Salem Living Shoreline Project - Collins Cove Living Shoreline Design - February 2017SALEM LIVING SHORELINE
PROJECT
CZM Green Infrastructure for Coastal Resilience Grant
COLLINS COVE LIVING SHORELINE DESIGN
SALEM, MA
PUBLIC MEETING
February 16, 2017
Photo Credit- Salem Sound Coastwatch and LightHawk
City of Salem awarded
Massachusetts Coastal Zone Management
Green Infrastructure for Coastal Resilience
Financial & Technical Resources to advance understanding &
implementation of natural approaches to
mitigate coastal erosion
& flooding problems
1. December 2014 – June 2016 for shoreline assessment
2. December 2016 – June 2017 design & permitting 1 site
Kathryn Glenn – CZM North Shore Regional Coordinator
Julia Knisel – CZM Coastal Shoreline & Floodplain Manager
City of Salem – MA CZM – Salem Sound Coastwatch – Chester Engineers
• Alternatives or enhancements to bulkheads, seawalls, or revetments
• Introduction of a naturalized edge using plants, sand/soil, and the limited use
of hard structures
BENEFITS:
Living Shoreline Installations
= Natural “Green” Infrastructure
•Stabilizing the shoreline – more resistant to erosion
•Protecting surrounding riparian and intertidal environment
•Improving water quality via filtration of upland run-off
•Creating habitat for aquatic and terrestrial species
Focused on 5 Sectors
• Critical building
infrastructure
• Drinking water
• Energy
• Stormwater
• Transportation
• Vulnerable
populations
NOT THE NATURAL COASTLINE
Climate Change Vulnerability Assessment &
Adaptation Plan
Storm Surge Transportation Map
City of Salem’s Climate
Change Vulnerability &
Adaptation Plan 2014
Filled Tide Lands – Chapter 91
Historic high
water mark
The PROCESS CZM Grant 1
1.Municipal Shoreline Survey
2.Identify up to 10 possible sites
3.Chose 3 sites
4.Develop 3 Conceptual Designs
Created a Matrix to Determine Site Priority
28 Salem Municipal Site Profiles
Conceptual Designs for
3 Living Shoreline Projects
1.Bio-engineering with biodegradable materials and
plantings
2.Fringing salt marsh
– 15 feet of marsh can absorb 50% of incoming
wave energy
NOT
1.Natural oyster or mussel reef
2.Beach, berm & dune
chose 2 of the 4 general Focus Areas
Collins Cove Selected as 1 of the 3 Priority Sites
Awarded 2nd Massachusetts Coastal Zone Management Coastal
Resilience Grant for design and permitting of Collins Cove
Looking at Collins Cove Past
1790 Salem Map of Collins Cove
c. 1650-1700: There are a
few dozen houses along the
Cove.
A creek runs from the Salem
Common along present-day
Forrester Street to the Cove.
1800: The Common is
leveled and drained. The
creek begins to disappear.
Shallop Cove 1700 - 1800
A Shallop
from a illustration
by Ray Brown in
"The Story of Our
Merchant Marine"
by Willis J. Abbot,
1919.
1815 (June 17):
The Essex Register notes that “the Shallop
Cove, which lays eastward of the bridge,
Pleasant and East [present-day Forrester]
streets, & the Neck, is continually filling up.
Great changes have taken place in the
memory of the present generation, and very
great from the first settlement of the town.
It was at first their principal place for their
Shallops; it is now without water at every fall
of the tide.
1805 (September 12):
The Salem Register reports that a 460-pound
“tunny” (tuna) was stranded on the flats at
“Shallop Cove.”
