According to Pare Corp. (PARE), a leading multi-disciplinary engineering and planning firm, the Bristol Town Beach Stormwater Outfall Retrofit project was a bronze award winner at the American Council of Engineering Companies of Massachusetts (ACEC/MA) Engineering Excellence Awards. The awards ceremony was held March 18th at the Royal Sonesta Hotel in Cambridge, Mass.
Receiving the award were Walter Burke, parks and recreation director for Bristol, Rhode Island, and David Potter, PARE's project manager. The Bristol Town Beach Stormwater Outfall Retrofit was recognized for being an innovative, aesthetically pleasing, and sustainable solution to a chronic public health issue - beach closures due to unhealthy levels of pathogens in the water following storm events. Following a detailed analysis of the contributing watershed, PARE designed Rhode Island's first Gravel Wet Vegetated Treatment System (GWVTS) to reduce the pollution and harmful pathogens that previously were released at this beach on Narragansett Bay.
Prior to the design and implementation of the project, the Bristol Town Beach was closed to swimming on 85 summer days between 2000 and 2012.

Shown (from left) are: State representative Carolyn Dykema; Frank DePaola, MBTA Interim GM; Walter Burke, town of Bristol parks and recreation director; David Potter, Pare Corp. project manager; Joel Goodmonson, PE, LEED AP, ACEC/MA president, Architectural Engineers, Inc.; and Stephen Taylor, CBE, PE, ACEC/MA awards committee chair, Hatch Mott MacDonald, LLC.