Nahant waiting on $500G grant to repair wharf

NAHANT – With another storm on the horizon, Town Administrator Andy Bisignani’s concern is with the aging seawall along Nahant’s southern coastline.Bisignani is hoping a $500,000 state grant from the Seaport Advisory Council, which the town applied for months ago, will go to repair and restore the town wharf, where wear and tear has been accelerated by storms like Hurricane Sandy last fall and the blizzard earlier this month.”The storms diminished the life of the wall,” he said.Bisignani said the slabs of concrete underneath the dock are “all off because the joints have washed out over the years, causing the parking lot to sink below the wall.”View photos from the recent blizzardWith the application submitted, repairing the wharf is a waiting game. The Legislature has not yet released the funds over to the Seaport Advisory Council, Bisignani said, and then Nahant must receive approval.Bisignani is hoping the use of Nahant’s wharf by local commercial fishermen will give the town an edge in receiving the funds.Though the wharf is the site set for this particular grant, Bisignani mentioned the weathered seawall at Tudor Beach as another piece of coastal infrastructure in need of repair. Caution tape marks off areas of the seawall, where high waves have washed out the mortar in the wall and the soil and gravel behind it, causing the street and sidewalk to collapse.On Wednesday the town will submit another application to receive funds from the Massachusetts Emergency Management Agency (MEMA) to repair another area of the wharf that was damaged in the blizzard’s wake during the weekend of Feb. 8. Bisignani said the town expects to receive funding to repair that portion of the wharf by July 2013.Kait Taylor can be reached at [email protected].