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Date: 9/7/2021
EASTHAMPTON – The city of Easthampton has been awarded $2 million in Municipal Vulnerability Preparedness (MVP) funding for upgrades to Cherry Street.
Gov. Charlie Baker was joined alongside Easthampton Mayor Nicole LaChapelle, state Sen. John Velis, state Rep. Dan Carey, state Lt. Gov. Karyn Polito, and Kathleen Theoharides, the secretary for the Executive Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs, to make this announcement in front of Easthampton’s Brickyard Brook Conservation Area.
According to Baker, the money will be used to restore the stream and bank, stabilize the Chery Street outfall, reconstruct the Cherry Street roadway, and restore the eroded slope and adjacent stream within the Brickyard Brook Conservation Area. The money will also be used to improve stormwater drains on the street to promote climate resiliency and build new sidewalks.
“It will both make the city more resilient to increased precipitation due to climate change, and also increase safety and accessibility to resources,” said Baker. “It’s the first implementation project for the city’s new green infrastructure plan that was developed using the MVP program and the money that came with it last year.”
According to Theoharides, the MVP program is a program where the state and local municipalities partner to help build climate change resiliency as more extreme weather enters the fold. Specifically, the program aims to identify vulnerabilities within a community that could be negatively affected by climate change.
“This neighborhood is the most critical area listed in the Integrated Water Resource plan and built off of our MVP-funded Green Infrastructure Master Plan,” said LaChapelle, who noted that the sewer system in Easthampton is over 100 years old and well beyond its usage capacity.
LaChapelle added that this project could be a blueprint for future stormwater projects within the city involving green infrastructure. The project also lowers maintenance costs. “The proposal outlined a new project with forward-thinking maintenance lasting for years,” she said. The upstream green infrastructure, according to LaChapelle, will manage the additional rainfall of the outfall in the neighborhood, slowing and filtering rainwater before flowing into Brickyard Brook.
The mayor is hopeful that the $2 million will coincide with a Community Development Block Grant that the city plans on applying for by Sept. 10. Easthampton can receive up to $800,000 from that grant if their application is accepted. “We are mobilizing to submit a Community Block Grant [application] to marry two public funding sources to upgrade water and sewer in this area simultaneous, as it’s more cost effective,” said LaChapelle.
The $2 million is a part of $21 million that was awarded to 83 Massachusetts communities for climate change resiliency projects. Including this year’s funding, the program has now invested over $65 million in communities across the state since the program’s inception. Sixteen new communities have joined the program this year, meaning 93 percent of the state is now a part of the MVP program.
“This summer, we experienced four significant heat waves, more than 25 days over 90 degrees, two tropical storms, a record amount of precipitation in the month of July, and significant flooding across the state, especially here in Western Mass.,” said Baker. “This is a now issue; this not a tomorrow or the day after issue.”
Velis said that it is nice to see a kernel of hope amidst the bad news we are seeing across the world, especially in New Orleans, where Hurricane Ida landed and left over a million without power recently. Carey, meanwhile, said that fighting climate change at the local level will assist in the overall goal of fighting climate change in a broader context.