2022 Award Winners

The town of Arlington, Massachusetts developed an innovative green infrastructure model using small-scale street trenches to manage stormwater. These modular trenches, designed in collaboration with the University of New Hampshire Stormwater Center and the Environmental Protection Agency, are intended to infiltrate the first flush of stormwater by diverting flow to a trench before it reaches the catch basin outlet. This approach offers several advantages, including reduced engineering costs, design flexibility, and construction efficiency, with contractors able to install two trenches per day.

The modular design of these street trenches costs approximately $15,000 per trench and provides substantial phosphorus reduction. More traditional methods of phosphorus reduction are considerably more expensive and labor intensive. Arlington is one of 13 municipalities in the Mystic River Watershed that have installed hundreds of trenches with hundreds more proposed. This approach also helps communities with urban greening and cooling in conjunction with tree trenches and rain gardens in the area. Fiscal resources distributed to Arlington and other municipalities in the Mystic River Watershed from the EPA’s 319 program, Coastal Zone Management, and Clean Water State Revolving Funds have provided proof of concept and scientific evaluation to ensure the effectiveness of these trenches, as well as implementation of the designs. 

To comply with Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection’s notification requirements when sewer overflows occur, the city of New Bedford implemented pipeCAST, an innovative Digital Twin solution designed to analyze the performance of the public sewer collection system, which spans 254 miles of pipe, 72 Combined Sewer Overflow (CSO) regulators, and 27 CSO outfalls. With 100,000 residents and such an expansive, aging system, the city needed a solution to quickly know if an overflow occurs and create an automated notification process to alert both system operators and the public. 

New Bedford has tied pipeCAST into its computerized maintenance management system (CMMS) to identify actual flood events. The Digital Twin can correct false notifications from meter data by cross referencing other systems. It also provides a single dashboard combining rainfall, overflow depth, simulated results, and forecasts to keep operators informed. Lastly, it streamlines the public notification process by utilizing the city’s website and reverse 911 systems with multilingual support. This new technology provides peace of mind by prioritizing public safety, because city staff know, even if an event occurs in the middle of the night or on a weekend, notifications will still be sent in accordance with state regulations. By advancing their digital-first resiliency, pipeCAST will also help the city maintain and update its collection system. 

The Resilient Mystic Collaborative (RMC) and the Charles River Climate Compact (CRCC) are pioneering partnerships addressing climate resilience in Massachusetts. RMC, comprising 17 municipalities in Greater Boston’s Mystic River Watershed, developed a hydrologic model to predict flooding and identify stormwater storage areas. Leveraging grants and consultant partnerships, RMC analyzed 465 open space parcels, prioritizing stormwater management projects, especially in low-income, racially diverse neighborhoods. With over $12 million in funding, RMC has constructed four stormwater management sites, with two more in progress, and plans to review zoning policies and enhance public communication to mitigate flood damage.

Similarly, CRCC, in collaboration with the Charles River Watershed Association and Communities Responding to Extreme Weather, developed the Charles River Flood Model (CRFM) in 2021. This tool simulates stormwater runoff, helping communities identify flood risks and evaluate management projects. CRCC has engaged 33 municipalities, identified numerous project ideas, and prepared six conceptual site designs. Their efforts include green stormwater infrastructure opportunities, aiming to reduce flooded areas by 12 percent for the 10-year storm by 2070 and support compliance with the MS4 General Permit.

Together, these initiatives are crucial in enhancing regional climate resilience and protecting communities from the impacts of climate change.