1820 Salem Map of Collins Cove
1815 (June 17):
The Essex Register continues:
Towards East Street, it is daily filling,
from the sluices which conduct the water
from the streets into it. The continuation of
Webb Street into East Street… was formerly
the only pass which the town had to the
Neck, till it was washed into the cove, by the
action of the tide upon its banks…”
Filling of Collins Cove
Railroad Tracks – Filling of Collins Cove
1874 – Map of the City of Salem Map
- H. F. Walling - cropped
1848-49: The Essex Railroad builds a track
across the bottom of the Cove, using
gravel brought in from Danvers. On May
12, 1849 the Salem Observer notes that the
rail is conveyed across the Cove “by an
embankment and bridge.” This line connects
Phillips’s Wharf (now roughly where Salem
Ferry is located) to the North River.
1861: “…permanent improvements have
been made in the construction of a new sea
wall and road by Collins’ Cove, called
Collins street.” Salem City Documents page
52.
1869-73: Sewers are built along Forrester,
Essex, Pickman, Andrew, Brown, and St.
Peters Streets. All empty into Collins Cove.
(Salem City Documents, Street
Commissioner’s Reports)
Sewerage is a Public Nuisance
1944 Salem and Lynn Harbors,
US Coast Survey - cropped
c. 1960-1973: The rail line is removed.
1889-1890: Salem Board of Health in its annual report
declares the “Webb Street Basin” (the water body
between the shoreline and the rail line) a sanitary
nuisance. In 1889, the Board reports that
“About 8000 cubic yards of gravel have been placed here
by the [Boston and Maine] railroad, and some 600 loads of
gravel, loam and other suitable filling exclusive of city
ashes have been dumped here.”
Fill work is completed the following year. This adds the
land on the present-day “odd” side of Webb Street.
1904-09: A main sewer line is constructed beneath Webb
Street, part of a larger project that takes Salem sewage out
to Great Haste Island.
1935-36: The Collins Cove Playground, a WPA project, is
planned and completed.
c. 1935-1940: City property along Almshouse Road and
Fort Avenue is used for a city dump. In 1940 the city
completes acquisition of privately held “flats” next to the
dump. The WPA thickens the “neck” by filling in a roughly
triangular area bounded by Almshouse Road and Fort
Avenue. They begin a sea wall on its edge, but MA WPA
programs are terminated before the wall is completed.
Collins Cove Today
Collins Cove – walking and bike path along the water
Collins Cove – walking and bike path along the water
Collins Cove – average tide
Collins Cove – After 11.8ft. King Tide on 11/16/2016
Collins Cove – During hurricane Sandy 10/29/2012
Nothing like Scituate……
Collins Cove – Spartina alterniflora
and other salt marsh plants growing there now
COLLINS COVE
N
SITE
Spartina patens
and other salt marsh plants growing there now
EXISITNG VEGETATION
TIDE DATUMS BOSTON Station 8443970
Datum Description NAVD88 (feet)
MHHW Mean Higher-High Water 4.77
MHW Mean High Water 4.33
MTL Mean Tide Level -0.42
MSL Mean Sea Level -0.30
DTL Mean Diurnal Tide Level -0.37
MLW Mean Low Water -5.16
MLLW Mean Lower-Low Water -5.51
NAVD88 North American Vertical Datum of 1988 0
STND Station Datum -9.03
MN Mean Range of Tide 9.49
SURVEY DATA
DelawareEstuary.org
Shellfish-based living shorelines trapped sediment and appeared to decrease
erosion at low-moderate energy sites.
Ribbed mussels (and oysters) successfully recruited onto natural substrates
deployed in the intertidal zone along eroding salt marshes
Questions and Comments
Contacts:
Tom Devine – tdevine@salem.com / 978-619-5682
City of Salem Department of Planning & Community Development Senior Planner
Eric Nelson – enelson@chesterengineers.com / 978-224-3139
Chester Engineers Senior Project Manager
Barbara Warren – barbara.warren@salemsound.org | 978-741-7900
Salem Sound Coastwatch Executive Director & MassBays Lower North Regional Service Provider
Other 2 Priority Sites
Juniper Cove
along Columbus Avenue
Furlong Park
along the North River