Peabody 8-15

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PEABODY WEEKLY
NEWS
(USPS #66)
Telephone: (978) 532-5880 • Fax: (978) 532-4250
Mailing Address: P.O. Box 5, Lynn, MA 01903
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WEEKLYNEWS.NET - 978-532-5880 AUGUST 16, 2018
Holding back the waters
WATER
From page 1
the Scouting Way retention
pond off Summit Street.
The program’s goal is to prevent
problems that contribute to
major storm flooding like the
2005 Mother’s Day storm that
turned Quail and Robin roads
into a lake.
“You couldn’t get out of the
neighborhood for a week,” recalled
Soteropoulos.
Quail residents and their
neighbors got a nasty memory
of the 2005 storm last Sunday
when eight inches of rain fell on
the North Shore, overtopping
Goldthwait. Ward 1 Councilor
Jon Turco said without
Soteropoulos’ efforts and a renewed
city focus, the flooding
could have been worse.
Soteropoulos and his father
built their Quail Road house
in 1977 a year after side streets
off Lynnfield Street bordering
Goldthwait were developed.
Many house lots on Quail and
other streets were built at the
same height as Goldthwait
Brook’s banks or even lower.
The brook makes a bend
along the edge of Soteropoulos’
backyard and fall and spring
cleanouts became a ritual for
the Quail Road resident. He
waded into the brook to clear
out fallen tree branches and
leaves and shoveled mucky sediment
onto the bank behind his
house to create an embankment
PHOTO | OWEN O’ROURKE
Peabody Mayor Ted Bettencourt, left, talks with Quail Road
resident George Soteropoulos next to the brook.
designed to keep flood waters
from pouring into his yard.
“If you don’t maintain it,
it just clogs up and clogs up,”
Soteropoulos said.
Long-time resident Russ
Donovan said dredging work
20 years ago helped keep the
brook clear. But he said the city
did relatively little maintenance
on Goldthwait Brook in recent
years.
That changed two and a half
years ago when Turco won the
Ward 1 City Council seat and
made Goldthwait’s cleanup a
priority. Turco lives near the
brook and he brought brook
maintenance concerns to Mayor
Edward Bettencourt last year.
Their discussion came as
Bettencourt reevaluated initial
plans to end Peabody Square
flooding with an ambitious,
three-phase flood control project
with a $50 million price tag. The
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mayor shifted the flood reduction
focus on upstream maintenance.
Goldthwait’s maintenance is
on a list of projects that includes
cleaning out the Foster Street
culverts; Strongwater Brook
behind the Welch School and
Proctor Brook.
“These are small neighborhood
projects that make a difference.
But this is something
we have to continually do,”
Bettencourt said.
Donovan blames South
Peabody development with contributing
to added debris and increased
flooding in Goldthwait.
Turco said the brook will continue
to be one of his priority
concerns
Crews cleared debris last
Wednesday from Goldthwait
much to Soteropoulos’ relief.
“It’s a godsend that it has become
an annual maintenance
project,” he said.
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