Funding will support flood and heat resilience projects from Woburn to Revere
Arlington, MA, August 30, 2022 —
Following the release of $32.6 million in state FY2023 MVP Grants, The Mystic River Watershed Association announced that Resilient Mystic Collaborative (RMC) cities and towns had secured a total of $8.6 million in state Municipal Vulnerability Preparedness (MVP) funding to help people and places prepare for extreme weather. Of these funds, over $7 million were grants for multi-community projects, and nearly $1.6 million went to projects in individual municipalities. In addition, Congresswomen Clark and Pressley and Congressman Moulton are working to secure $12.2 million in Community Project grants through the FY2023 federal budget, bringing the total in new funding for heat and flood resilience to nearly $21 million.
“Flooding from extreme rainfall events, storm surges on top of a rising sea level, and longer, more intense heat waves are climate impacts that don’t stop at municipal boundaries,” said John Walkey, Director of Waterfront and Climate Justice Initiatives at GreenRoots. “But they do tend to be felt worse in historically disinvested communities. We greatly appreciate that the MVP Program supports projects addressing social vulnerabilities from a regional perspective, as the communities of the RMC are doing.”
Each of the municipalities that championed these climate resilient projects is a founding member of the Resilient Mystic Collaborative (RMC), a watershed-wide voluntary partnership focused on regional climate resilience. Convened by MyRWA in September 2018 and led by senior staff from 20 cities and towns and non-governmental partners, the Resilient Mystic Collaborative (RMC) focuses on managing flooding and extreme heat on a regional scale and increasing the resilience of our most vulnerable residents and workers to extreme weather. These projects are the result of years of analysis and design by both individual communities and multiple municipalities working collectively.
“Our communities are where climate resilience either happens or doesn’t,” said Julie Wormser, Senior Policy Advisor for the Mystic River Watershed Association (MyRWA). “Years of collective research and planning are turning into on-the-ground projects that will make a real difference in people’s lives. These state and federal investments are both a recognition of and essential support for their great work.”
The full list of 2023 MVP grants secured by Resilient Mystic Collaborative communities is below, followed by a quote and description of each.
The City of Chelsea received three regional MVP grants. The first, for $556,000, will allow six cities along the Lower Mystic River to work with large developers to try to optimize climate resilience and other public benefits. The second, for $87,500, helps fund regional climate staff shared with Winthrop and Revere. The third, shared with Everett, continues work on a $70 million project to protect the neighborhood around Island End River from coastal flooding.
“Communities along the Lower Mystic River and Chelsea Creek are undergoing historic transformation due to climate change," said Tom Ambrosino, Chelsea City Manager. “As climate impacts intensify, these grants are incredibly important to increasing resilience and unlocking public benefits for decades to come, particularly for the most vulnerable residents in our communities."
"It's been a real benefit to Winthrop to partner with Revere and Chelsea on climate resilience and sustainability," said Town Manager Tony Marino. "We're all facing similar challenges, and this $87,500 grant allows us to share staff to come up with regional solutions."
The City of Everett secured an additional $340,000 on behalf of a regional effort including Malden, Chelsea, and Arlington, to address dangerous heat islands identified in an earlier “Wicked Hot Mystic” MVP project. “Everett is a city on the move,” said Mayor Carlo DeMaria. “These grants will support and inform our efforts to keep residents and businesses cooler and protected from flooding as we undergo generational transformation.”
"Arlington has worked with regional partners for years to thwart the quiet natural disaster of extreme heat," said Town Manager Sandy Pooler. "Now we're moving into action, finding ways to cool the hottest parts of our region under the guidance of those most affected by the problem."
The City of Medford received $417,000 to advance racial and health equity through expanding and strengthening a network of community resiliency hubs. “We will use this grant to continue building and expanding our climate resilience and emergency preparedness operations,” said Mayor Breanna Lungo-Koehn. “This funding helps us advance climate and economic justice in Medford through effectively engaging residents with broad cultural and language backgrounds.”
Reading, Stoneham, and Woburn each secured funding to restore and construct wetlands to manage stormwater flooding and provide opportunities for people to escape increasingly hot summers. These three projects were identified and designed as part of previous MVP grants involving 17 RMC communities working together to manage regional stormwater flood damage.
“This $2.1 million MVP grant comes on the heels of learning that Congressman Moulton is working to secure $1.5 million to restore and improve wetlands in Reading’s Maillet, Sommes, Morgan conservation land,” said Town Manager Fidel Maltez. With these two grants, we will be able to do our part to manage local and regional flooding while providing a beautiful, shady park and trails for nearby low-income residents to escape the heat. We would like to acknowledge the tremendous support provide by MyRWA and the RMC on this project. We could not have gotten here with their assistance.”
