End Street Drainage Ravine Restoration & Stormwater Management Project

Chicopee, Massachusetts
Client: City of Chicopee

This project has been necessitated by the failure of the 24 inch storm sewer which drains the Edgewood Avenue/
Clairmont Avenue/End Street area. It is suspected that when this subdivision area was constructed, the drain line was
run to the top of a natural ravine and was terminated with little or no energy dissipation or erosion protection. Over
the course of time the head of the ravine was eroded
back until it undermined the pipe and the rate of
horizontal travel markedly increased. A large scour hole
developed with unstable vertical sides approximately 30-
35 feet high. The gully had also scoured down and
undermined more than 500 feet of existing stream banks
due to increased runoff. The erosion, left untreated,
continued to follow the pipe upstream towards End
BEFORE AND AFTER CONDITIONS Street, potentially undermining the adjacent high tension
power lines and roadway.
Green received the 2001 ACEC/MA Engineering
Green balanced cut and fill materials on-site
Excellence Award for this project.
by cutting unstable ravine bank back to 2:1
slope and filling the scour hole with more than
3,300 cubic yards of material.

Green provided extensive

hydrologic/hydraulic analysis to
evaluate existing and post-
construction conditions.

The End Street project required

VORTEX VALVE reconfiguring and extending more
STORMWATER TREATMENT than 550 feet of gasketed drainage
UNIT pipe with innovative use of vortex valves around the stabilized scour
hole to the bed to the ravine where the channel would have naturally
begun under pre- disturbed conditions to reduce the energy gradient and erosion potential and maximize in-line
storage. An energy dissipator was designed at the pipe outlet to prevent scour. A high flow bypass pipe was also
incorporated into the project to prevent catastrophic washout of most sensitive areas during extreme storm events.
Green incorporated Best Management Practices to meet Massachusetts Stormwater Management Policy for
redevelopment projects and designed a storwmater treatment unit. The design calls for approximately 450 feet of
eroded streambed to be reconstructed by combining traditional civil engineering structural solutions with bioengineering
techniques to stabilize the banks and restore environmental resources and wildlife habitat, prevent further erosion and
provide an adequate outlet for discharging drainage from the area. GIA prepared a detailed landscaping plan to
restore vegetation in harmony with the surrounding natural landscape.

Completion Date: 2000 (Const.)

Construction Cost: $650 K