MassDOT Plans Meeting On Azalea Bridge Conditions

 HARWICH – Massachusetts Department of Transportation officials are planning a virtual meeting this week with town officials to discuss a solution to the erosion of the embankments surrounding the Azalea Drive Bridge.

  The embankments surrounding the bridge suffered considerable erosion in a heavy rain storm two weeks ago. Sediment washed down the banks adjacent to the newly reconstructed bridge and into the Herring River, narrowing the channel.   

“The erosion of the bridge bank is contributing sediment into the brook channel,” said Brad Chase, the diadromous fish project leader for the state Division of Marine Fisheries. "I inspected it yesterday and it is not presently restricting water depth to the point that it would impede the downstream movements of juvenile river herring. 

“However, more rain events will contribute more material, certainly a concern for other aquatic life considered under the Wetlands Protection Act. The steep bank slope and reliance on mulch are poor design features that should be corrected,” said Chase, a former Harwich Conservation Commission chair. 

Natural Resources Director Stephanie Sykes agreed with Chase that there is enough water in the channel for fish passage. Sykes said she and Chase have walked the river from Hinckley’s Pond to the bridge. 

“MassDOT has not provided a solution yet for the erosion/slope stabilization at the Azalea Drive Bridge, but they say they are going to set up a virtual meeting” with Sykes, Department of Public Works Director Lincoln Hooper and Conservation Administrator Amy Usowski, Usowski wrote in an email. 

Hooper said on Thursday that MassDOT is considering options and working cooperatively with the conservation department.

But he said, “We have to wait for MassDOT to come up with a permanent solution.”

Hooper said that members of his department went out last week to the site and dug out town-owned catch basins in the approach to the bridge to allow more water to be diverted before it reaches the catch basins installed as part of the new bridge construction.

This is the second time this year that the catch basins associated with the bridge failed to contain heavy rain water causing erosion sediment to end up in the river, Hooper said.