Damaged Stamford hurricane barrier gets federal funds for repair, but work won't start for years
STAMFORD — Repairs are coming to Stamford's
hurricane barrier, but work won't begin until at least 2027.
The New England district of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers
announced this week that federal dollars were secured to maintain and repair
the barrier, which was built in the 1960s and is located between the South End
and Shippan neighborhoods, according to the Army Corps' website.
The corps maintains the navigation gate at the barrier,
while the city is responsible for maintaining the rest, the site says.
Sheandra Sterling, public affairs specialist for the New
England district of the Corps of Engineers, wrote in an emailed
message that an inspection in 2022 found that the gate at the barrier was
misaligned, "making it difficult to open and close." More
specifically, one of the gate's four hinges was bent, causing the issue.
The federal government has provided $22.5 million for the work, Sterling wrote. However, that is not the final budget for the work, she said, as that number will be determined once the design process is completed.
The proposed work includes replacing other mechanical
components of the gate and updates to the gate control system, Sterling wrote.
She said there is no exact timeline for the repair, but that
the Army Corps expects to award a construction contract in 2027.
A press release from the Army Corps of Engineers stated that
work on the barrier may require the temporary closure of the harbor.
"Any construction plans will seek to minimize
disruption to the community," Sterling wrote. "We are committed to
transparency during this process and will continue to meet regularly with state
and city officials to share information."
A press release from the office of Mayor Caroline Simmons
last year announced that repairs on the barrier would begin in 2026. It is
unclear why the project has been delayed, but city spokesperson Laura Meyer
said the project is largely being directed by the Army Corps and Stamford's
involvement is minimal.
According to the Army Corps' website, the hurricane barrier
provides protection for roughly 600 acres, which includes manufacturing plants,
a commercial district and residential sections. The barrier is activated 15
times a year on average, Sterling wrote, with January being the most
active month for closures.
Sterling said the last time the gate was used to combat a
tidal surge was on Nov. 14 and 15 of last year.
UI is building a series of floodwalls to protect its coastal substations
When Superstorm Sandy sent a nearly 10-foot
storm surge into Bridgeport’s South End in 2012, workers at United
Illuminating’s Singer substation watched as the floodwaters crept down Atlantic
Street before arriving at the base of the plant.
Had waters risen much higher, those workers would have had
to cut off the flow of electricity to protect the station’s critical
infrastructure — potentially disrupting power for tens of thousands of people
across the region.
“The water level got to under the door and we had people
stay here, getting ready to open up circuits,” said Ben Acampora, a
construction chief for the utility.
It was not the first time that the substation, which sits in
a coastal floodplain, was threatened by a storm surge. A year
before, the neighborhood was similarly inundated by Hurricane Irene.
Luckily, neither storm caused much damage to the substation,
even as they ravaged other parts of Connecticut. But to avoid more serious
consequences from future storms, United Illuminating recently began
construction of a 16-foot-high steel floodwall around the substation to keep
the waters at bay.
The Singer project — which is expected to be completed in
2027 at a cost of $47 million — is one of three similar floodwalls that the
Orange-based utility has either constructed or is planning to build to protect
coastal substations.
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Last year, UI finished construction of its first floodwall
around the Congress Street Substation, also in Bridgeport. The final project, a
wall protecting the Grand Ave./Mill River Substation in New Haven, is due to be
completed in 2028, officials said.
The combined cost of all three projects is expected to be
$146 million, according to a UI spokeswoman.
Utilities such as United Illuminating generally operate two
types of substations: transmission stations, which send bulk electricity from
power plants long distances over high-voltage transmission lines, and
distribution stations which take that electricity, lower the voltage and feed
it into the local distribution system where it arrives at homes and businesses.
Renni Pavolini, the unit manager of substation projects at
UI, said the consequences of flood damage to a transmission station such as
Singer could potentially be “catastrophic” for parts of the New England power
grid.
“We will have to shut down the substation, and depending on
the damage… it could take days, or it could be just hours,” to restore power,
Pavolini said. “Our system, the grid, it’s done in a way that if this [station]
is down, we probably could feel it with other substations.”
Connecticut’s other major electric utility, Eversource, is
also in the process of adding a layer of protection to its network of
substations.
