Essex CountyMassachusetts
Ipswich, Massachusetts
Bedrock sits a median 30 ft down across 71 logs, deeper than the Massachusetts median of 24 ft. 1 of its 9 inventoried bridges is rated poor (11%, against 9% statewide).
- Live · as of Sep 11, 2026
- 9 public sources · method
- ← All towns
Median depth to bedrock
30 ft
middle half 18–71 ft · 71 logs
Bridges rated poor
1
of 9 inventoried
State resilience grants
$2.1M
6 awards on file
FEMA repair $, Essex County
$107M
federal share since 2010 · county-wide
01 · Ground
Rock turns up a median 30 ft down
From 71 depth-to-rock records inside Ipswich (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 Ipswich's logs reach rock between 18 and 71 ft
Depth to bedrock: 10th–90th percentile whisker, middle-half box, median tick; dashed line = Massachusetts median.
median 30 ftMA 24 ft
050100 ft
n = 71 logsSource: MassGIS / MGS borings & well logs
▸ Show the numbers▾ Hide the numbers
| Depth to rock (ft) | Logs |
|---|---|
| 0–5 | 4 |
| 5–10 | 3 |
| 10–20 | 14 |
| 20–50 | 25 |
| 50–100 | 16 |
| 100+ | 9 |
Rock within 10 ft
14%
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. 35% of logs here go past 50 ft.
02 · Money & permits
$2.1M in state resilience grants, 6 awards
| Project | Year | Award |
|---|---|---|
| FY24 Dow Brook Reservoir Dam Repair | FY2024 | $1.0M |
| Dow Brook Reservoir Dam Repair | FY2019 | $712K |
| Building Climate Resilience Through Adaptation at the Crane Estate – Argilla Road Adaptation Permitting | FY2023 | $113K |
| Building Climate Resilience Through Adaptation at the Crane Estate - Argilla Road Adaptation Phase 3 | FY2021 | $85K |
| A Focus on Our Most Vulnerable Places | FY2020 | $82K |
| Ipswich Mill Dam Removal Design | FY2021 | $75K |
03 · Bridges
1 of 9 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 Ipswich. Median age 99 years; 1 posted for weight.
11% good, 11% poor
FHWA good / fair / poor rating — the lowest of deck, superstructure, substructure or culvert.
- Good1 · 11%
- Fair7 · 78%
- Poor1 · 11%
n = 9 structuresSource: FHWA National Bridge Inventory 2025
▸ Show the numbers▾ Hide the numbers
| Built | Structures |
|---|---|
| pre-1910 | 4 |
| 1920s | 1 |
| 1950s | 1 |
| 1980s | 1 |
| 1990s | 1 |
| 2010s | 1 |
The poor-rated bridges
| Carries | Over | Built | Daily traffic |
|---|---|---|---|
| COUNTY STposted | IPSWICH RIVER | 1861 | 2,700 |
04 · Dams & disasters
Essex County has drawn $107M in federal disaster repair since 2010
FEMA Public Assistance is reported by county, so the figure below is Essex County-wide context, not a Ipswich number.
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.
05 · Next door
Ipswich and the 6 towns that border it
A dash means no data for that layer, not zero.
| Town | Poor bridges | Rock depth |
|---|---|---|
| Ipswich, MA | 1 / 9 | 30 ft |
| Gloucester, MA | 1 / 14 | 5 ft |
| Boxford, MA | 0 / 13 | 20 ft |
| Topsfield, MA | 1 / 7 | 31 ft |
| Hamilton, MA | 1 / 4 | 35 ft |
| Rowley, MA | 1 / 4 | 22 ft |
| Essex, MA | 0 / 1 | 8 ft |
Where these numbers come from
Method, sources & caveats
Ipswich is the Census county subdivision 2500932310 (Essex 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
- 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.