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Boston has focused on flooding from rising seas, but it needs to start worrying about flooding from more intense rainstorms, councilors say
By adamg on Wed, 08/30/2023 - 2:56pm
Flooding on Comm. Ave. in Brighton in July with just 2 inches of rain.
The City Council agreed today to study how to minimize damage from more intense storms that could dump several inches of rain in a short period of time.
City Councilors Liz Breadon (Allston/Brighton) and Gabriela Coletta (North End, East Boston, Charlestown) say some of the heavier rainfalls this summer have shown Boston needs to step up its efforts to ensure storm drains can handle greater flows, lest we need to see the sort of fatal basement-apartment and subway flooding New York has experienced.
"We are behind sister cities," Coletta, who district already faces potential inundation from Boston Harbor during big storms, said.
The Boston Water and Sewer Commission is working on a possible new fee to pay for measures to reduce storm flooding - and encourage property owners to reduce runoff during storms. The fee could start next year.
The councilors aid Boston needs to step up its game on creating "permeable spaces" - green areas that can act as sponges in heavy rains - and ensure that developers and homeowners looking to add basement units are taking steps to keep them from becoming liquid death traps as storms intensify.
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Comments
Ewwwwwww!! Can imagine what
Ewwwwwww!! Can imagine what's in that water???
Boston has been focused on heat and tidal/surge flooding
But many other communities have been working on the storm water drainage for some time.
You can look up what your community has gotten in state grant funding for climate adaptation here: https://www.mass.gov/info-details/municipal-vulnerability-preparedness-p...
Hold on...
IIRC, doesn't Boston have zoning requirements for groundwater recharge that require storage of rainwater and recharge into the ground in certain parts of the City? I think its been in the news in the last year or two because it was increased. Also, a quick google shows BWSC (annual storm water report) has been for decades expanding BMPs (best mgmt practices), which require on-site storage of rainwater, collection of street runoff, pervious paving etc. And BWSC limits discharge from private property into the storm drain system and sewer system. My neighbor had to get her down spouts disconnected from her drain more than 20 years ago. Actually it seems like Boston is more of national leader, so what I think you meant to say is that Greater Boston needs to catch up to the City and deal with their own runoff. Remember the Great Roslindale sewage flood of 1996, it hardly even rained here, it rained in like Wellesley, heavy, and the resulting surcharging of the sewer system failed at the weakest point near the Archdale development. It all drains downhill and Boston is at the end of the pipes.
I didn't say that Boston has been doing nothing ...
It has just been less of a priority for climate funding than dealing with heat events (biggest killer), potential river flooding, and tidal flooding. 2016 was a drought year and early 2017 saw some massive storm tides, and that sort of thing made the storm flooding less front of mind.
Disentangling the combined sewer/stormwater flows is a massive undertaking and important, but stormwater volume is increasing. The downpours of recent years changed things.
Medford is at the end of the pipes coming from Woburn, Winchester, etc. but the city and the citizenry considered it to be a higher priority when the city did their MVP workshops in 2017, as our sea level rise issues are all secondary to what the state does at the Earhart Dam.
So building huge developments
without green or open space is not good for storm water runoff? It’s been said over and over that dense developments are not good for the environment. Again, you can’t have it both ways.
More Lorax nimbyism
Sigh.
This problem isn't the result of "building developments" in recent years but from the simple fact that downpour storms have increased dramatically since the 1950s.
https://resilientma.mass.gov/changes/changes-in-pr...
What you see in this picture is not the result of new development - it is the result of what has already been built and paved over long ago plus climate change.
New developments must meet storm water handing regulations or they don't get built. The state is updating the requirements and getting more strict about how climate change projections figure into these plans. Click here for more information on how this works.
Uh, I think you might be a bit confused here
A dense development can still have green/open space - and in fact, something like replacing a single-family home with a triple-decker can increase density without making any changes to the amount of green/open space. And if anything, building dense developments makes it easier to leave other space open - if every apartment building in Boston was replaced by a single-family home, we'd have paved over the Emerald Necklace and the Blue Hills a century ago.
Haha
When was the last true triple decha built, 100 years ago.
Sewers
They’ve been around for a while and always seem clogged in Boston.
Added a link to a story about the BWSC
Which is looking at a new fee to pay for bolstering storm runoff efforts - and to encourage property owners to reduce runoff.
Think is a loop back to this post
Also that fee I believe is basically a rain tax being pushed by the feds.
Link fixed
Sorry.