Since 2019, Eversource has spent $9.5 million completing
flood mitigation projects at five of its distribution substations around the
state, and two more have been scheduled for upgrades. In addition, three
substations in the coastal towns of Guilford, Branford and Madison have been
removed from service due to the risk of flooding, according to a spokeswoman
for the utility.
Elli Ntakou, Eversource’s manager of system resilience and
reliability, said the utility recently completed a climate vulnerability
assessment to determine which substations or other infrastructure were
vulnerable to sea level rise, inland flooding or other climate threats such as
drought and extreme heat.
‘We have a granular analysis so we understand the impact to
specific assets,” Ntakou said. “The specific stations that we think are higher
risk, that’s where we target our mitigations so we make it cost efficient.
The risk that climate changes poses to electric
infrastructure is not confined to either utility’s service areas, Connecticut
or even coastal regions in general.
Power outages, which can be costly for both utilities and
their customers, are growing in frequency across the country due to extreme
weather, according to the most recent National Climate Assessment. The same report found that
climate change could push expenditures on electricity transmission and
distribution infrastructure up an additional 25% by 2090.
The report, released in 2023 under the Biden administration,
was removed from government websites after President
Donald Trump took office earlier this year.
Locally, the threat floodwaters pose to electric
infrastructure is especially concentrated in and around Bridgeport Harbor with
its network of substations, transmission lines and power plants.
An ongoing project to build a flood protection system around
the city’s South End, known as Resilient
Bridgeport, was slated to receive more than $47 million from the Federal
Emergency Management Agency’s pre-disaster grant program before the latest
round of awards were cut
off by the Trump administration earlier this year. (In response,
Connecticut Attorney General William Tong joined a
lawsuit last month seeking to order the
UI’s Singer Station project, meanwhile, is not reliant on
federal funding. Like the utility’s other floodwall projects, it is being paid
for by UI customers through transmission and distribution rates within their
utility bills.
The Singer floodwall is being built to withstand FEMA’s
estimates for a 100-year flood event, plus an additional three feet of water,
Pavolini said.
In the first phase of construction, crews drove a series of
57 king pile beams into the bedrock below the substation,
with their exposed tops forming the skeleton of the wall. From there, steel
sheet piles are currently being installed between the beams to form the
protective layer around the facility. Two gates allowing access to the
substation will be able to be sealed in the event of a storm.
As a last step, the wall will covered with a layer of
concrete so that it blends in aesthetically with the rest of the building,
before being topped with a security fence.
In addition to the building of walls, UI recently completed
construction on its brand new $142 million Pequonnock Substation in Bridgeport. The new
substation, which is located on higher ground further back from the Pequonnock
River, replaced an older facility that was vulnerable to coastal flooding.
Be ‘in tune’ with workers to assess their well-being, presenters say
ORLANDO, Fla. — Workplace safety experts have long been
focused not just on workers’ physical wellbeing but their mental health as
well. That rang true at the American Society of Safety Professionals 2025 Expo
and Conference in July.
“It definitely is [our responsibility],” said Wesley
Wheeler, executive director of safety for the National Electric Contractors
Association. “We are the eyes and ears of our contractors.”
Wheeler’s comments came during a panel discussion, but it
was far from the only event at the conference where worker mental health was
brought up.
Panelists also discussed the need to remove the “macho”
stigma in industries like construction that can negatively impact men in
particular and how to spot the warning signs of someone struggling with mental
health issues.
Those indicators include workers who don’t regularly
maintain their hygiene, have a sudden rapid drop in productivity or
increasingly keep to themselves when they may have otherwise been social.
“You will notice these things if you are in tune with your
workers,” said Georgia Bryce-Hutchinson, mental health consultant for Exton,
Pennsylvania-based healthcare provider Carebridge.
Construction’s long hours, demanding physical labor and
tough-guy mentality can contribute to mental health issues, said Chris Trahan
Cain, executive director of Silver Spring, Maryland-based CPWR — The Center for
Construction Research and Training.
“A growing number of deaths are not from falls or
electrocutions. They’re from suicide on the job or drug overdose on the job,”
Cain said.
Conference organizers handed out ASSP poker chips with 988
on the back — the national suicide hotline number — before and after the panel.
Wheeler said that the poker chip can be used as a tool in a personal or group
setting to open pathways to conversation around mental health.
