MARBLEHEAD — Workers have started repairs to the Grace Oliver’s Beach seawall, several months after a series of winter storms damaged the barrier.
The project began Thursday and will involve removing and resetting stone wall and reinforcing it with steel dowels and concrete. Charles Quigley, the town engineer, said he planned on a three week window for completion. Workers will be tackling the job from 7 a.m. to 4 p.m., Monday through Friday.
“The idea is to get it done before the temperatures get too cold because that would cause the concrete not to cure properly,” said Quigley.
In addition to the work, the project will create truck traffic on Beacon Street and will make the beach inaccessible while construction is underway. Marblehead’s financial director, Alison Nieto, said the cost of the project is estimated at $230,000 out of the $871,894 that was voted on by residents in June for seawall repairs throughout the town.
“That was the number we presented at Town Meeting in May but that could change depending upon what the other projects come in as and if there’s anything found during the process,” said Nieto.
The other restoration projects at Front Street, estimated at $269,000, and Fort Sewall, estimated at $334,000, are in the works to begin soon. The remaining $38,894 will be used for smaller projects in various locations.
The seawall projects across town are costing each resident $10 in taxes for the next 10 years. The tax raiser was borrowed from the provisions of Proposition 2½, which was adopted by Massachusetts voters in 1980 and is related to the total amount of property taxes in which a city or town can raise each year, according to a Daily Item report.
“We received drawings for Front Street and will be putting it out to bid very shortly,” said Quigley. “Fort Sewall is in process of being designed too but we really couldn’t move ahead until we had the money in place and that didn’t occur until July. We put Front Street out to bid earlier this year with a design we did in-house but it came back more costly than we thought because of the complexity of job, so we went to the drawing board and came up with a simpler design.”
While the severe flooding did contribute a large chunk of the damage, the bigger issue was the lack of annual and ongoing maintenance to the seawalls, according to Quigley. He said many residents have come to him stating the storms keep getting worse each time they hit.
Quigley, who is also the town’s conservation agent, plans to ask the Conservation Commission for a general order of conditions to keep up with all the seawalls in order to pursue annual maintenance. He said he wants to get a contract with someone who could go around to all the walls and do work to prevent future severe damage.
“If you let things go too long then small repairs become big repairs,” he said. “We are taking proactive steps to prevent that.”
