Army Corps of Engineers declares project completed

REVERE – The Roughans Point project, 10 years in the making at a cost of $11.9 million, is officially done.The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers said the construction project designed to abate flooding in Revere, Saugus and Malden, was financially closed out in December and came in substantially under budget.The project had an estimated cost of $14.9 million. It was begun in October 1997 as a way to protect the communities from severe coastal flooding.Massive tides generated by the Blizzard of 1978 and the No Name Storms of 1991 and 1992 pummeled these neighborhoods along the Atlantic seaboard, causing millions of dollars in damage and threatening public safety.The remediation project included stabilizing and improving existing seawalls, placement of a new rock revetment to reduce what engineers refer to as wave run-up and storm overtopping, and rehabilitation of an existing pump station.Seawall reconstruction was completed in 1999. Rehabilitation of the pumping station, owned by the Metropolitan District Commission (MDC), a former state agency, began in 2000 and was finished in 2004. The project was then turned over to the city in September 2005 for future operation and maintenance.Since then, additional mapping was done and the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) approved the changes, which indicate the flood zones that benefit from the Roughans Point project.