[CPEO-BIF] "Flood control spurs economic development" in Meriden, Connecticut

[Lenny Siegel <lsiegel@cpeo.org>]

CT’s small solutions to climate change: when flood control spurs economic development

by JAN ELLEN SPIEGEL
Connecticut Mirror
SEPTEMBER 18, 2019

With Harbor Brook running through its low-lying downtown, generations of Meriden residents have lived with water in their roads and basements after big storms and heavy winter runoff. One reason is because part of the brook – which is a lot closer to the size of a river — was buried underground and routed into a concrete-lined channel, which doesn’t drain like a natural waterway.

Worse yet, the area housed a silver manufacturing company that eventually turned into a brownfield and contaminated the floodwaters.

Then climate change arrived on the scene, bringing bigger, more violent storms with more rain.

…

The core of the project has turned the brownfield area and the river that runs through it – which is now above ground – into a 14-acre park that doubles as a detention basin for water in flood events. The remediation is designed to spur economic development and housing in the area, which had become undesirable if not unusable.

…

For the entire article, see
https://ctmirror.org/2019/09/18/cts-small-solutions-to-climate-change-when-flood-control-spurs-economic-development/

--

Lenny Siegel
Executive Director
Center for Public Environmental Oversight
A project of the Pacific Studies Center
LSiegel@cpeo.org
P.O. Box 998, Mountain View, CA 94042
Voice/Fax: 650-961-8918
http://www.cpeo.org





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