Stormwater Wetlands
Rebuilding a Watershed
Eighteen months. Seventeen communities. Over 425 candidate sites and $1.1 million in grant funding. The result: we are in the process of designing and permitting six large stormwater wetlands to help manage current and future flooding in the Mystic Watershed.
Ranking Opportunities
Partnering with state and local agencies and consultants from Kleinfelder and Stantec, the RMC completed tabletop assessments of 425 open space parcels three acres or more across the Mystic River Watershed. Ranked by physical, equity, and feasibility characteristics, the team narrowed the list down to 140, then 18, then a first six locations to move to “shovel ready” design.
Design and Permitting
In September 2020, the Town of Lexington received a $670,000 regional grant from the State MVP program on behalf of the entire RMC. The grant allowed cities and towns to engage local residents in community-engaged design for the first three restored or enhanced wetland areas, followed by the next three sites in coming years.
What We’re Learning
After going through this exercise and extrapolating to the entire watershed, we realized we’d never have sufficient resources to create enough wetlands to fully manage stormwater flooding. We are now distinguishing between “flooding” and “flood damage” and focusing our attention on preventing the latter—especially as it affects people, habitat, and the built environment.