As a resident of Ward 5, I want to thank Commissioner Brian Roche for his thoughtful statement on the Make Cambridge Resilient project.
At a time when this debate has too often been framed as a simple choice between accepting the current proposal or walking away from $27 million in federal funding, Commissioner Roche offered something Cambridge badly needed: a more thoughtful path forward.
He made an important distinction. Supporting resilience does not mean we have to support this particular plan.
The proposal before us still has serious shortcomings. And, as an engineer, I do not see any technical aspects proving this is a solution that works for Cambridge. Nor has it referenced by example any other similar projects.
This project also depends heavily on private property owners who have largely declined to participate. It would create significant new infrastructure that the city would have to maintain for decades. It focuses enormous attention and resources on the waterfront while residents are already dealing with stormwater, drainage problems, sewer overflows, and other infrastructure failures today. And despite years of planning, the project remains deeply divisive.
At some point, those facts have to mean something.
I was also encouraged to see Mayor Lajan Cephas Bey publicly support Commissioner Roche’s call for a different approach. Her support came after an extraordinary public response to his statement and just one day after the city released a polished video promoting the existing proposal to build a berm. Whatever prompted the change in tone, I hope it represents a genuine recognition that residents’ concerns have been heard.
But acknowledging the problems with the current plan cannot be the end of the conversation.
The Mayor and Commissioners now have an opportunity to act on what Commissioner Roche articulated so well. That means rejecting the proposal currently before them and immediately beginning the work of pursuing a better one with FEMA and the Maryland Department of Emergency Management.
Rejecting this proposal is not the same as rejecting resilience, and it should not mean giving up on federal funding. It means telling our state and federal partners that Cambridge wants a project that reflects what we have learned during years of study, engineering, and public debate.
A new approach should examine Cambridge as a whole: our watershed, stormwater system, sanitary sewer system, historic drainage patterns, public spaces, waterfront, and long-term maintenance obligations. It should consider nature-based and upstream solutions before committing the city to major new engineered barriers. And it should address the problems residents are experiencing now while preparing Cambridge for the flooding risks of the future.
Commissioner Roche deserves credit for recognizing that we do not have to choose between doing nothing and doing the wrong thing.
Now the city needs to follow that logic to its conclusion. Do not approve a deeply flawed proposal simply because years have already been invested in it. Reject the plan before us and begin working toward a new plan that Cambridge can actually support, afford, maintain, and be proud of for generations.
Commissioner Roche has given us a thoughtful way forward. I hope the Mayor and the rest of the City Council will have the courage to take it.
Brian J. Routhier
Cambridge Ward 5