The town of Epsom has completed its paperwork for a grant which Department of Environmental Services river specialist Steve Landry said will put the town and the Suncook River on a better course following the “Mother’s Day Flood” of 2006.

The Suncook River, which has its headwaters in Alton and Gilmanton, changed its course during the 2006 flood in an action river experts call an “avulsion.”

The avulsion, the largest event of its kind in New Hampshire history, affected businesses and homes in Epsom, Allenstown and Pembroke. It’s too big a problem for the towns or the state to address on their own, and Landry, colleague Steve Couture and the Epsom selectmen have been working to find funding.

The Suncook, a tributary of the Merrimack River, rose to flood level May 16, 2006. Before that time, it split around the northwest and southeast sides of Bear Island. The river veered to the southeast, then broke through an active gravel pit, a half mile to the east and continues to move east, eroding land. Since 2006, it has moved 140 feet to the east, affecting property and property values along its route.

Selectman Keith Cota, a professional engineer who is working with Landry and Couture, said Monday, Sept. 28, that Epsom has done its part of the paperwork and returned the application to the local office of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA).

DES and the town will pursue two grants, Landry said. The first, an Emergency Management Progress grant, will be for $400,000 for designing the project and the permitting process. There will be no cost, not even a grant match, to Epsom or any of the towns affected, Landry emphasized. The “match” will come from the state of New Hampshire, which will provide in-kind services to complete the design and permit process.

The current plan calls for in-stream structures such as rock veins and rock weirs to control erosion, and culverts to release pressure, Landry said. There will also be new snowmobile crossings at Layton Brook and the Little Suncook River, he said. The culverts will give the “new” Suncook access to a flood plain, he said.

When the first grant is completed, Landry, Couture and the town will apply to FEMA for a second grant. While the Pre-Disaster Mitigation Grant was rejected last year, the stakeholders hope that a repackaged request, including a lower bottom line, will succeed this time. Last year’s request was for $5 million for design, permitting and construction, and was denied.

“Now we’re cutting out a half million of that, which is funding from the first grant,” Landry said. “We’ve also changed the scope of the project, and won’t do so much channel dredging downstream. That was $1 million by itself.”

The new, scaled-down grant request will be “more attractive” to FEMA, Landry said. In addition to the first grant proposal, Landry and Couture have also drafted a request for qualifications for firms to do the work should the grant be accepted. The application will be filed through Dick Verville of New Hampshire Emergency Planning, who manages the FEMA grant programs for New Hampshire, Landry said.

“We’ll see where this goes,” Cota said of the first grant. “I’m a little disappointed at the slowness of the process,” he added. “This is very important -- it affects three communities.”

Selectmen Chairman Bob Blodgett hopes the second time will be the charm.

“It’s eroded a lot of property,” he said of the wayward river. “Every time we get a severe rainstorm, it eats at even more of the land. Once we get the grants, we hope that will stabilize it.”