The city has already spent more than $10 million to improve its flood control system.
Chicopee Project Manager Thomas Hamel tours one of the renovated dikes along the Chicopee River in a past inspection with the Army Corps of Engineers.
CHICOPEE — A federal inspection of the city’s flood control system showed serious problems with broken equipment that the city must repair or face losing its certification from the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
In a periodic inspection, the Army Corps of Engineers discovered the city was well protected in the case of major floods that occur every 100 and 500 years but found serious flaws in some equipment, said Thomas Hamel, project supervisor for the Department of Public Works.
“One of the things they look at is does everything work,” Hamel said. “We have a lot of infrastructure that has never been used and was rusted in a closed position.”
One of the problems include a flood control gate in the Chicopee River near the Ames Privilege complex on Front Street that has been rusted shut for so long that no one remembers ever being opened. There is also an immovable intake gate at the former Uniroyal plant off Oak Street, and some underground drain lines are built in a way that they cannot be inspected or cleaned.
In total there are 70 different items that have to be fixed, but some of those will be appealed, he said.
“It is not an immediate safety problem, but they will not renew your certification if it isn’t fixed,” Hamel said.
The Army Corps of Engineers annually inspects every city’s flood control system, and every five years it does a major inspection. The issues about the failed equipment have been noted in previous reports, but since the 2005 Hurricane Katrina, when there were 50 failures of the levees and flood walls protecting New Orleans, the federal government has cracked down on flood control infrastructure nationwide.
Over the past five years, Chicopee has been forced to spend more than $10 million meeting federal mandates to upgrade its flood control system. The additional work will cost another $1.8 million, Hamel said.
Recently the City Council voted 10-0 to allocate the money from its free cash account.
“It is a lot of money but it protects the river and people’s homes,” City Councilor Dino A. Brunetti said, supporting the allocation.
If the city were to lose the certification of the system, residents who live near the rivers would find it prohibitive or impossible to buy flood insurance for their homes, he said.
FEMA requires the city to make the repairs within a year or show plans to fix the problems, Hamel said.
It may take as long as three years to finish the entire project, but the city will immediately begin designing plans for work to be done, he said.
The fact that the city allocated the money shows there is a good-faith effort to do the work which will help, Hamel said.