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Maquan Pond in Hanson
River Cleanup Crew
American Shad, a fish that WAA is working to restore to many Southeastern MA rivers
Kayak on the Eel River
Quincy Riverwalk
Paddling on the Neponset River
By Frank Mand, Wicked Local Plymouth, Posted Jan 15, 2014
PLYMOUTH —Energy and Environmental Affairs Secretary Rick Sullivan handed out ore than $13 million Monday in grants and loans to Massachusetts’s communities with failing seawalls and old dams and praised the nonpartisan, last minute agreement that made it possible.

“Aging infrastructure is a reality that citizens across the commonwealth deal with every day,” Sullivan told the legislators and town administrators assembled in Plymouth’s Town Hall. “The Patrick Administration has made these critical investments to address the public safety concerns and risks from declining dams, seawalls and breakwaters, especially when planning for the next superstorm Sandy or winter storm Nemo.”

 “These funds provide immense help in the restoration of our environment and natural resources across the Commonwealth, as well as increase the overall health of our communities,” Senate President Therese Murray, D-Plymouth, said. “We will be able to make significant repairs to deteriorating infrastructure or even remove them if necessary.”

Murray noted that Plymouth was on the list of grant and loan recipients, with the town expected to receive a $730,000 loan for the removal the Plymco Dam, the last dam on historic Town Brook.

Town Brook dam removal loan

Those state funds will be matched by federal funds that have already been committed to the town.

The removal of this dam will benefit the environment and improve public safety, Plymouth’s director of Marine and Environmental Affairs, David Gould, said after Monday’s ceremony.

“These funds will go toward the Plymco Dam removal,” Gould explained, “which is the dam located the furthest up Town Brook, just upstream of the Off Billington Street Dam where removal work is already underway.” 

The funds will enable the town to remove the dam, remove contaminated sediment and install new water and sewer utilities at the site.

 The full Town Brook restoration project will restore fish passage to a historic herring run allowing the fish to navigate upstream to hundreds of acres of prime spawning habitat.

Once the Plymco Dam has been removed the Holmes Dam at Newfield Street will be next. Holmes is the dam at the skateboard park. It is listed as a high hazard dam, meaning that a failure of that dam would result in the likely loss of life and property.  

The Holmes Dam removal would also represent the final phase of a decade-long, 12-part effort to remove dams, improve safety and public access and restore natural processes to Town Brook.

The towns receiving grants or loans in this first phase of the program include the following.

· Plymouth’s Plymco Dam, classified as a significant hazard potential, is one of the last obstructions preventing native fish from reaching spawning habitats. Plymouth will receive a loan of $730,743 to make that happen.

· Repairs to the Parker Mills Pond Dam in Wareham will be aided by a grant of $164,995.

· Bellingham is set to receive more than $1 million in loans and grants for the removal of the Old Mill Pond Dam.

· Leaks, deteriorating walls and other damage at the Saw Mill Pond Dam in Brookfield will be repaired using $180,000 from the state fund.

· Canton will receive $1 million in grants and loans for the repair of the Shepherd Pond Dam.

· Fall River was awarded just nearly $50,000 for the removal of Assonet’s Rattlesnake Brook Dam.

· Gloucester’s efforts to repair Babson Reservoir Dam will benefit from $1 million in grants and loans from the state.

· The design for repair work on Holliston’s Houghton Pond, Lake Winthrop and Factory Pond dams will be aided by a grant of just less than $75,000.

· The Bartlett Pond Dam in Lancaster, also classified as a significant hazard potential, will receive a loan of $116,000 toward its removal.

· A grant of $75,000 will be put toward the removal of the Upper Roberts Meadow Reservoir Dam in Northampton.

· Worcester will receive a $240,000 grant for the removal of the Poor Farm Dam.

The Granville Reservoir Dam, classified as a high hazard potential dam, almost failed during 2011’s Tropical Storm Irene . It will receive $1 million for repair work.

· Marshfield was approved for a grant of just less than $500,000 for repair of the Hewitt’s Point Seawall Revetment and the South Seawall.

· Approximately 2,400 feet of Hull’s Stoney Beach seawall will be reconstructed with the aid of a $2.75 million grant.

· Oak Bluffs was awarded a $3.6 million grant for the repair and rehabilitation of the North Bluff Seawall.

· Rockport’s $14,000 grant will be used to leverage more than $1 million in federal funds for repairs to the Pigeon Cove Breakwater, which was seriously damaged by a 2010 storm and by the February 2013 blizzard.

Read more: http://www.wickedlocal.com/plymouth/news/x579270187/COMMONWEALTH-OF-MASSACHUSETTS-State-awards-13-5-million-for-infrastructure-repairs#ixzz2qbcCTJwQ 
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Watershed Action Alliance of Southeastern Massachusetts (WAA) works to protect and improve the health of the waterways and watersheds of the region for people, wildlife and the environment.

We do this by:

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WAA is made up of eleven organizations from across Southeastern Massachusetts.

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Watershed Action Alliance Organizations

Map of WAA member organizations