Worcester CountyMassachusetts
Worcester, Massachusetts
2 high-hazard dams are rated in poor or unsatisfactory condition. 8 of its 119 inventoried bridges are rated poor (7%, against 9% statewide).
- Live · as of Sep 11, 2026
- 9 public sources · method
- ← All towns
Median depth to bedrock
20 ft
middle half 14–32 ft · 78 logs
Bridges rated poor
8
of 119 inventoried
State resilience grants
$947K
4 awards on file
Poor high-hazard dams
2
National Inventory of Dams
01 · Dams & disasters
2 high-hazard dams need work
FEMA Public Assistance is reported by county, so the figure below is Worcester County-wide context, not a Worcester number.
| Dam | Condition | Built |
|---|---|---|
| Cook's Pond DamTatnuck River | Poor | 1830 |
| Patch Pond DamTatnuck Brook | Unsatisfactory | — |
High hazard potential means failure would probably cost lives — it rates the consequences, not the dam’s condition.
FEMA Public Assistance, Worcester County
$85.3M
Federal share obligated across 882 projects in 9 declared disasters since 2010. The largest category is emergency protective measures (91%); roads & bridges took $723K.
02 · Bridges
8 of 119 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 Worcester. Median age 60 years; 2 posted for weight.
18% good, 7% poor
FHWA good / fair / poor rating — the lowest of deck, superstructure, substructure or culvert.
- Good22 · 18%
- Fair89 · 75%
- Poor8 · 7%
Structures by decade built
n = 119 structuresSource: FHWA National Bridge Inventory 2025
▸ Show the numbers▾ Hide the numbers
| Built | Structures |
|---|---|
| pre-1910 | 4 |
| 1910s | 2 |
| 1920s | 3 |
| 1930s | 11 |
| 1950s | 22 |
| 1960s | 35 |
| 1970s | 19 |
| 1980s | 3 |
| 1990s | 6 |
| 2000s | 9 |
| 2010s | 5 |
The poor-rated bridges
| Carries | Over | Built | Daily traffic |
|---|---|---|---|
| I 290 EB | E CENTRAL ST | 1958 | 65,611 |
| I 290 WB | E CENTRAL ST | 1958 | 62,637 |
| ST122 GRAFTON ST | US 20 SW CUT OFF | 1931 | 18,356 |
| JUNE ST | TATNUCK BROOK | 1905 | 10,600 |
| ST 12 NB/W BYLSTN | PWRR/BMRR | 1936 | 7,028 |
| ST 12 NB | NEPONSET ST | 1977 | 6,488 |
| HARRISON ST | I 290 | 1958 | 1,000 |
| LAUREL STposted | I 290 | 1958 | 500 |
03 · Ground
Rock turns up a median 20 ft down
From 78 depth-to-rock records inside Worcester (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 Worcester's logs reach rock between 14 and 32 ft
Depth to bedrock: 10th–90th percentile whisker, middle-half box, median tick; dashed line = Massachusetts median.
median 20 ftMA 24 ft
02040 ft
n = 78 logsSource: MassGIS / MGS borings & well logs
▸ Show the numbers▾ Hide the numbers
| Depth to rock (ft) | Logs |
|---|---|
| 0–5 | 6 |
| 5–10 | 6 |
| 10–20 | 25 |
| 20–50 | 32 |
| 50–100 | 8 |
| 100+ | 1 |
Rock within 10 ft
21%
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. 9% of logs here go past 50 ft.
04 · Money & permits
99 construction projects on file, median $1.9M — above the state's $1.5M
| Project | Year | Award |
|---|---|---|
| Patch Reservoir Dam Repair | FY2018 | $309K |
| Pine Hill Reservoir Dam Improvements Design | FY2025 | $250K |
| Poor Farm Dam Removal | FY2014 | $240K |
| Patch Pond Dam Repair Design | FY2021 | $147K |
Public construction projects
99
Median estimated value $1.9M, middle half $717K–$15.0M, against $1.5M across Massachusetts. Capped total $1.5B (each project counted at no more than $100M). Public bid records compiled June 2026, heavy on 2021–22 — a sample, not an annual market.
Ground-related permits in open data
110
Permits in the city’s open-data portal that mention retaining walls, excavation or foundations. Only a handful of portals are read, so this counts what is published, not everything built.
05 · Next door
Worcester and the 8 towns that border it
A dash means no data for that layer, not zero.
| Town | Poor bridges | Rock depth |
|---|---|---|
| Worcester, MA | 8 / 119 | 20 ft |
| Auburn, MA | 9 / 46 | 20 ft |
| Millbury, MA | 1 / 37 | 15 ft |
| Grafton, MA | 0 / 28 | 23 ft |
| West Boylston, MA | 1 / 18 | 23 ft |
| Holden, MA | 2 / 17 | 30 ft |
| Shrewsbury, MA | 2 / 16 | 20 ft |
| Leicester, MA | 0 / 7 | 15 ft |
| Paxton, MA | — | 18 ft |
Where these numbers come from
Method, sources & caveats
Worcester is the Census county subdivision 2502782000 (Worcester 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.