Following days of pounding rain, Gov. Maura Healey’s administration has introduced the recipients of $5.6 million in grant funds aimed toward shoring up the state’s coastal infrastructure and eradicating unsafe dams.
Administered by the Executive Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs’ Dam and Seawall program, in line with Healey’s workplace the grants will fund tasks in additional than a dozen Commonwealth communities working to take away outdated and out of date water obstacles or restore “critical infrastructure” threatened by a altering local weather.
“Last week, I saw firsthand the catastrophic flooding impacting many people’s personal and professional lives,” Healey mentioned with the announcement of the grant awards. “As we continue to experience the impacts of climate change, it’s critical to invest in programs like this that will enhance our safety and infrastructure. We are proud to announce these awards, which will help us build a more resilient Massachusetts.”
Grant funds could also be used for design work, building, demolition or allowing, in line with Healey’s workplace. This spherical of grant funding will assist pay for 4 new building tasks and the design of 17 present tasks and related allow prices.
The Dam and Seawall program, signed into legislation by then-Gov. Deval Patrick in 2013, has awarded $120 million in grants and loans to “address deficient dams, seawalls, and levees” within the ten years for the reason that program was created and funded with unused water abatement belief funds.
The program happened following a 2011 report by then State Auditor Joseph DeNucci displaying 100 Massachusetts dams had been in unsafe or poor situation. A nationwide research of dams carried out by the Associated Press in 2019 confirmed that quantity had dropped to lower than 40.
“I know the financial difficulties many communities face in funding these projects,” Lieutenant Governor Kim Driscoll, the previous Mayor of Salem, mentioned with the grant award announcement. “These grants enable municipalities of all sizes to address aging infrastructure immediately, and we’re acting now to ensure more resilient solutions can be implemented.”
Demolition of the greater than 100-year-old High Street Dam, in Bridgewater, started Monday alongside the banks of the Bridgewater Town River. The 80-foot-long dam has been deemed “a significant potential hazard” and is blamed for native flooding.
That dam’s destruction, funded partly by state Dam and Seawall grants, will take away the primary barrier migratory fish shifting up the Taunton River from Narragansett Bay encounter, opening 10-miles of waterway to “alewife, blueback herring, American eel, sea lamprey, and American shad fish species,” in line with a spokesperson representing the teams behind the demolition venture.
Source: www.bostonherald.com”