Berkshire CountyMassachusetts
North Adams, Massachusetts
Bedrock sits a median 70 ft down across 40 logs, deeper than the Massachusetts median of 24 ft. 2 high-hazard dams are rated in poor or unsatisfactory condition.
- Live · as of Sep 11, 2026
- 9 public sources · method
- ← All towns
Median depth to bedrock
70 ft
middle half 23–116 ft · 40 logs
Bridges rated poor
4
of 22 inventoried · 1 closed
State resilience grants
$1.7M
4 awards on file
Poor high-hazard dams
2
National Inventory of Dams
01 · Ground
Deep ground: 60% of logs go past 50 ft before rock
From 40 depth-to-rock records inside North Adams (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 North Adams's logs reach rock between 23 and 116 ft
Depth to bedrock: 10th–90th percentile whisker, middle-half box, median tick; dashed line = Massachusetts median.
median 70 ftMA 24 ft
050100 ft
n = 40 logsSource: MassGIS / MGS borings & well logs
▸ Show the numbers▾ Hide the numbers
| Depth to rock (ft) | Logs |
|---|---|
| 0–5 | 1 |
| 5–10 | 2 |
| 10–20 | 5 |
| 20–50 | 8 |
| 50–100 | 8 |
| 100+ | 16 |
Rock within 10 ft
10%
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. 60% of logs here go past 50 ft.
02 · Dams & disasters
2 high-hazard dams need work
FEMA Public Assistance is reported by county, so the figure below is Berkshire County-wide context, not a North Adams number.
| Dam | Condition | Built |
|---|---|---|
| Mount Williams Reservoir Dam & DikePaull Brook | Poor | 1914 |
| Notch Reservoir DamNotch Brook | Poor | 1897 |
High hazard potential means failure would probably cost lives — it rates the consequences, not the dam’s condition.
FEMA Public Assistance, Berkshire County
$30.5M
Federal share obligated across 469 projects in 5 declared disasters since 2010. The largest category is emergency protective measures (70%); roads & bridges took $8.5M.
03 · Bridges
4 of 22 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 North Adams. Median age 68 years; 2 posted for weight; 1 closed.
27% good, 18% poor
FHWA good / fair / poor rating — the lowest of deck, superstructure, substructure or culvert.
- Good6 · 27%
- Fair12 · 55%
- Poor4 · 18%
Structures by decade built
n = 22 structuresSource: FHWA National Bridge Inventory 2025
▸ Show the numbers▾ Hide the numbers
| Built | Structures |
|---|---|
| pre-1910 | 1 |
| 1930s | 1 |
| 1940s | 2 |
| 1950s | 12 |
| 1960s | 2 |
| 1970s | 1 |
| 1980s | 2 |
| 2000s | 1 |
The poor-rated bridges
| Carries | Over | Built | Daily traffic |
|---|---|---|---|
| ST 2 W MAIN ST | PARR | 1882 | 27,000 |
| ST 2 STATE RD | HOOSIC RIVER | 1934 | 15,200 |
| ST 2 VTRNS MEM DRposted | ST8 & HOOSIC RIV | 1959 | 7,826 |
| BROWN STclosed | HOOSIC RIVER | 1952 | 1,138 |
04 · Money & permits
14 construction projects on file, median $278K — at or below the state's $1.5M
| Project | Year | Award |
|---|---|---|
| North Adams Flood Resiliency | FY2025 | $1.1M |
| FY23 Notch Reservoir Dam Repair Design | FY2023 | $250K |
| FY23 Mount Williams Reservoir Dam Repair Design | FY2023 | $250K |
| Mt. Williams and Notch Reservoir Dam Repair Designs | FY2018 | $177K |
Public construction projects
14
Median estimated value $278K, middle half $112K–$1.7M, against $1.5M across Massachusetts. Capped total $120M (each project counted at no more than $100M). Public bid records compiled June 2026, heavy on 2021–22 — a sample, not an annual market.
05 · Next door
North Adams and the 4 towns that border it
A dash means no data for that layer, not zero.
| Town | Poor bridges | Rock depth |
|---|---|---|
| North Adams, MA | 4 / 22 | 70 ft |
| Adams, MA | 3 / 23 | 32 ft |
| Williamstown, MA | 2 / 23 | 60 ft |
| Clarksburg, MA | 2 / 6 | 94 ft |
| Florida, MA | 0 / 3 | 19 ft |
Where these numbers come from
Method, sources & caveats
North Adams is the Census county subdivision 2500346225 (Berkshire 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.