“As an upstream community, we’re working to manage both local and downstream flooding from extreme rain events,” said Stoneham Town Administrator Dennis Sheehan. “This $108,700 grant furthers our efforts to restore wetlands near the high school to absorb more water and provide better habitat and outdoor recreation.”
“We are pleased to receive a $269,000 MVP grant to further Woburn’s Hurld Park project, which helps manage urban flooding and heat.” said Mayor Scott Galvin and Alderman Jeff Dillon. “This funding will allow us to meaningfully engage residents in co-designing a range of open space and recreational park amenities for people to enjoy.”
The Cities of Revere, Malden, and Everett all longtime members of the RMC, are working with their coastal neighbors to the north, Saugus and Lynn. The City secured $151,000 to begin work on a regional Saugus River Watershed Vulnerability and Adaptation Study to help these coastal communities manage coastal flood damage.
"As a longtime member of the Resilient Mystic Collaborative, I've witnessed firsthand how working with our neighbors can move critical projects forward," said Elle Baker, Revere's Open Space and Environmental Planner. "The $150,872 in MVP funds will help us work with our neighbors in the Saugus River Watershed to tackle our major coastal flood risks."
In addition to the regional grants, Cambridge, Chelsea, Malden, Medford, and Revere received individual MVP grants to further flood and heat resilience projects.
“We are grateful to the MVP program for this $150,000 for our Cambridge Community Corps Climate Readiness Initiative,” said Derrick Neal, Chief Public Health Officer. “This grant will provide funding and training for residents from low-income BIPOC neighborhoods to help their neighbors stay safe during extreme weather, just as they have done during COVID.”
“Dotted with oil tank farms, Eastern Avenue in Chelsea is a notoriously hot, dangerous, and flood prone corridor bordering Environmental Justice Neighborhoods” said Alex Train, Director of Housing and Community Development. “In partnership with GreenRoots, this $324,192 grant will allow us to develop initial designs that will increase safety for bicyclists and pedestrians and lessen urban heat islands, while mitigating coastal flood threats."
“Malden’s $ $200,550 MVP Grant will allow us to substantially complete the design for Malden River Works, which is our community’s effort to incorporate a climate resilient park at the City’s Department of Public Works yard,” said Mayor Gary Christenson. “This is a crucial precedent-setting project for Malden as it establishes new models of community engagement, implements green infrastructure, and promotes the Malden River Greenway. Malden is grateful for the continued leadership of the Malden River Works Steering Committee on this important project.”
“An earlier MVP-funded regional vulnerability assessment we participated in showed that losing electricity and cell phone service are disproportionately hard on our low-income residents and workers,” said Alicia Hunt, Director of Energy and Environment. “This $671,000 grant will help us install solar panels and battery storage at the Andrews School Emergency Shelter.”
“Revere’s waterfront neighborhoods were built on and around salt marshes,” added Elle Baker. “This $236,000 MVP grant will help us understand how to improve natural habitat while preventing neighborhood flooding in the Diamond Creek area just inland of Revere Beach.”
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Mystic River Watershed at a Glance
The 76-square-mile Mystic River Watershed stretches from Reading through the northern shoreline of Boston Harbor to Revere. An Anglicized version of the Pequot word missi-tuk (“large river with wind- and tide-driven waves”), it is now one of New England’s most densely populated, urbanized watersheds.
The seven-mile Mystic River and its tributaries represented an early economic engine for colonial Boston. Ten shipyards built more than 500 clipper ships in the 1800s before roads and railways replaced schooners and steamships. Tide-driven mills, brickyards and tanneries along both banks of the river brought both wealth and pollution.
In the 1960s, the Amelia Earhart Dam transformed much of the river into a freshwater impoundment, while construction of Interstate 93 filled in wetlands and dramatically changed the river’s course. Since then, many former industrial sites have been cleaned up and redeveloped into new commercial areas and residential communities.
The Mystic is facing growing climate-related challenges: coastal and stormwater flooding, extreme storms, heat, drought and unpredictable seasonal weather. The watershed is relatively low-lying and extensively developed, making it prone to both freshwater and coastal flooding. Its 21 municipalities are home to 600,000 residents, including many who are disproportionately vulnerable to extreme weather: environmental justice communities, new Americans, residents of color, elders, low-income residents and employees, people living with disabilities and English-language learners.
