Updated Surface Water Supply Watershed Protection Plan Sept 2021

The City's Artichoke Reservoir Watershed Protection Plan, prepared by Weston and Sampson, January 2005, has been updated by Tighe and Bond in September 2021 to address impacts we are expected to experience from our changing climate.  The original Plan was comprehensive and covered such things as: watershed characteristics and land uses; impacts from land uses and public access; protection measures; regulatory controls; and emergency planning.  This Plan can be found here.

While many of the proposals in that Original Plan are still relevant, there are a variety of issues confronting the City:  the need for improved watershed protection, improved resiliency against sea level rise and climate change impacts, and strengthening of the Lower Artichoke Dam.  The Updated Plan incorporates infrastructure redundancy to provide holistic options for addressing the issues facing the City's water supply system.  It proposes both emergency and permanent municipal water suppy interconnects with neighboring communities.  It updates the firm yield and water demand estimates.  It proposes a number of recommendations for revising the current regulations in both our City and in West Newbury where 80% of the surface water supplies reside. It provides options to address impacts expected from climate change and provides a number of resiliency recommendations.  It recommends maintenance measures to our existing dams and provides options for improving our Lower Artichoke Dam to address storm surge and sea level rise, as well as providing a flood protection system to the existing spillway until the dam and spillway are reconstructed to a higher elevation.  It proposes a raw water transmission line from Indian Hill Reservoir to each of the Artichoke Reservoirs and pumping station in order to provide redundancy and be able to provide water to the City when one of the three reservoirs are compromised by algae blooms, maintenance, storm surge breach, or other means of contamination.  And more....

Updated Report is here.