Residents: Flood Control is Vital, Long in Coming

When Meriden Mayor Michael Rohde was running for his second City Council term in 1993 – a year after a massive flood caused $14 million in damages in the city – he read a flashback article in the Record-Journal newspaper by a former City Councilor that said, "Meriden has a huge downtown flooding problem. They should do something about it, but they probably never will."

It had been written 100 years before.

"I said to myself, 'someone’s going to write the same story 100 years from now about Meriden because we have not taken care of the biggest economic and social anchor on our neck for a century,'" he said Monday night. 

Rohde was addressing a packed Council Chamber at City Hall during a joint City of Meriden - Department of Energy and Environmental Protection about the master plan to reduce flooding along Harbor Brook that he helped put into motion after his revelation 18 years ago. The brook runs through, and in some parts under, the city's downtown and has been the site of many major floods since the late 1800s.

The projects that make up that master plan, including reconfiguring bridges and water detention areas, are together expected to dramatically reduce the amount of flooding around the brook -- shrinking the current floodplain of 12.5 square miles seen in blue on the adjoining map, to the size of the section outlined in red.

Officials hope this will spur development in Meriden's beleaguered downtown.

"If you're a developer, why do you want to come into an area that floods all the time," said GZA Baystate Environmental Planner Steve Lecco, who gave an opening presentation on the city's master plan. City consultant GZA is developing an environmental impact evaluation on the plan – a necessary step in garnering more state and federal dollars for projects, according to Public Works Director Bob Bass. This public meeting was the first part of creating the evaluation.

Rohde was one of 10 residents to speak at the meeting.

Some criticized the city for what they said was poor maintenance of flood control measures that are already in place.

Michael Pyskaty and his wife Judy Dawes said that the city needs to clear trees and other objects more frequently from a detention pond near their home. The two live north of the Harbor Brook flood plain, in a neighborhood at the intersection of Golden and Morse Streets and Frary Avenue and say they have been battling the city over fixing flooding there for more than 10 years.

"We're averaging (a flood every) four and a half months, and we're talking feet in our backyards," Pyskaty said. His neighborhood is north of the Harbor Brook flood plain. "I'm not against the Harbor Brook project, I think it's a good idea, but I think there's other areas that have to be improved on, and detention is one of them."

State Sen. Len Suzio (R-Meriden) too spoke about the importance of maintaining current and future flood projects. He also asked that planners be cognizant of the other major project that will affect downtown Meriden in the near future - the high speed rail.

"It needs to be an integrated long-term plan of action," Suzio said. "I would love to see Meriden get back to its former economic vitality...this project is very important to setting the table for that."

Joseph Zajac, Chairman of the Linear Trail Committee, and Dwight Needels of the Meriden Land Trust both asked that a proposed extension of the Linear Trail near the Factory H site lie on the less-developed east side of the brook and not the west side. A 2009 concept for development of the Factory H site on Cook Avenue called the Taylor Report shows the trail on the west side, next to the Butler Street Ext. and close to parking lots for a proposed mixed-use building on the site. 

Phil Ashton, chair of the city's Flood Control Implementation Agency, has spent the last 18 years on flood planning in Meriden - he said he hoped the environmental assessment could be sped along quickly so that the projects could be finished quickly as well.

"There's nothing new, guys, there's nothing new," Ashton said.

GZA Baystate is slated to be finished with the study this winter, Lecco said. It will include an analysis of how the plans affect housing, neighborhoods, low-income and minority populations – and also any historic areas. GZA's subcontractor, AHS consultants, has already sent letters to property owners in certain parts of the floodplains where officials think that historical artifacts – likely those from early Native Americans who were known to settle close to waterways – could be buried. Once given approval by homeowners, the company will come out to individual properties and take soil plugs of the property to test.

For those who didn't make it to the meeting, the DEEP will be taking comments on the plans until August 15. They can be directed to Dan Biron, Project Manager, Department of Energy and Environmental Protection, Inland Water Resources Division, 79 Elm Street, Hartford, 06106 or can be faxed to this office at (860) 424-4075.

The public will also have a chance to review and comment on the findings in November/December, Lecco said.