NAHANT — The Board of Selectmen voted unanimously last week to approve and adopt the town’s 2022 five-year hazard mitigation plan.
The plan focuses on and studies a variety of different natural and man-made hazards that can cause a significant impact on the town in the present and the long term.
Town Administrator Antonio Barletta said the last hazard mitigation plan was crafted in 2014-2015. The largest risk in the current hazard plan, Barletta said, was the effects of climate change.
“What this does is identify what are the biggest hazards,” Barletta said. “Increased rainfall, snowfall, heat, drought all have different types of hazardous impacts to the town. Our biggest concern is the sea-level rise and coastal flooding.”
The report provides a mapping of the potential hazard sites in Nahant. The causeway, Nahant Road, Basspoint Road and Willow Road were all found to be susceptible to coastal flooding. The lowlands area and Furbush Road were also found to be susceptible to inland flooding due to drainage issues.
Another hazard of high concern is coastal erosion — the loss or displacement of land due to the action of waves, currents, tides, wind-driven water, waterborne ice or other impacts of storms.
The two major areas of coastal erosion in Nahant are the Forty Steps Coastal Bank, which is slowly eroding, and Short Beach at the northern end of Ocean Street.
Other hazards taken into consideration are hurricanes, drought, wildfires, tsunamis, snowstorms and blizzards and earthquakes. While many of these events are historically uncommon occurrences in Nahant, the report takes into account every possible scenario, when they have occurred in the town, and the rates at which they occur.
To combat these threats and protect Nahant, Barletta said the town is planning to apply for a grant from the state to help build and design projects to handle such events. Some of these projects include rebuilding or construction of new seawalls, replacing and upgrading backup generators and their capacity for Nahant Town Hall, the emergency shelter and the sewer lift station and the construction of a new public-safety facility.
“That grant is to improve the resilience of the Short Beach dune which would protect the lowlands area and Nahant Road,” Barletta said. “We’re also looking at the state’s dam and seawall grant program for planning and design of a wall at Tudor Beach at Willow Road.”
Barletta said that a team would be hired or formed when these projects begin to take shape.
The plan was prepared for the town by the Metropolitan Area Planning Council (MAPC) under the direction of the Massachusetts Emergency Management Agency (MEMA) and the Massachusetts Department of Conservation and Recreation (DCR).
Barletta, along with Director of Emergency Management Dennis Ball, Fire Chief Austin Antrim, Police Chief Timothy Furlong, Department of Public Works (DPW) Superintendent Zachary Taylor, DPW administrative assistant Mary Lowe, Nahant Conservation Commission agent Kristen Kent, and Planning Board Chairman Calvin Hastings are serving together as the team that drafted this plan.
“I want to thank all the folks who worked with me on this project,” Barletta said. “I also want to thank the residents who participated in informing the town along with the MAPC and getting us through this process.”
