Marblehead selectmen talk flood abatement project

MARBLEHEAD – Selectmen will join the Water and Sewer Commission in sponsoring a three-year, $4.6 million drainage upgrade for the flood-prone area of town at next year?s Town Meeting.The project is expected to end the flooding of parks, businesses and homes that occurred most recently in the Oct. 4 rainstorm, a storm that experts refer to as a five-year event. It is proposed for fiscal years 2013, 2014 and 2015.Commissioners Wilbur Bassett and Carlton Siegel attended Wednesday?s selectmen?s meeting for a presentation by their engineering consultants Scott Miller and Bethany Santangelo of Haley and Ward of Waltham.?Do you want us to continue with this program?” Bassett asked. “We need money to continue with the design.”?Anybody that lives in that area knows the extent of the flooding,” Town Administrator Tony Sasso said. Selectman Bret Murray, who lives in the affected area, concurred, noting that the flooding spread to new homes Oct. 4.Miller and Santangelo showed the selectmen a Power Point display of photographs that included flooded homes, ponding at the Reynolds Playground on Hood Street, a flooded parking lot and the interiors of the town?s present, mostly overworked, culverts.?There are a lot of old culverts in the Pleasant Street area that we?re looking at rehabbing,” Santangelo said.The project is divided into locations, including Washington Street, Spring and Essex streets, School Street, Sewall Street, Bessom and Pleasant streets, Evans Road and Garfield Street.Miller and Santangelo said that there are state and federal grants available that can cover as much as 75 percent of the project cost, but applications for that money require detailed research into the cash value of the flood damage in those neighborhoods.