In a major step for coastal resiliency planning on the Vineyard, a combined total of nearly $400,000 in competitive, state grants were awarded to the three down-Island towns, providing funds to proactively prepare for and reduce the impacts of climate change across the Vineyard — from the Beach Road corridor to the South Beach dunes.
The three hefty Island grants were announced Friday as part of the state’s larger Office of Coastal Zone Management coastal resiliency grant program that began in 2015. In a press release, the state announced it had awarded $4 million to 29 different coastal resiliency projects across the commonwealth, including funds for Edgartown, Oak Bluffs and Tisbury.
The bulk of the Vineyard-specific funds will go toward a long-sought, $223,480 joint grant between the town of Oak Bluffs and the Martha’s Vineyard Commission that will use advanced technology from Provincetown’s Center for Coastal Studies to map storm tide pathways in low-lying across the entire Island.
The grant came out of the commission’s recently-formed climate action task force, with the express goal of establishing a climate resiliency plan for the Island.
According to the grant, every Island town will partner to develop spatial data sets of the Vineyard’s low-lying regions, with the aim of mapping areas at risk for coastal flooding. A second phase of the project will focus on mapping low-lying roads with flood data from the project’s first phase. Field work will be conducted by experts from the Center for Coastal Studies.
The project will also coordinate with the National Weather Service’s Coastal Flood Threat and Inundation Mapping website to provide real-time, online water-level forecasting for areas currently flooded or at risk of flooding.
A match of approximately $75,000 comes with the grant, which is being worked on by the commission and the Center for Coastal Studies.
When called for comment Friday, Oak Bluffs conservation agent Liz Durkee had not yet heard that the town and commission’s application had been accepted as a grant recipient. She could barely contain her excitement upon discovering the news.
“That makes my day,” Ms. Durkee said. “There’s going to be a live website that fire and police can look at to figure out physically where the flooding is, to determine what routes to take . . . so it’s going to be great immediately for planning for resiliency strategy and emergencies, and it is going to be great for climate planning purposes overall. I’m so excited.”
Coastal flooding has been noted in the climate task force meetings across the Island as one of the biggest future impacts of climate change on the Vineyard. The storm tide mapping will identify, locate and characterize storm surge paths by starting at high tide elevation and continuing six feet beyond the highest storm of record in all six towns.
That sort of mapping and preparedness for future sea level rise could be critical in emergency circumstances. For instance, there are currently four access ways to the Martha’s Vineyard Hospital located in the low-lying Eastville neighborhood of Oak Bluffs — three of them are in the flood zone. Ms. Durkee said the grant would be critical to helping figure out what level of storm could flood those roads, and what impact that would have on access by emergency service vehicles.
“This is going to show us where the floodwater is going now, and where it will go in the future, as the storm surge gets larger and the flooding gets worse,” Ms. Durkee said. “I’m so excited we got this. I’ve been wanting to do this for years on the Island.”
Both Tisbury and Edgartown also received substantial coastal resiliency grants from the state on Friday.
The Tisbury grant provides $111,022 toward a feasibility assessment and conceptual design for coastal storm protection along the town’s shoreline, including recommended resilience strategies for dune and beach nourishment, as well as the future elevation of roadways. Town administrator Jay Grande was not immediately available for comment.
Edgartown received $43,349 to relocate the existing bathhouse at the left fork at South Beach. The project will include removing 150 feet of asphalt roadway just off the coastal dunes, restoring them to their natural state and installing a removable boardwalk over the restored natural habitat.
Conservation agent Jane Varkonda was also thrilled when she heard the news about the grant, saying that the existing bathhouse was located on a dune at risk of severe coastal erosion. The town is also planning to dredge the Edgartown Great Pond next winter, and hopes to use the spoils as part of the restoration project, Ms. Varkonda said.
“That bathhouse is basically in imminent danger of being washed away. It is where the dune system should be,” Ms. Varkonda said. “So in order to help preserve that building, and to help restore that area and make that area less prone to flooding, we want to move the bathhouse and put it behind the dunes and bus parking area.”
The overall cost of the project is more than $200,000, according to Ms. Varkonda. She said the project has been in the works for a couple of years, and that the area has been examined by the state as well as Woods Hole experts.
“I think this is a very important project for the town to do,” Ms. Varkonda said.
Other grants include $300,000 for the East Boston waterfront, $240,000 for shore management on the Outer Cape around Provincetown, and $150,000 to assess the condition of the New Bedford port authority’s piers. The grant announcements are part of the state’s observance of climate week, Gov. Charlie Baker noted in the press release, and mark the fourth anniversary of the governor’s executive order on greenhouse gas reduction and climate change preparedness.
“Massachusetts’s coastal communities coast face increasing damages from increasingly severe storms, sea level rise and erosion,” Governor Baker said in the release. “We’re proud to support local efforts to protect residents, businesses and infrastructure from climate change impacts.”
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