Earth Support Corp

Worcester CountyMassachusetts

Barre, Massachusetts

1 high-hazard dam is rated in poor or unsatisfactory condition. 5 of its 15 inventoried bridges are rated poor (33%, against 9% statewide).

Median depth to bedrock

30 ft

middle half 14–68 ft · 123 logs

Bridges rated poor

5

of 15 inventoried

Poor high-hazard dams

1

National Inventory of Dams

FEMA repair $, Worcester County

$85.3M

federal share since 2010 · county-wide

01 · Dams & disasters

1 high-hazard dam needs work

FEMA Public Assistance is reported by county, so the figure below is Worcester County-wide context, not a Barre number.
High-hazard dams in poor condition in Barre
DamConditionBuilt
Barre Reservoir Dam & DikePrince RiverPoor

High hazard potential means failure would probably cost lives — it rates the consequences, not the dam’s condition.

FEMA Public Assistance, Worcester County

$85.3M

Federal share obligated across 882 projects in 9 declared disasters since 2010. The largest category is emergency protective measures (91%); roads & bridges took $723K.
Dams, disasters & moving ground

02 · Bridges

5 of 15 bridges are rated poor — above the Massachusetts rate of 9%

Every highway bridge and large culvert in the 2025 National Bridge Inventory that stands inside Barre. Median age 88 years; 4 posted for weight.

20% good, 33% poor

FHWA good / fair / poor rating — the lowest of deck, superstructure, substructure or culvert.
  • Good3 · 20%
  • Fair7 · 47%
  • Poor5 · 33%

Structures by decade built

0246810121930s1950s2010s
n = 15 structuresSource: FHWA National Bridge Inventory 2025
▸ Show the numbers
BuiltStructures
1930s12
1950s2
2010s1

The poor-rated bridges

Bridges rated poor in Barre
CarriesOverBuiltDaily traffic
ST 32 MAIN STpostedCANAL OVERFLOW19383,800
ST 32 NW BRNTRE RDpostedWARE CANAL19343,750
VALLEY RDPRINCE RIVER19383,100
ST 62 HUBBARDSTNpostedCANESTO BROOK19331,201
OLD COLDBRKPRINCE RIVER1938259
Every poor bridge in New England

03 · Ground

Rock turns up a median 30 ft down

From 123 depth-to-rock records inside Barre (MassGIS / MGS borings & well logs). Logs cluster where people drill wells and bore for roads, so treat this as the town’s pattern, not a site answer.

Half of Barre's logs reach rock between 14 and 68 ft

Depth to bedrock: 10th–90th percentile whisker, middle-half box, median tick; dashed line = Massachusetts median.
median 30 ft
MA 24 ft
050 ft
0102030400–5 ft5–10 ft10–20 ft20–50 ft50–100 ft100+ ft
n = 123 logsSource: MassGIS / MGS borings & well logs
▸ Show the numbers
Depth to rock (ft)Logs
0–57
5–1010
10–2030
20–5035
50–10029
100+12

Rock within 10 ft

17%

of logs (23% across Massachusetts). Shallow rock means ledge in excavations, refusal for driven piles and rock anchors rather than soil nails; deep ground means taller shoring and more groundwater. 33% of logs here go past 50 ft.

04 · Next door

Barre and the 7 towns that border it

A dash means no data for that layer, not zero.
Barre compared with neighbouring towns
TownPoor bridgesRock depth
Barre, MA5 / 1530 ft
Hardwick, MA1 / 930 ft
Hubbardston, MA1 / 922 ft
Petersham, MA0 / 618 ft
Rutland, MA0 / 622 ft
New Braintree, MA1 / 520 ft
Phillipston, MA0 / 514 ft
Oakham, MA0 / 316 ft

Where these numbers come from

Method, sources & caveats

Barre is the Census county subdivision 2502703740 (Worcester County). Every record is placed here by its coordinates, not by the place name the source uses.

  • Towns are Census county subdivisions: cities, towns, plantations, and Maine/New Hampshire unorganized territories and townships. Every record is placed in a town by its coordinates (point-in-polygon), not by the source's own place label — so a bridge in Roxbury counts for Boston and a well in 'North Waltham' counts for Waltham.
  • Bridges: FHWA NBI 2025, highway structures ≥ 20 ft including large culverts. 'Poor' is FHWA's good/fair/poor rating (lowest of deck, superstructure, substructure or culvert ≤ 4). Percent-poor is shown only for towns with at least 5 structures.
  • Depth to bedrock is the median of driller- and boring-reported depths in the town, shown only where at least 10 logs exist. Water-well logs over-sample rural lots and hilltops; one town median never describes a particular site.
  • Bedrock depths use the same state databases and filters as the Bedrock & soils module (bedrock wells and borings that reached rock, 0 < depth ≤ 400 ft, exact re-filings dropped), but every log is placed in a town by its coordinates rather than the driller's town field, so town counts can differ slightly between the two pages. Connecticut and Rhode Island have no statewide public well-log database with depths.
  • Dams: only high-hazard-potential dams whose latest condition assessment is Poor or Unsatisfactory are counted (live NID). Connecticut and Rhode Island assessments may lag.
  • FEMA Public Assistance dollars are federal share obligated for disasters declared since 2010, reported by county — they are county context, not a town figure.
  • Grant awards are Massachusetts only (EEA Dam & Seawall program, MVP Action grants, CZM Coastal Resilience). Other states' programs are not yet included.
  • Ground-related permit counts cover only the municipal portals the pipeline reads (Boston, Cambridge, Somerville, Worcester, Framingham, Providence, Portsmouth, Hartford and a few others) — an absent count means 'not covered', not zero.
Data as of
Sep 11, 2026
Generated
Sep 11, 2026
Records
367,748
Refresh
Live pull · weekly

Published by Earth Support Corp as a public resource. Regional statistics for planning and curiosity. They are not an engineering report, a bid recommendation or a statement about any particular site, firm or project. Spot an error? Tell us and we will correct it. Full method: methodology.

CallStart Quote