The Franklin Regional Council of Governments won a $155,000 state grant Thursday that looks at ways to protect the Deerfield River and its tributaries from major flooding events like Tropical Storm Irene five years ago.
“This is huge!” said natural resource planner Kimberly Noake MacPhee, adding that this grant focuses on “innovative ways to protect the health of rivers and their watershed.
The grant, which will become available early in 2017 and last at least a couple of years, she said, will develop a model river corridor protection overlay district, building on the work that the COG recently completed in a $70,000, federally funded South River Corridor Mapping Project to protect the river from flooding hazards and erosion.
The COG planners’ mapping of the South River, which looks at the waterways’ geomorphology to take into account how the rivers have moved in the past, their current flows and how they might respond to future flooding, are based on models that have been used in Vermont, MacPhee said.
While the state’s River Protection Act specifies a strict 200-foot setback for development, she said, the water’s path might be wide or narrow, based on the fluvial geomorphology of the system.
In addition to developing less costly, “streamlined protocols” for watershed mapping that can be applied in other parts of the county, and around the state, MacPhee said, the new grant will also allow the COG to work with Franklin Land Trust to develop model conservation restrictions that can protect river corridors from development.
Among the tools planners hope to develop is an overlay zoning district bylaw that incorporates a river corridor easement.
Although the Deerfield and its tributaries are healthy as far as their water quality, MacPhee said, rivers like the North, South and Chickley, which were heavily damaged by Irene, are “very unstable” in terms of their dynamic relationship with surrounding land.
“Many tributaries have been confined to channels that are disconnected from the flood plain,” because of damming, berms and straightening their paths. “That makes them highly reactive in terms of big storm events,” she said, adding that those events are expected to become more frequent.
“If you’re able to identify those sections of river that are most unstable and most likely to be highly reactive, you can think about conserving the land in that corridor, so the river has a place to move and respond to flood events, you can be very careful about what kinds of development you allow in those corridors. So if you have enough of these interconnected, protected areas, the river can start to reach a more stable condition by identifying the most highly reactive areas, to basically give the river a kind of safety valve throughout the watershed.”
The grant to the COG is one of nine state projects totaling $1.32 million targeting water pollution from stormwater runoff and erosion announced by the Baker administration Thursday, all of which use federal Environmental Protection Agency money.
“This funding will allow for cutting-edge technologies and procedures in the way of mapping protocols for Franklin County, and represents a major achievement in sustainable environmental practices,” said Rep. Paul Mark, D-Peru.
Sen. Stanley Rosenberg, D-Amherst, said, “Stormwater runoff poses a serious pollution threat to all water bodies in the commonwealth. I applaud the Baker-Polito Administration for securing vital federal funding.”
The grant program focuses on implementation of measures to control nonpoint source (NPS) pollution to surface and groundwater. Unlike pollution from industrial facilities and sewage treatment plants, NPS pollution is unregulated and comes from a variety of sources. NPS pollution is caused by rainfall or snowmelt moving over and through the ground. As the runoff moves, it picks up and carries away natural and human-made pollutants, finally depositing them into lakes, rivers, wetlands, coastal waters and ground waters.
You can reach Richie Davis at rdavis@recorder.com or 413-772-0261, Ext. 269