CHATHAM – The Town of Chatham may seek more than $850,000 from taxpayers this fall for a project that would make flood prevention improvements for the Little Beach Neighborhood.
The project has a total price tag of $2.5 million and the town is working with members of the Little Beach Association on an application for a $1 million hazard mitigation grant through the Massachusetts Emergency Management Agency.
A majority of the neighborhood and its roadways are privately owned and property owners are pledging nearly $620,000 towards the proposed work.
The project is in response to major flooding in the area from storms last winter.
“It would consist of dune enhancement because right now the dunes in that area are not at a uniform elevation and there is a number of areas where the dunes are at low elevation and therefore allow flood waters to get in,” said Robert Duncanson, Chatham’s Natural Resources Director.
Work would also include raising the bulkheads, modifying storm drains, preventing flooding from the boat ramp, and raising a private retaining wall.
The project would provide uniform elevation of nine feet, which would be high enough to protect against up to 50-year event storms.
To protect the neighborhood and area against 100-year storms, 13 feet of elevation would be required.
“It’s not feasible at this point to raise it up to the 100-year flood elevation,” Duncanson said.
The project does not include any work to existing public roadways.
Duncanson said the project would benefit the town by protecting Morris Island Road from flooding and provide access to Morris and Stage Islands.
“It would provide access for emergency responders,” Duncanson said. “It would potentially reduce the need for emergency response because if the area is not flooded and nobody is trapped then you wouldn’t have to go in and rescue anyone.”
Duncanson said the flooding from storms last winter limited emergency response access to homes in the area, along with preventing utility crews from addressing outages.
“On a couple of occasions during the first storm we had to utilize town resources to get some folks out of harm’s way either from their residences or from cars trapped in the flood waters,” Duncanson said.
The funding request may be before special town meeting voters in the fall.
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