WESTFIELD – The Flood Control Commission voted last night to petition city officials to authorize a $6 million bond to repair and upgrade flood control structures and facilities across the city.
The vote to request Mayor Daniel M. Knapik to submit the bond and the City Council to approve the funding package came following recent discussions with two federal agencies about the condition and status of the city’s two flood control dams on Powdermill Broad and Arm Broom, and the condition of the Little River Levee.
The discussion about the two flood control dams, which has been ongoing for several weeks a culminated last week when federal officials attended an information session, pertains to the fact that the two dams are far beyond their design life and need rehabilitation which will cost millions of dollars.
Construction of both flood control structures began in 1961 following the Flood of 1955, with the Arm Brook dam completed in 1963 and the Powdermill Brook dam in 1965.
The concept of the flood-control dams is to retain water during major storms, rainfalls which would result in flooding, then slowly release the water after the rainfall ceased. Both structures were designed for a 50-year life cycle, which has expired. State and federal agencies have also issued new guidelines requiring flood control dams to be more robust.
The federal Natural Resource Conservation Service (NCRS), a division of the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) provides funding to repair and upgrade flood control structures. There are 168 flood control structures just in the state of Massachusetts which, with five exceptions, are owned and maintained by the state.
Westfield owns two of the five municipally owned flood control dams which are classified as “high hazard” dams because of the extent of damage which would occur downstream if the dams failed.
The NCRS funding program would save the city millions because federal funds would be used to access the current condition of the two dams and for engineering designs to rehabilitate and improve the two structures.
The NCRS would then pay 65 percent of the construction cost, with the city, and or state, funding 35 percent. The city would also be responsible for securing the necessary permits to perform the work and property rights for that effort.
The estimates for the work to rehabilitate and upgrade the Powdermill Brook dam is $2 million, while the estimated cost of improvements to the Arm Brook structure is $3 million.
Commission Chairman Albert G. Giguere Jr., said the NRCS program “benefits the city because one way of another it will cost the city, to either make repairs or be responsible for damages (downstream) if one of those structures fails because the dam owner is responsible if a dam fails.”
City Engineer Mark Cressotti said that the city’s financial exposure under the NCRS program is between $1.75 and $2 million dollars.
The commission members also discussed the Little River levee which was constructed by the Army Corps of Engineers who recently appeared at a commission meeting to discuss improvement to that structure, which Cressotti estimates at $1.5 million to bring in into compliance with the current Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) requirements.
Members also discussed improvements to the Westfield River levee and the Williams Riding Way pump station, located just off Meadow Street near the intersection of Main Street. The city has already spent $1.4 million for improvement to the pump station, but additional work has been discovered during those repairs.
The pump station is designed to pump stormwater, and sewage, into the Westfield River during heavy rainfalls which result in flooding of the river. The station has massive back-flow devices to prevent river water from flowing back into the station, but those devices are frozen shut and have to be removed and sent to a repair facility to replace bearings.
The commission voted to send a letter to both Mayor Knapik and the City Council seeking a bond to make comprehensive improvements to all of the city’s flood control structures.
Commissioner John Moriarty said that Westfield is in a bowl and that its watershed, much of it 1,000 feet higher in elevation than the city, is massive. Moriarty said that deforestation and development, with new impervious surfaces, will also increase the rate of stormwater drainage in that watershed, a fact which poses a high risk of flooding in Westfield.
