SWAMPSCOTT — More than $375,000 in state money will help the town minimize flooding at Cassidy Beach Park and Phillips Beach.
Both beaches are considered by state environmental experts to be “flood pathways,” channeling ocean water during storms inland onto roads and into neighborhoods and homes.
The state money — part of an $11.6 million spending package aimed at tamping down climate change impacts — will pay for design work and construction required to install nature-based flooding barriers along the beaches.
Assistant Town Administrator for Operations Gino Cresta said coastal storms hit the two beaches and sent water surging across Cassidy onto Puritan Road and Phillips on Shepard Avenue. The 2018 storm on March 2nd and 3rd delivered the most recent flooding.
“I remember the dates well. The roads became impassable. We have to shut them down,” Cresta said.
He credited town Community and Economic Development Director Marzie Galazka with applying for the state money and said a consultant will begin working on beach flood reduction planning with town officials.
The state money is intended to pay to design flood-reduction projects and pay for their construction as part of what a state press release called “forward-looking climate change data and solutions.”
Gov. Charlie Baker signed a 2017 executive order creating the Municipal Vulnerability Program to address “the monumental scale” of climate change by providing Swampscott and other communities with a way to pay for technical support they need in order to identify climate hazards, and to pay for flooding reduction or elimination measures.
The beach flooding reduction is being planned even as Swampscott started long-term planning for King’s Beach’s cleanup.
Two separate pipe outfalls discharge partially-treated sewage into the ocean at King’s and near the Lynn-Swampscott line. The discharges have resulted in height-of-summer beach closings and bad marks on environmental report cards released during the warm months by environmental advocacy groups.
Town Meeting last May approved $2.2 million for Stacey Brook sewer rehabilitation. The work is for the second part of the first phase of the project.
Dubbed Phase 1B, the Stacey Brook Comprehensive Sewer System Rehabilitation Project includes cured in place pipe rehabilitation of approximately 17,400 linear feet of sewer mainline and 180 service laterals, along with 1,200 vertical feet of sewer manhole rehabilitation and rehabilitation of 16-split wall manholes, according to a Central Registrar advertisement soliciting bids for the project.
