Essex CountyMassachusetts
Gloucester, Massachusetts
The town has won $8.6M in state resilience grants across 11 awards. Bedrock sits a median 5 ft down across 138 logs, shallower than the Massachusetts median of 24 ft.
- Live · as of Sep 11, 2026
- 9 public sources · method
- ← All towns
Median depth to bedrock
5 ft
middle half 3–10 ft · 138 logs
Bridges rated poor
1
of 14 inventoried
State resilience grants
$8.6M
11 awards on file
Poor high-hazard dams
7
National Inventory of Dams
01 · Money & permits
$8.6M in state resilience grants, 11 awards
| Project | Year | Award |
|---|---|---|
| Gloucester High School Flood Mitigation Barrier | FY2021 | $2.4M |
| Haskell Reservoir Dam Repair Phase 2 | FY2018 | $1.3M |
| Babson Reservoir Dam Repair | FY2014 | $1.0M |
| Haskell Reservoir Dam Repair | FY2017 | $1.0M |
| Lane's Cove Breakwater Repair | FY2018 | $1.0M |
| Haskell Pond Dam Repair Phase III | FY2021 | $1.0M |
| Blynman Canal Bulkhead Repair | FY2016 | $505K |
| Haskell Reservoir Dam Repair Design | FY2016 | $175K |
Largest 8 of 11 awards shown.
Public construction projects
18
Median estimated value $1.8M, middle half $428K–$4.0M, against $1.5M across Massachusetts. Capped total $58.6M (each project counted at no more than $100M). Public bid records compiled June 2026, heavy on 2021–22 — a sample, not an annual market.
02 · Ground
Rock is close to the surface: 79% of logs hit it within 10 ft
From 138 depth-to-rock records inside Gloucester (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 Gloucester's logs reach rock between 3 and 10 ft
Depth to bedrock: 10th–90th percentile whisker, middle-half box, median tick; dashed line = Massachusetts median.
median 5 ftMA 24 ft
01020 ft
n = 138 logsSource: MassGIS / MGS borings & well logs
▸ Show the numbers▾ Hide the numbers
| Depth to rock (ft) | Logs |
|---|---|
| 0–5 | 66 |
| 5–10 | 37 |
| 10–20 | 20 |
| 20–50 | 13 |
| 50–100 | 2 |
| 100+ | 0 |
Rock within 10 ft
79%
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. 1% of logs here go past 50 ft.
03 · Dams & disasters
7 high-hazard dams need work
FEMA Public Assistance is reported by county, so the figure below is Essex County-wide context, not a Gloucester number.
| Dam | Condition | Built |
|---|---|---|
| Haskell Pond DamWalker Creek | Poor | 1903 |
| Wallace Pond DamTributary to Little River | Poor | 1850 |
| Fernwood Lake North DamAnnisquam River | Poor | 1877 |
| Upper Banjo Pond DamTributary to Annisquam River | Poor | 1908 |
| Strangman Pond DamTributary to Annisquam River | Poor | 1884 |
| Fernwood Lake East DamTributary to Annisquam River | Poor | 1877 |
| Fernwood Lake West DamLittle River Basin | Poor | 1877 |
High hazard potential means failure would probably cost lives — it rates the consequences, not the dam’s condition.
FEMA Public Assistance, Essex County
$107M
Federal share obligated across 1,095 projects in 10 declared disasters since 2010. The largest category is emergency protective measures (79%); roads & bridges took $1.3M.
04 · Bridges
1 of 14 bridges are rated poor — below the Massachusetts rate of 9%
Every highway bridge and large culvert in the 2025 National Bridge Inventory that stands inside Gloucester. Median age 78 years.
7% good, 7% poor
FHWA good / fair / poor rating — the lowest of deck, superstructure, substructure or culvert.
- Good1 · 7%
- Fair12 · 86%
- Poor1 · 7%
n = 14 structuresSource: FHWA National Bridge Inventory 2025
▸ Show the numbers▾ Hide the numbers
| Built | Structures |
|---|---|
| pre-1910 | 4 |
| 1920s | 1 |
| 1940s | 4 |
| 1950s | 4 |
| 2000s | 1 |
The poor-rated bridges
| Carries | Over | Built | Daily traffic |
|---|---|---|---|
| ST127 WESTERN AVE | BLYNMAN CANAL | 1906 | 4,886 |
05 · Next door
Gloucester and the 4 towns that border it
A dash means no data for that layer, not zero.
| Town | Poor bridges | Rock depth |
|---|---|---|
| Gloucester, MA | 1 / 14 | 5 ft |
| Ipswich, MA | 1 / 9 | 30 ft |
| Manchester-by-the-Sea, MA | 1 / 4 | 7 ft |
| Essex, MA | 0 / 1 | 8 ft |
| Rockport, MA | 0 / 1 | 6 ft |
Where these numbers come from
Method, sources & caveats
Gloucester is the Census county subdivision 2500926150 (Essex County). Every record is placed here by its coordinates, not by the place name the source uses. Construction-project figures come from Massachusetts public bid results, published as town-level counts, medians and capped totals (n ≥ 10).
- 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
- U.S. Census Bureau cartographic boundary files — county subdivisions (2024, 1:500k)Public domain
- FHWA National Bridge Inventory (2025 delimited files)Public domain
- USACE National Inventory of DamsPublic domainHigh-hazard dams rated Poor or Unsatisfactory (live NID).
- USGS U.S. Landslide InventoryPublic domain
- MassGIS / Massachusetts Geological Survey — Bedrock Data PointsPublic recordBorings and well logs that reached rock (MassDEP well drillers, USGS, MWRA, MassDOT…); seismic/HVSR and map-derived shallow-bedrock/outcrop points excluded.
- NH DES Water Well Inventory, Maine Geological Survey Wells Database, Vermont DEC well recordsPublic recordBedrock wells only; driller-reported depth to bedrock / overburden thickness.
- OpenFEMA Public Assistance Funded Projects Details (v2)Public domain
- MA EEA / CZM grant awards — Dam & Seawall, MVP Action, CZM Coastal ResiliencePublic record
- Municipal open-data permit portals (Boston, Cambridge, Somerville, Providence, Portsmouth, others)Public recordOnly permits flagged as ground-related (retaining walls, excavation, foundations) are counted.
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.