Bristol CountyMassachusetts
Swansea, Massachusetts
3 of its 13 inventoried bridges are rated poor (23%, against 9% statewide). Bedrock sits a median 28 ft down across 164 logs, deeper than the Massachusetts median of 24 ft.
- Live · as of Sep 11, 2026
- 9 public sources · method
- ← All towns
Median depth to bedrock
28 ft
middle half 20–40 ft · 164 logs
Bridges rated poor
3
of 13 inventoried
State resilience grants
$638K
3 awards on file
Construction projects
10
median $4.9M · public bid results
01 · Bridges
3 of 13 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 Swansea. Median age 66 years.
31% good, 23% poor
FHWA good / fair / poor rating — the lowest of deck, superstructure, substructure or culvert.
- Good4 · 31%
- Fair6 · 46%
- Poor3 · 23%
n = 13 structuresSource: FHWA National Bridge Inventory 2025
▸ Show the numbers▾ Hide the numbers
| Built | Structures |
|---|---|
| 1920s | 1 |
| 1950s | 3 |
| 1960s | 6 |
| 1980s | 1 |
| 2000s | 2 |
The poor-rated bridges
| Carries | Over | Built | Daily traffic |
|---|---|---|---|
| US 6 GAR HWY | COLE RIVER | 1926 | 13,357 |
| ST103 WILBUR AVE | COLES RIVER | 1957 | 12,811 |
| MAPLE AVE | I 195 | 1959 | 9,507 |
02 · Ground
Rock turns up a median 28 ft down
From 164 depth-to-rock records inside Swansea (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 Swansea's logs reach rock between 20 and 40 ft
Depth to bedrock: 10th–90th percentile whisker, middle-half box, median tick; dashed line = Massachusetts median.
median 28 ftMA 24 ft
02040 ft
n = 164 logsSource: MassGIS / MGS borings & well logs
▸ Show the numbers▾ Hide the numbers
| Depth to rock (ft) | Logs |
|---|---|
| 0–5 | 5 |
| 5–10 | 7 |
| 10–20 | 27 |
| 20–50 | 95 |
| 50–100 | 25 |
| 100+ | 5 |
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. 13% of logs here go past 50 ft.
03 · Money & permits
10 construction projects on file, median $4.9M — above the state's $1.5M
| Project | Year | Award |
|---|---|---|
| Swansea Pond Dam Repair | FY2016 | $450K |
| Milford Pond Dam Repair Design and Permit | FY2023 | $120K |
| Milford Pond Dam Rehabilitation Design | FY2026 | $68K |
Public construction projects
10
Median estimated value $4.9M, middle half $775K–$10.4M, against $1.5M across Massachusetts. Capped total $60.2M (each project counted at no more than $100M). Public bid records compiled June 2026, heavy on 2021–22 — a sample, not an annual market.
04 · Dams & disasters
Bristol County has drawn $112M in federal disaster repair since 2010
FEMA Public Assistance is reported by county, so the figure below is Bristol County-wide context, not a Swansea number.
FEMA Public Assistance, Bristol County
$112M
Federal share obligated across 770 projects in 11 declared disasters since 2010. The largest category is emergency protective measures (90%); roads & bridges took $3.6M.
05 · Next door
Swansea and the 7 towns that border it
A dash means no data for that layer, not zero.
| Town | Poor bridges | Rock depth |
|---|---|---|
| Swansea, MA | 3 / 13 | 28 ft |
| East Providence, RI | 0 / 30 | — |
| Dighton, MA | 0 / 12 | 20 ft |
| Rehoboth, MA | 3 / 10 | 26 ft |
| Somerset, MA | 0 / 7 | 20 ft |
| Seekonk, MA | 0 / 4 | 36 ft |
| Warren, RI | 0 / 3 | — |
| Barrington, RI | 0 / 2 | — |
Where these numbers come from
Method, sources & caveats
Swansea is the Census county subdivision 2500568750 (Bristol 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.