Daylighting Harbor Brook for the New Meriden Green

摘要

The City of Meriden has uncovered and daylighted portions of Harbor Brook, creating a blue-green corridor and park in its downtown area. For over 100 years, Harbor Brook flowed in a degraded open channel through an old industrial neighborhood. The river was dredged, straightened, and hardened; then portions of it were enclosed in a 30-foot-wide concrete conduit in the 1960s under a downtown retail shopping mall parking lot and urban renewal housing. However, the corridor remained subject to flooding, with major events in 1992 and 1996 causing $30 million in damages. In 1997, Meriden engaged Milone & MacBroom, Inc. to inventory and assess the channel, conduct a watershed-scale study, and create a Flood Management Master Plan. Extensive hydrologic and hydraulic studies were conducted leading to a comprehensive multifaceted master plan. The recommended strategy included renaturalization of 3 miles of the river and connection to its floodplain, simulating preurban conditions. Specific recommendations touched on 15 bridges, channel and floodplain restoration, daylighting of 1,700 linear feet of river, creation of upstream detention areas, and development of a downtown park with additional in-line water storage.