Cape Ann is already experiencing climate change. These 27 vignettes show how Cape Ann’s critical infrastructure, beloved cultural landscapes and historic downtowns are changing before the storm arrives.

Essex County Club

Manchester-by-the-Sea, MA

buffer, drainage, maintenance, flood risk reduction, land use, retention

The Essex County Club was established in Manchester in 1893, and its grounds included a full-size polo club, clay tennis courts, and a nine-hole golf course. The Club was expanded in 1917, adding an eighteen-hole golf course, grass and clay tennis courts, paddle tennis courts, and a swimming pool on 180 acres.¹ The Club provides a private alternative to the Cape Ann Golf Club, a public nine-hole course in neighboring Essex.²

Club House. Photograph by Jeffery R. Bertch, 2012. www.golfdigest.com/story/essex-county-club

Sawmill Brook and Causeway Brook run through the fairway.³ Sawmill Brook is the largest watercourse that flows through Manchester-by-the-Sea, and drains the Town from the uplands near Cedar Swamp into the Inner Harbor.⁴ ⁵ Sawmill Brook floods frequently, including in areas with extensive wetlands. The watershed poses a risk to the downtown area in the event of flooding, which is exacerbated by undersized culverts and channelized stream beds — including those at the County Club, which flooded during the 2006 Mother’s Day Storm and is itself at high risk of upland flooding.⁶ ⁷ ⁸

While the golf course provides some degree of flood protection as an undeveloped open space, it is not protected indefinitely.⁹ ¹⁰ The golf course has been identified as an area for potentially improved flood storage, at an estimated cost of $1.18 million.¹¹ Due to the costs, potential impact, and permitting, the project to increase the flood storage on the golf course was ranked a lower priority than culverts and drainage closer to the Manchester-by-the-Sea downtown area.

Country Club Lawn. Photograph by Jeffery R. Bertch, 2012. www.golfdigest.com/story/essex-county-club

During the Great Storm, the golf course will absorb and store water flooding downstream through Sawmill Brook, especially as the culverts are overtopped and washed out. The underground gasoline tank at the Club may leach, posing a severe threat to the ground water quality, contaminating the drinking supply, and spilling petroleum down the Sawmill Brook watershed into downtown.¹² Industrial fertilizers and herbicides from the course could also pollute the watershed, whether or not it is improved for retention.¹³

“Club History and Traditions,” Essex County Club, accessed December 3, 2021. ↩
Cape Ann Golf Club. “About.” Cape Ann Golf Club. Accessed December 3, 2021. ↩
Tighe & Bond. FEMA Hazard Mitigation Plan Enhancement: Task 3 Vulnerability and Risk Assessment Manchester-by-the Sea. August 2016, Map 4. ↩
Open Space and Recreation Planning Committee, Manchester-by-the-Sea Open Space and Recreation Plan (Manchester-by-the-Sea: Open Space and Recreation Committee, August 2014), 23. ↩
Tighe & Bond, FEMA Hazard Mitigation Plan Enhancement: Task 3 Vulnerability and Risk Assessment Manchester-by-the Sea. (Boston, Tighe & Bond, August 2016), 7. ↩
Tighe & Bond, FEMA Hazard Mitigation Plan Enhancement: Task 3 Vulnerability and Risk Assessment Manchester-by-the Sea. (Boston, Tighe & Bond, August 2016), Map 4. ↩
Office of Coastal Zone Management, Sawmill Brook Culvert and Green Infrastructure Analysis – Vulnerability and Required Capacity Under Climate Change (Boston: Office of Coastal Zone Management, June 30, 2016), 3-2. ↩
Tighe & Bond, FEMA Hazard Mitigation Plan Enhancement: Task 3 Vulnerability and Risk Assessment Manchester-by-the Sea. (Boston, Tighe & Bond, August 2016), A-24. ↩
B. Warren, M. Reilly and G. Belfit, Town of Manchester-by-the-Sea Community Resilience Building Workshop Summary of Findings (Salem: Salem Sound Coastway, 2018), 15. ↩
Open Space and Recreation Planning Committee, Manchester-by-the-Sea Open Space and Recreation Plan (Manchester-by-the-Sea: Open Space and Recreation Committee, August 2014), 23. ↩
Office of Coastal Zone Management, Sawmill Brook Culvert and Green Infrastructure Analysis – Vulnerability and Required Capacity Under Climate Change (Boston: Office of Coastal Zone Management, June 30, 2016), 6-1. ↩
Open Space and Recreation Planning Committee, Manchester-by-the-Sea Open Space and Recreation Plan (Manchester-by-the-Sea: Open Space and Recreation Committee, August 2014), 46. ↩
Open Space and Recreation Planning Committee, Manchester-by-the-Sea Open Space and Recreation Plan (Manchester-by-the-Sea: Open Space and Recreation Committee, August 2014), 47-48. ↩