Cheshire CountyNew Hampshire
Swanzey, New Hampshire
1 high-hazard dam is rated in poor or unsatisfactory condition. Bedrock sits a median 55 ft down across 477 logs, deeper than the New Hampshire median of 20 ft.
- Live · as of Sep 11, 2026
- 9 public sources · method
- ← All towns
Median depth to bedrock
55 ft
middle half 23–92 ft · 477 logs
Bridges rated poor
2
of 16 inventoried · 1 closed
Poor high-hazard dams
1
National Inventory of Dams
FEMA repair $, Cheshire County
$23.3M
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 Cheshire County-wide context, not a Swanzey number.
| Dam | Condition | Built |
|---|---|---|
| Upper Wilson Pond DamMinnewawa Brook | Poor | 1910 |
High hazard potential means failure would probably cost lives — it rates the consequences, not the dam’s condition.
FEMA Public Assistance, Cheshire County
$23.3M
Federal share obligated across 218 projects in 9 declared disasters since 2010. The largest category is emergency protective measures (66%); roads & bridges took $7.6M.
02 · Ground
Deep ground: 53% of logs go past 50 ft before rock
From 477 depth-to-rock records inside Swanzey (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 Swanzey's logs reach rock between 23 and 92 ft
Depth to bedrock: 10th–90th percentile whisker, middle-half box, median tick; dashed line = New Hampshire median.
median 55 ftNH 20 ft
050100 ft
n = 477 logsSource: NH DES well inventory
▸ Show the numbers▾ Hide the numbers
| Depth to rock (ft) | Logs |
|---|---|
| 0–5 | 18 |
| 5–10 | 34 |
| 10–20 | 46 |
| 20–50 | 120 |
| 50–100 | 156 |
| 100+ | 103 |
Rock within 10 ft
13%
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. 53% of logs here go past 50 ft.
03 · Bridges
2 of 16 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 Swanzey. Median age 73 years; 4 posted for weight; 1 closed.
50% good, 13% poor
FHWA good / fair / poor rating — the lowest of deck, superstructure, substructure or culvert.
- Good8 · 50%
- Fair6 · 38%
- Poor2 · 13%
Structures by decade built
n = 16 structuresSource: FHWA National Bridge Inventory 2025
▸ Show the numbers▾ Hide the numbers
| Built | Structures |
|---|---|
| pre-1910 | 4 |
| 1920s | 2 |
| 1930s | 2 |
| 1970s | 2 |
| 1990s | 1 |
| 2000s | 2 |
| 2010s | 2 |
| 2020s | 1 |
The poor-rated bridges
| Carries | Over | Built | Daily traffic |
|---|---|---|---|
| NH 32 | MARTIN BROOK | 1929 | 2,956 |
| CHRISTIAN HILL RDclosed | NHRR(ABD) | 1930 | 2,191 |
04 · Next door
Swanzey and the 6 towns that border it
A dash means no data for that layer, not zero.
| Town | Poor bridges | Rock depth |
|---|---|---|
| Swanzey, NH | 2 / 16 | 55 ft |
| Keene, NH | 4 / 27 | 34 ft |
| Marlborough, NH | 0 / 16 | 15 ft |
| Winchester, NH | 2 / 13 | 31 ft |
| Troy, NH | 2 / 7 | 10 ft |
| Chesterfield, NH | 0 / 6 | 25 ft |
| Richmond, NH | 1 / 5 | 23 ft |
Where these numbers come from
Method, sources & caveats
Swanzey is the Census county subdivision 3300575700 (Cheshire 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
- 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.