Community Relations Program Helps Neighborhood Survive Major Construction: Fid-Bau Portal

Community Relations Program Helps Neighborhood Survive Major Construction

Kavanagh, Judith A.

Construction of a much needed sewer separation and stormwater management project in the Crescent/Carver neighborhood in Cambridge, Massachusetts, involved a two-year period of extensive disruption for residents and businesses. This paper describes how a dynamic community relations program helped build public support for this project and eased disruption to daily routines. The neighborhood was in urgent need of relief from flooding and wastewater backups that occurred during heavy rainstorms. The record-breaking rainstorm of June 13, 1998, was the catalyst for the project. The storm dropped 254mm (ten inches) of water in a 24-hour period, causing severe street flooding throughout the neighborhood and inundating basements with water mixed with raw sewage. "The heavens opened up yesterday, unleashing a powerful storm that turned roads into swamps, filled sewers to the breaking point, and set a one-day record for rainfall in June," read the front page headline of the Boston Globe's June 14, 1998, Sunday edition. When it was all over, the storm left thousands of dollars worth of property damage and posed a threat to public health. As a result, the City of Cambridge's Department of Public Works embarked on an aggressive two-year sewer separation and stormwater management project to install stormwater holding tanks, storm drains, and a water distribution system, as well as rehabilitate the sewer system in the project area. The City's overall plan was to assure citizens that quality of life, public health and the environment would be safeguarded for generations to come by planned new infrastructure that would prevent both sewer back-ups and release of untreated sewage into the Charles River.