Berkshire CountyMassachusetts
Pittsfield, Massachusetts
1 high-hazard dam is rated in poor or unsatisfactory condition. 6 of its 48 inventoried bridges are rated poor (13%, against 9% statewide).
- Live · as of Sep 11, 2026
- 9 public sources · method
- ← All towns
Median depth to bedrock
28 ft
middle half 13–42 ft · 61 logs
Bridges rated poor
6
of 48 inventoried
State resilience grants
$2.6M
8 awards on file
Poor high-hazard dams
1
National Inventory of Dams
01 · Dams & disasters
1 high-hazard dam needs work
FEMA Public Assistance is reported by county, so the figure below is Berkshire County-wide context, not a Pittsfield number.
| Dam | Condition | Built |
|---|---|---|
| Bel Air DamWest Branch Housatonic River | Unsatisfactory | 1832 |
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.
02 · Bridges
6 of 48 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 Pittsfield. Median age 60 years; 1 posted for weight.
35% good, 13% poor
FHWA good / fair / poor rating — the lowest of deck, superstructure, substructure or culvert.
- Good17 · 35%
- Fair25 · 52%
- Poor6 · 13%
Structures by decade built
n = 48 structuresSource: FHWA National Bridge Inventory 2025
▸ Show the numbers▾ Hide the numbers
| Built | Structures |
|---|---|
| pre-1910 | 7 |
| 1910s | 4 |
| 1920s | 1 |
| 1930s | 6 |
| 1940s | 4 |
| 1950s | 1 |
| 1960s | 1 |
| 1970s | 4 |
| 1980s | 3 |
| 1990s | 9 |
| 2000s | 2 |
| 2010s | 2 |
| 2020s | 4 |
The poor-rated bridges
| Carries | Over | Built | Daily traffic |
|---|---|---|---|
| US 20 /US7/SOUTH | HRR | 1900 | 21,457 |
| ELM ST | E BR HOUSATONIC R | 1911 | 16,642 |
| WAHCONAH ST | W BR HOUSATONIC R | 1970 | 10,214 |
| MELBOURNE RD | SW BR HOUSATONIC R | 1938 | 3,750 |
| PONTOOSUC | W BR HOUSATONIC R | 1993 | 2,845 |
| HUNGERFORD | SW BR HOUSATONIC R | 1935 | 259 |
03 · Ground
Rock turns up a median 28 ft down
From 61 depth-to-rock records inside Pittsfield (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 Pittsfield's logs reach rock between 13 and 42 ft
Depth to bedrock: 10th–90th percentile whisker, middle-half box, median tick; dashed line = Massachusetts median.
median 28 ftMA 24 ft
0204060 ft
n = 61 logsSource: MassGIS / MGS borings & well logs
▸ Show the numbers▾ Hide the numbers
| Depth to rock (ft) | Logs |
|---|---|
| 0–5 | 3 |
| 5–10 | 3 |
| 10–20 | 18 |
| 20–50 | 22 |
| 50–100 | 12 |
| 100+ | 3 |
Rock within 10 ft
16%
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. 23% of logs here go past 50 ft.
04 · Money & permits
42 construction projects on file, median $812K — at or below the state's $1.5M
| Project | Year | Award |
|---|---|---|
| Churchill Brook and West Street Culvert Replacement Project | FY2019 | $815K |
| Upper Sackett Reservoir Dam Repair | FY2018 | $500K |
| Mill Street (Tel-Electric) Dam Removal | FY2019 | $400K |
| Unkamet Brook Restoration | FY2025 | $275K |
| Sandwash Reservoir Dam Rehabilitation Project Design & Permitting | FY2024 | $250K |
| Mill Street Dam Removal 2 | FY2020 | $150K |
| Mill Street (Tel-Electric) Dam Removal Project | FY2020 | $99K |
| Wild Acres No. 2 Dam Removal Design | FY2020 | $64K |
Public construction projects
42
Median estimated value $812K, middle half $387K–$3.5M, against $1.5M across Massachusetts. Capped total $106M (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
Pittsfield and the 6 towns that border it
A dash means no data for that layer, not zero.
| Town | Poor bridges | Rock depth |
|---|---|---|
| Pittsfield, MA | 6 / 48 | 28 ft |
| Lanesborough, MA | 3 / 13 | 32 ft |
| Dalton, MA | 0 / 12 | 50 ft |
| Washington, MA | 1 / 6 | 17 ft |
| Lenox, MA | 0 / 6 | 40 ft |
| Hancock, MA | 0 / 5 | 35 ft |
| Richmond, MA | 0 / 3 | 30 ft |
Where these numbers come from
Method, sources & caveats
Pittsfield is the Census county subdivision 2500353960 (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.