LYNN — The city of Lynn has been awarded a $112,500 state grant to develop a plan to mitigate the flooding that occurs during major storms at Strawberry Brook.
The Strawberry Brook system runs through Flax Pond, along Boston Street, and continues underground at Barry Park and General Electric before depositing into the Saugus River.
It’s consistently been one of the hardest hit areas for flooding in West Lynn, according to Ward 7 Councilor Jay Walsh, who represents the area.
“I’m really happy something’s being done,” said Walsh. “There needs to be something done to alleviate that major storm flooding.”
The grant, announced by the Baker-Polito administration this week, was awarded through the Municipal Vulnerability Preparedness (MVP) Program, which provides communities with funding and technical support to identify climate hazards, develop strategies to improve resilience, and implement priority actions to adapt to climate change.
City officials plan to use the funds to hire an engineering consultant, Weston & Sampson, to develop the Strawberry Brook Resilient Stormwater Management and Implementation Plan.
The study will look at how to restore the drainage in Strawberry Brook and address the city’s vulnerable stormwater infrastructure associated with the brook and tributary neighborhood.
William Bochnak, project coordinator for Economic Development & Industrial Corporation of Lynn (EDIC/Lynn), the entity that applied for the grant on behalf of the city, said city officials have identified several areas that they wanted to address, but prioritized Strawberry Brook with this round of MVP funding.
“It provides additional resources to help make communities more resilient and look to the future on how climate change is going to be addressed within a city like Lynn,” said Bochnak. “This particular study gives us an opportunity to collect more information on this specific area to look toward additional grant funding in the future to help make the brook more resilient to climate change.”
The plan will determine if there are any obstructions in the system that restrict flow, said Daniel O’Neill, Lynn Water & Sewer Commission executive director, who added more funding would be needed for future construction to fix whatever the issue is.
The culverts in the area can’t handle the amount of water from heavy rainfall and flows out of Boston Street and by Barry Park, which floods nearby residents’ homes, Walsh said. That ineffective system was especially evident during the two “100-year storms” that occurred in September 2017 and less than a year later, which caused widespread flooding not only in West Lynn, but throughout the city.
O’Neill said work has already been done in the past to improve the Strawberry Brook system. A culvert investigation was done in 2001, with improvements made based on that report. A 36-inch pipe through the Lynngate Plaza on Boston Street, identified as a problem area in the report, was replaced with 2,000 feet of 48-inch piping.
But it wasn’t the best fix, he said.
“We’re going to study the brook and see what the issue is,” said O’Neill.
The plan is expected to start within the next 30 days and be completed by next July, said Bochnak. The grant will not cover its entire cost.
Other priority areas that have been identified include the downtown, which has been battered with flooding during major rainstorms, and places that experience coastal flooding, such as the Saugus River area, North Harbor, South Harbor and Lynn Shore Drive, said Bochnak.