Cain suggested that a safety manager give a chip to a worker
they are concerned about with no further discussion, highlighting the option
for a subtle nudge rather than an immediate discussion, which might not be
comfortable.
Language, literally
At another presentation, two speakers stressed the
importance of language as a factor in worker mental health and suicide
prevention.
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Sonya Bohmann, executive director of the Frankfort,
Illinois-based Construction Industry Alliance for Suicide Prevention and
Loretta Mulberry, a Spanish-to-English interpreter and industry advocate,
discussed the importance of the vocabulary used to talk about mental health
issues.
For example, Bohmann and Mulberry encouraged attendees to
use the term “die by suicide” rather than “commit” as well as describing
someone as “having” a mental illness, rather than “being mentally ill.”
Doing so, Bohmann said, can underscore that mental health is
part of a greater health issue, and thereby make it easier to talk about.
It’s not just the verbiage on the jobsite, but the actual
dialect used to communicate that can have a profound effect on worker mental
health.
About one-fourth of people employed in construction overall
are Hispanic, Mulberry said, but Hispanic people make up about half of all
laborers. Many workers report low confidence in their ability to speak English,
and rely on one leader to interpret, Mulberry said. That can also increase risk
for hazards on the jobsite.
It also has an impact on worker mental health, Mulberry
said, as those who speak a different language can feel more isolated and be
even less likely to speak up about an issue.
The rate of Hispanic people in the U.S.
dying by suicide grew from 5.7 per 100,000 in 2011 to 7.5 in 2020,
according to the Suicide Prevention Resource Center, a faster increase than the
overall population experienced during that time period.
“There is simply not enough being done to bridge those
language cultural gaps,” Mulberry said.
Too often, Mulberry said she hears firms indicate they will
prioritize a safety program using multiple languages, but she rarely sees any
sense of urgency.
“I would like to impress upon people that people’s lives are
on the line everyday,” Mulberry said.
Connecticut DOT Selects HNTB for Major Upgrades Along Waterbury Branch Line
HARTFORD, CT — The Connecticut Department of
Transportation (CTDOT) has selected HNTB to provide construction
engineering and inspection (CEI) services for a series of station improvements
along the Waterbury Branch Line, a 28.5-mile segment of Metro-North Railroad’s
New Haven Line serving the Naugatuck River Valley.
The project includes major facility and operational upgrades
at five stations — Derby, Ansonia, Seymour, Beacon Falls, and Waterbury — aimed
at modernizing infrastructure, enhancing the commuter experience, and improving
overall system performance.
HNTB will oversee the construction of new platforms, ramps,
and canopies; realignment of railroad tracks; improvements to parking and
drainage systems; installation of electric vehicle charging stations; and
relocation of a railroad signal hut. In addition, the firm will manage the
renovation of the historic Derby Station and build a new passenger waiting room
inside the Republican-American building at Waterbury Station.
“We are excited to support our client with this opportunity
to enhance rail service and infrastructure for communities along the Waterbury
Branch Line,” said Jake Argiro, PE, HNTB’s Connecticut Office Leader and
Vice President. “By bringing in top-tier talents in CEI and integrated project
controls capabilities, we’re ready to support the state’s most complex
infrastructure projects with innovative, efficient, and cost-effective
solutions.”
HNTB recently expanded its regional construction services
team, adding professionals with backgrounds in construction and alternative
delivery, as well as expertise in public outreach, risk management, cost
forecasting, and schedule control on large-scale infrastructure initiatives
across the region.
“The Waterbury Branch Line upgrades have been a
long-standing priority for CTDOT,” said David Speerli, PE, HNTB Senior
Resident Engineer and Project Manager. “As part of its commitment to
modernizing the line, CTDOT has already acquired new coach cars, which will be
in service upon project completion, further enhancing the quality, frequency,
and reliability of service for passengers. These upgrades will align Waterbury
Branch stations with the standards of other Metro-North lines, supporting
long-term growth and mobility in the region.”
In Connecticut, HNTB has played key roles on the WALK Bridge
Program, the Gold Star Memorial Bridge rehabilitation, and the TIME 4 project —
a 5-mile stretch of the TIME program that includes design of the SAGA Bridge, a
movable bridge, over the Saugatuck River in Westport, Connecticut.
Project completion across all stations is anticipated by
fall 2027.