Epsom News : floods

Grant may be part answer to shifting Suncook River

Hooksett Editor — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 19:46:00 GMT

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.”

Options to fix Suncook River after shift are daunting

Hooksett Editor — Wed, 16 Apr 2008 20:25:00 GMT

BY JENN McDOWELL

After “100-year” flooding two years in a row, residents in towns along the Suncook River got some answers to questions surrounding the river’s change of course in May 2006, which led to worse flooding in Epsom, Allenstown and Pembroke almost a year later.

In some cases, the answers residents got left them with more questions, some of them questioning the extent of the studies as well as their validity, and others expressing anxiety as the spring melt rushes through the state again.

Researchers performing studies of the Suncook River‘s avulsion, as well as those studying floodplain maps, sediment flow and concentration, dam operations and stream bed changes, presented the latest advancements in their progress at a public meeting on Wednesday, March 26, at Epsom Central School.

Residents also heard multimillion- dollar possible action plans to tame the Suncook in the future. Aside from doing nothing, the least expensive option tops $1.2 million.

“I’m assuming we’re going to find gold or dinosaur bones to pay for this,” said Jack Campbell of Epsom during a discussion of the several plans offered, all of them involving dredging the river bottom to change its character. Researchers Randy Sewall and Peter Walker of Vanasse Hangen Brustlin Inc., contracted by Epsom and the state’s Department of Environmental Services, presented the executive summary of their study, titled “Suncook River Avulsion, Geomorphology-based Alternatives Analysis.”

Sewall, a river specialist, and Walker, an environmental scientist, said their research is ongoing and weeks from being complete, and also that any of the alternatives offered would not completely prevent flooding.

“We’re not here tonight with the final answers,” Walker said. Prior to the May 2006 flood, the river naturally split into two separate channels right after the second Huckins Mill dam, the main river bordering Bear Island on the west and a secondary stream along the eastern border. The two streams joined up just after Bear Island, near Round Pond.

The Suncook changed course in Epsom during the heavy May rains when the rushing water dug a deep trench and blazed a new channel before the Huckins Mill dams, which now carries most of the Suncook’s flow down past Cutter’s gravel pit before joining back with the secondary channel on the east side of Bear Island.

The former main river on the west side of Bear Island all but dried up, and the reduced capacity of the new channel led to worsened flooding in April 2007 and the deposit of more sediment in the downstream towns of Allenstown and Pembroke. Alternative 1 listed in the study is to do nothing, which a few residents at the meeting supported.

Alternative 2 involves installing “cross vanes,” or rock barriers, at strategic points along the river bottom. That plan, which would slow the river’s rush and prevent the bottom from dropping further, would cost about $1,275,000, Sewall and Walker estimated.

This alternative also involves removing sediment deposited downstream near Epsom’s town beach on Short Falls Road.

According to the study, this would prevent another potential avulsion from forming, which could divert a portion of the river into Round Pond.

Another option Sewell and Walker presented was to add to stabilizing the new channel to the cross vane and sediment removal plan. This would require more extensive studies of the new river bottom and a complete reshaping of the stream bottom. That cost was estimated to fall between $1.8 million and $2.1 million.

The study also puts forth the idea of diverting the Suncook back into its original state prior to the avulsion by constructing a dam either by the avulsion site or upstream of it.

The Class B dam would replace the 150,000 cubic feet of sediment eroded off the river bank by the avulsion. This would cost between $4 million and $5.5 million, the study estimated.

Researchers offered pros and cons of the alternatives, mostly for the dam concepts which would greatly impact neighborhoods in the flood plain, would require extensive engineering and of course is the most costly. “Frankly, we see that there’s a lot of risk associated with alternative four,” Sewall said. “This would really be quite an engineering feat.”

Tom Baumeister of Pembroke, concerned about the silt and sludge deposited by his home on Bachelder Road, pointed out the river’s soft, fine bottom

sand in many spots.

