Earth Support Corp

Grafton CountyNew Hampshire

Canaan, New Hampshire

1 high-hazard dam is rated in poor or unsatisfactory condition. 3 of its 19 inventoried bridges are rated poor (16%, against 8% statewide).

Median depth to bedrock

20 ft

middle half 10–52 ft · 596 logs

Bridges rated poor

3

of 19 inventoried

Poor high-hazard dams

1

National Inventory of Dams

FEMA repair $, Grafton County

$53.0M

federal share since 2010 · county-wide

01 · Dams & disasters

1 high-hazard dam needs work

FEMA Public Assistance is reported by county, so the figure below is Grafton County-wide context, not a Canaan number.
High-hazard dams in poor condition in Canaan
DamConditionBuilt
Goose Pond DamGoose Pond BrookPoor1918

High hazard potential means failure would probably cost lives — it rates the consequences, not the dam’s condition.

FEMA Public Assistance, Grafton County

$53.0M

Federal share obligated across 611 projects in 16 declared disasters since 2010. The largest category is roads & bridges (41%); roads & bridges took $21.5M.
Dams, disasters & moving ground

02 · Bridges

3 of 19 bridges are rated poor — above the New Hampshire rate of 8%

Every highway bridge and large culvert in the 2025 National Bridge Inventory that stands inside Canaan. Median age 61 years; 1 posted for weight.

53% good, 16% poor

FHWA good / fair / poor rating — the lowest of deck, superstructure, substructure or culvert.
  • Good10 · 53%
  • Fair6 · 32%
  • Poor3 · 16%

Structures by decade built

012341930s1940s1950s1960s1970s1980s1990s2000s2010s
n = 19 structuresSource: FHWA National Bridge Inventory 2025
▸ Show the numbers
BuiltStructures
1930s3
1940s4
1950s2
1960s1
1970s1
1980s2
1990s3
2000s1
2010s2

The poor-rated bridges

Bridges rated poor in Canaan
CarriesOverBuiltDaily traffic
NH118INDIAN RIVER19481,436
POTATO ROADpostedINDIAN RIVER1930655
GRIST MILL HILL RDINDIAN RIVER1956365
Every poor bridge in New England

03 · Ground

Rock turns up a median 20 ft down

From 596 depth-to-rock records inside Canaan (NH DES well inventory). Logs cluster where people drill wells and bore for roads, so treat this as the town’s pattern, not a site answer.

Half of Canaan's logs reach rock between 10 and 52 ft

Depth to bedrock: 10th–90th percentile whisker, middle-half box, median tick; dashed line = New Hampshire median.
median 20 ft
NH 20 ft
050100 ft
0501001502000–5 ft5–10 ft10–20 ft20–50 ft50–100 ft100+ ft
n = 596 logsSource: NH DES well inventory
▸ Show the numbers
Depth to rock (ft)Logs
0–542
5–1084
10–20164
20–50143
50–10087
100+76

Rock within 10 ft

30%

of logs (31% across New Hampshire). 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. 26% of logs here go past 50 ft.

04 · Next door

Canaan and the 8 towns that border it

A dash means no data for that layer, not zero.
Canaan compared with neighbouring towns
TownPoor bridgesRock depth
Canaan, NH3 / 1920 ft
Lebanon, NH9 / 5430 ft
Hanover, NH0 / 1630 ft
Grafton, NH0 / 1527 ft
Enfield, NH0 / 1225 ft
Lyme, NH3 / 1229 ft
Dorchester, NH0 / 545 ft
Groton, NH0 / 317 ft
Orange, NH0 / 225 ft

Where these numbers come from

Method, sources & caveats

Canaan is the Census county subdivision 3300908980 (Grafton 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

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.

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