Woods Hole Group awarded Wellfleet's Mayo Creek restoration project contract

Published on Thursday, January 21, 2010

Woods Hole Group, Inc. an international, environmental, scientific, and engineering consulting organization headquartered in Falmouth, has been awarded a contract by the Town of Wellfleet to support a project to restore tidal flow to Mayo Creek. The purposes of the project are to restore salt marsh habitat, improve water quality, and enhance drainage of the watershed. Woods Hole Group will conduct a hydraulic study and apply a computer model to optimize a project design to maximize environmental benefits.

“Woods Hole Group is happy to be part of the evaluation process for finding the best and most cost-efficient engineering solution to restore Mayo Creek,” said Bob Hamilton, Vice President for Business Development and Coastal Engineer at Woods Hole Group. “The Town of Wellfleet takes the protection of its waterways seriously, and restoring tidal flow to the creek is an important step to ensure its long-term health.”

Mayo Creek is connected to Wellfleet Harbor through an existing structure under Commercial Street that restricts tidal flow. Over the course of the contract, which runs until November 2010, Woods Hole Group will evaluate different restoration options, and make a recommendation for an improved connection to maximize tidal exchange to help restore the upstream salt marsh, while improving drainage. The project also will assess potential flooding of low lying infrastructure, and provide recommendations to restoring tidal flow to the maximum extent possible while avoiding adverse impacts.

In order to accomplish this Woods Hole Group will:

• Review and take full advantage of existing data.
• Apply a computer model to simulate flow to the marsh for existing conditions, and evaluate a suite of possible restoration alternatives, including potential water management devices
• Develop computer-generated output to help stakeholders visualize and understand the project.
• Deliver a final report, including a recommended alternative for restoring the salt marsh.

For more information, please contact Bob Hamilton at bhamilton@whgrp.com or (508) 540-8080.

Woods Hole Group is an international, environmental, scientific, and engineering consulting organization headquartered in Falmouth, Massachusetts. With its breadth of vision and emphasis on a sustainable future global environmental, Woods Hole Group provides premier integrated solutions to meet the challenge of environmental problems worldwide. As a leader in environmental sciences and engineering, Woods Hole Group’s expertise includes environmental impact and risk assessment, measurement systems for real-time operational guidance, oceanography, and coastal sciences, engineering and planning. Woods Hole Group was founded in 1986 by Dr. David Aubrey.