State officials gathered at Landmark Center on Wednesday to break ground on the Muddy River Restoration Project, which is expected to improve the landscape’s conditions.
The groundbreaking ceremony marked the beginning of the initiative to restore the landscape and increase flood control of the river that runs through Boston and Brookline.
“This is a project that has come from the grassroots up,” said Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick at the groundbreaking celebration. “This is where government works best, when we are all working together.”
The main goal of the project’s first phase is to “daylight” portions of the river that were covered in the 1950s, bringing the river to ground level and giving it a much larger area to flow through, said MMOC Chairman Fran Gershwin.
This will hopefully mitigate flooding, she said.
The $92 million MMOC project has received funding from the Army Corps, the Massachusetts Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs, Boston and Brookline, according to a press release handed out at the ceremony.
In October 1996, a storm caused the Muddy River to overflow its banks, causing severe damage to the surrounding area, Gershwin said. The flooding left Kenmore Station 30 feet underwater, priceless pieces of art in the Museum of Fine Arts in jeopardy and colleges and homes facing millions of dollars of damages.
“This big flood and the impact on institutions and public transportation is what really brought things over the edge,” Gershwin said.
The Army Corps of Engineers were called upon by the state to work on the project in 2001.
The design of the project was approved in 2005 and the project work time will last about 36 months, said Mike Keegan, the project’s manager from the Army Corp of Engineers.
“If the community has insisted on some sort of project, and we have the means to assist them on that, we try to do that,” Keegan said.
Gershwin said the project would also change traffic patterns around the Landmark Center on Brookline Avenue and Avenue Louis Pasteur.
“While the project is going on, it will affect traffic,” Gershwin said, “but once it’s restored more people will be drawn to the park.”
New river crossings will also be constructed in areas where the river will be daylighted, she said.
“This is part of a natural urban environment that the community was deprived of 50 years ago,” Gershwin said.
One of the intended benefits of the Muddy Creek Habitat Restoration Project is to improve the environmental conditions in the area, Keegan said.
He said this new project would also benefit the habitat around the river.
The banks of the river are overrun with invasive species, and the dissolved oxygen level is too low, making it difficult for aquatic life to thrive, Keegan said.
“We will be able to improve the habitat, and the water quality will improve,” Keegan said. “We are looking to make the dissolved oxygen level higher, which will in theory bring more water species to the river.”
The groundbreaking celebration took place on the future site of restoration project, across from the Landmark Center in Boston.
Along with Patrick, Boston Mayor Thomas Menino and former Gov. Michael Dukakis were among the officials present to celebrate the beginning of the project.
Edward Lambert, commissioner of the Massachusetts Department of Conservation and Recreation, ended the ceremony by thanking all those who have been involved in the Muddy Creek Restoration Project in the last three decades.
“The partnership of the city and the state is a partnership that get’s things done,” Lambert said. “Future generations will remember the impacts this partnership had produced.”
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