“I don’t believe you can stop the silt from going downstream,” he said. “This is why I feel alternatives one, two and three are dead in the water before you even start.”

In terms of cost, it is not yet clear how the three towns would go forward.

Steve Couture of the Department of Environmental Services said any of the solutions would be major undertakings that the federal and state governments would likely contribute to, but added Allenstown, Pembroke, and Epsom residents will need to cooperate with matching funds and public works endeavors to make it happen.

“It’s going to take everyone coming together and contributing what they can,” Couture said. “Any discussion going forward on restoration alternatives will include all three towns.”

Meanwhile, researchers with U.S. Geological Survey are performing sediment studies and mapping the floodplain. Walker said the avulsion study would be wrapped up in the next four to six weeks, which would allow them to make better recommendations about which course of action best suits the Suncook and the residents in the three towns.

No more RAC – Epsom road agent gets more say over budget

Hooksett Editor — Wed, 10 Oct 2007 16:31:00 GMT

BY JENN McDOWELL

Epsom’s Road Advisory Committee is no more, following issues with the road agent’s authority and the trickling down of paperwork.

At a meeting on Monday, Oct. 1, selectmen decided to do away with the committee after concern arose that it hindered the road agent’s progress in repairs and improvements to the roadways in Epsom.

They also agreed to allow Road Agent Gordon Ellis, more authority over discretionary spending from the roads budget.

According to selectmen’s accounts, a member of the former committee was asked to leave the meeting after an outburst.

Particularly in the aftermath of flooding in the past two years, this has become more of a problem for the town.

It became a major issue when Ellis was fired last October for allegedly going forward with projects without getting signatures from selectmen.

A lawsuit transpired, with Ellis claiming he was unlawfully and malignantly fired by the board.

Selectman John Klose, also the board’s liaison to the highway department, said the purchase order process had become too complicated.

According to guidelines, the road agent was only allowed to spend up to $200 without the board’s signatures and RAC approval.

Klose, who made both motions to do away with the RAC and increase the road agent’s purchase order powers from $200 to $2,000, said he’s been getting an average of up to five calls each week from Ellis asking for permission to spend money.

“Last Monday, the road agent needed five loads of gravel, and he called me five different times,” Klose said.

With winter approaching, he said, Ellis has got to be given more authority to get things done, as is the case in other towns.

“Road agents run their own budgets. They don’t have anyone telling them to do anything,” Klose said. “This man has got to be able to operate.”

The $200 limit for purchase orders was applied to every town department, Randall said, when it got too complicated for the town to sift through different limits.

The road agent, however, may not know whether they need to go over that $200 limit, and thus obtain signed permission from the board, until the day they start to work on a particular project. By then, it is too late to get that permission, and the project gets delayed.

Selectman Joni Kitson voted against the motion to dissolve the committee. According to minutes, Kitson pointed out that the road agent should be able to plan a monthly schedule,and understand that changing seasons will affect it.

Kitson said dissolving the board is a mistake, saying there were problems with board members not attending meetings.

“The road agent committee is a very valuable asset to the town, as long as the people on the committee attend the meetings,” Kitson said.

Rita Graham, a member of the former RAC, disagreed with the decision to dissolve the committee and expressed discontent with the board, according to minutes from the meeting.

Selectman Joanne Randall, acting as chairman at the meeting, said Graham blew up at the board and was asked to leave the meeting.

Randall said she attempted to give Graham the floor, but when Graham began pointing the finger and “getting into it one-on-one” with Klose, she pulled the plug on Graham.

“She got a little out of hand and I had to ask her to leave. Whatever credibility the RAC had went right out the door with her,” Randall said.

Klose said the RAC was not meeting as frequently as it should have, and was no longer serving its original purpose. She added there should be a specialized committee for the road agent to fall back on, but in a more collaborative function.

“The committee should work for the road agent,” she said, not the other way around.