But since 2016, Meriden has had far fewer water worries thanks to an innovative flood control concept called Meriden Green. City planners, landscape architects and others who do climate resilience work in Connecticut think it should be a model for every community. The core of the project has turned the brownfield area and the river that runs through it – which is now above ground – into a 14-acre park that doubles as a detention basin for water in flood events. Meriden Green, which cost about $14 million to construct, now contains a completely freed Harbor Brook that properly drains.
CT’s small solutions to climate change: when flood control spurs economic development