehensive strategy to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and prepare for the effects of climate change. The Climate Action Plan outlines more than 230 steps toward meeting an ambitious set of emissions reductions goals. How will those proposals…
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A surge in Barre schools
Elementary and middle schools in the Granite City have had more total Covid-19 cases than in any other community. Parents and administrators alike are concerned about the long-term impacts.
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The case for mask mandates
If the Legislature passes a law to allow municipal mask mandates during a special session next week, town and city officials will find themselves at the center of a policy debate that’s escalated for months. Gov. Phil Scott has repeatedly said he doesn’t believe a statewide mask mandate would be...
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Why do kids need a Covid vaccine?
In the first 10 days of eligibility, about 15,500 Vermont children ages 5-11 had either been signed up for appointments or received their first dose of the Pfizer Covid vaccine. That's about 35% of the eligible population. But despite the early rush, experts have warned that there may be more...
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Diving in headfirst
Recorded at a live storytelling event in Burlington, VTDigger’s Fred Thys and Audi Guha talk about reporting in uncertain situations.
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The future of Vermont’s congressional representation
Vermont’s three members of Congress have served a combined 93 years in the U.S. House and Senate. They’ve accrued an unusual amount of power and influence for one small-state delegation. But they won’t remain in Washington, D.C., forever. Whenever the next vacancy occurs, it could represent a...
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The outlook for emergency housing
A state program to house Vermonters who would otherwise be homeless in vacant motel rooms during the pandemic is in limbo — again. More than 500 families who would have been kicked out in late September got a 30-day reprieve. But with a new deadline just weeks away and few options available for...
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Life and learning inside the Burlington Macy’s
What’s it like attending high school in a converted department store? Five years of Burlington High School students are finding out.
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Paul Costello reflects on two decades of community building
The longtime leader of the Vermont Council on Rural Development is stepping down September 30. For 21 years, Paul Costello has helped towns and cities across Vermont envision how to build stronger communities. Looking back on that work today, he still can’t stop talking about the future. “We have...
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Starting school amid a Covid surge
Students in some districts are returning to school buildings as soon as this week. Meanwhile, Covid-19 cases across the state are still surging due to the highly contagious Delta variant. School leaders across the state say their number one job is to keep kids safe this fall. But what exactly…
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A new model for mental health crisis response
While an ongoing conversation about police reform plays out both nationally and locally, Covid-19 has led to its own pandemic of mental health issues. In response, some central Vermont police departments have been trying a new method of integrating mental health services into law enforcement. Is…
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How concerning is the Delta variant in Vermont?
The Delta variant of the coronavirus is driving a new surge in Covid-19 cases across the country — and a much smaller increase in cases throughout Vermont. Health authorities say the Delta variant is far more contagious than previous strains of the virus, but that vaccines are still effective at...
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The housing crunch hits renters
Since last year, realtors have described unprecedented home-buying, driving up prices and competition. What’s less clear is how the pandemic has affected the state’s rental market. But one family’s story backs up the word on the street: People are scrambling for apartments that aren’t there.
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ABOUT THIS SHOW
From Vermont's only member-supported digital news daily, VTDigger reporters go deep on key stories. Hosted by Sam Gale Rosen.
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How many episodes does The Deeper Dig have?
The Deeper Dig currently has 198 episodes available on PodParley. New episodes are automatically indexed when they're published to the podcast feed.
What is The Deeper Dig about?
From Vermont's only member-supported digital news daily, VTDigger reporters go deep on key stories. Hosted by Sam Gale Rosen.
How often does The Deeper Dig release new episodes?
The Deeper Dig publishes regularly with 198 episodes available. Check the episode list for the typical release schedule.
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Who hosts The Deeper Dig?
The Deeper Dig is created and hosted by VTDigger.
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