Ignore Those Loud Bangs
Blasts heard Wednesday are part of Muddy River Project
Statnamic load testing will begin today at a Muddy River Restoration Project construction site in the Fenway. Photo by Cydney Scott
Don’t worry about the noise. The extremely loud bangs that will emanate from the Fenway starting tomorrow, Wednesday, pose no danger. They are the sound of “Statnamic” load testing conducted by engineers working on the Muddy River Restoration Project, which will clean up the slow-moving stream that flows from the Fens into the Charles River at Charlesgate. Statnamic testing, which sounds like canon blasts, helps determine the strength of support structures located underground. Because of the worrying events of recent weeks, the Army Corps of Engineers, which is conducting the tests, is informing residents within earshot that there will be blasts Wednesday afternoon of this week, and possibly one on Thursday. There may also be tests next Monday and Wednesday.
The work is part of the $30.9 million Muddy River Flood Risk Management and Environmental Restoration project in Boston, a joint effort of the Boston Parks and Recreation Department and the Brookline Parks and Open Space Division, in collaboration with the Massachusetts Department of Conservation and Recreation and the Army Corps of Engineers. The project will expose two sections of the Muddy River, dredge 200,000 cubic yards of sediment from the Fens, the Riverway, and Leverett, Willow, and Wards Ponds and install new culverts to carry the Muddy River under the Riverway and Brookline Avenue, among other improvements. More information about the project is available here.
An earlier version of this article reported that tests would start on Tuesday. Tuesday’s tests have been canceled.
Watch a video of a Statnamic test here.
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