$3M to pay for flood protection

Gloucester will receive a $3 million federal grant that will allow the city to move ahead with the construction of a flood barrier at its Water Pollution Control facility on Essex Avenue.

The city, with the assistance of its congressional delegation, secured the grant from the federal Economic Development Administration.

According to the office of U.S. Rep. Seth Moulton, the grant will fund the final design, permitting and construction of a flood barrier at the facility that has been at the mercy of flooding and storm surge during major storms, such the one in March 2018.

“America’s oldest working seaport is Gloucester’s economic and cultural heart,” U.S. Rep. Seth Moulton said in a statement. “We must protect it from flooding and this $3 million will help do that.”

Jill Cahill, city community development director, said the $3 million will pay for the bulk of the project and the city will be responsible for a funding match to complete the remaining work.

“We were able to work with the EDA to get a very favorable match,” Cahill said. “These projects often require a 50-50 match of funds, but this now is more like 85-15.”

Cahill said the total cost of the project now is estimated at between $3.5 million and $4.2 million. Mike Hale, city public works director, said Wednesday that construction is expected to begin in 2021 and finish in 2022, subject to permitting.

In late September, the City Council approved a $4.2 million loan authorization to pay for the Water Pollution Facility Flood Mitigation Project if other money could not be secured.

“That loan order will cover our matching funds,” Cahill said. “The reason we requested $4.2 million is because we’re still in the early stages of design and didn’t want to have to go back to the council for more funding.”

At the heart of the project is a protective barrier — made of masonry block, earth and berm and sheet pile — that will encircle the facility.

The city has been conducting coastal resiliency assessments for more than a decade to identify public assets vulnerable to flooding and storm surge. Protecting the water pollution control facility emerged as a priority.

Hale previously pointed out that the project is essential for protecting the facility and its employees at the low-lying site that will be the future location of the city’s primary and secondary wastewater treatment plant.

Storm surge and flooding, he said, could render the plant inoperable and endanger employees. Some employees have been marooned inside the plant in the past when major storms combined with high-tide cycles to flood the site.

“As early as last year’s January storms, that whole campus was underwater,” Hale said previously. “The building wasn’t, but the campus was underwater.”

Cahill said a number of economic and climatic events contributed to the city’s eligibility for the federal funds.

They include the damaging storms of 2018, as well as the closing of Whole Foods’ Pigeon Cove seafood processing plant on Parker Street in June 2019 and the National Fish & Seafood plant in East Gloucester a month earlier.

The National Fish plant later reopened as Atlantic Fish & Seafood.