Civil Works Menu

Redirecting...

Hartford Local Protection Project

Hartford Local Protection ProjectThe Hartford Local Protection Project is located along the west bank of the Connecticut River in Hartford and along the city's Park River. It provides flood protection to approximately 3,000 acres of highly developed commercial, residential, and industrial land in Hartford, including the central part of the city.

The completed works consists of dikes, floodwalls, stoplog structures, conduits, and pumping stations.

There are about 35,000 feet of earthfill dikes and 4,400 feet of concrete floodwall along the Connecticut River extending from high ground on Windsor Avenue, near the Hartford-Windsor town line, to high ground south of the Hartford-Wethersfield town line. Along this perimeter are six stoplog structures that are closed when floodwaters threaten to spill into the protected area and six pumping stations that discharge storm and sanitary sewage.

The project also includes four conduits. The first, the Park River conduit, measures over 10,000 feet long and passes beneath Bushnell Park in the central part of the city, ending at the Connecticut River. This conduit is supplemented by a second conduit, the Park River auxiliary conduit, located about 1,100 feet south of the first conduit. This auxiliary conduit, 9,200 feet long and lying approximately 200 feet below the surface, is the product of state-of-the-art technology and allows the Park River to be completely diverted under the city of Hartford directly tot he Connecticut River. Two pumping stations support the auxiliary conduit.

The third conduit is the 3,100-food Gully Brook conduit, which ties into the first Park River conduit. The fourth is the 2,200-foot Folly Brook conduit, which ties into the conduit located at the lower end of Folly Brook in Wethersfield.

Most of these works were initiated in December 1938 and completed in August 1944. Construction of the Folly Brook conduit began in February 1956 and was completed in May 1957. Construction of the Park River auxiliary conduit and the two pumping stations began in June 1976 and was completed in July 1981. The total cost of the Hartford local protection project was $71.5 million. It is operated and maintained by Hartford.