During construction of the massive underground highway project in Boston known as the "Big Dig," the Massachusetts Transportation Authority (MTA) entered into an agreement with the City of Quincy to dispose of "historic fill" excavated from the project.
In 2016, five areas of significant bank erosion were discovered near the Merrimack Valley Regional Transit Authority (MVRTA) operating facility. The erosion spanned approximately 500 linear feet of shoreline of the tidally influenced Merrimack River and damaged several stormwater outfalls, a retaining wall, and the foundations of two MVRTA buildings.
A southeastern Massachusetts property is associated with a now-demolished chemical plant where a variety of industrial chemicals and pesticides were manufactured for many years. The client has been conducting environmental remediation activities at the property since the plant ceased operations in the early 2000’s.
The Shaffer Landfill is a closed, two-lobed industrial and municipal landfill located within the Iron Horse Park Superfund Site. Construction of the landfill cap (for which Geosyntec provided independent construction quality assurance services) was completed several years ago, with ongoing post-closure operation and maintenance. An energy developer identified the exposed lobes of the landfill as potential sites for solar development and retained Geosyntec to conduct an engineering evaluation for the construction of a fixed, ground-mount, photovoltaic (PV) solar panel system.
A former drycleaning operation resulted in releases of tetrachloroethene (PCE) to shallow soil and groundwater in an area with a complex network of subsurface urban infrastructure.
A municipality in New England detected per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) in a public drinking water supply well above the US EPA Health Advisory of 70 parts per trillion (ppt). The town's Department of Public Works (DPW) subsequently shut down the impacted water supply well. Geosyntec was retained to design, permit, and oversee the construction of a one million gallon-per-day (MGD) treatment system to remove PFAS from the water supplied by the impacted well.
As part of a campus expansion, Harvard University purchased an adjoining commercial property that had housed a corner dry cleaner for decades. Historical releases of tetrachloroethene (PCE) from the drycleaner to shallow soil and groundwater had occurred in an area of dense population and complex urban infrastructure. Harvard tasked Geosyntec with designing a remedy for PCE contamination in groundwater and soil. The design had to achieve regulatory closure under the Massachusetts Contingency Plan (MCP) and incorporate green and sustainable design principles without significant interruption of campus activities.
The need for municipalities, regional planning organizations, states, and federal agencies to increase resilience and adapt to extreme weather events and climate change is evident in Massachusetts.The Massachusetts Municipal Vulnerability Preparedness (MVP) grant program provides funding for cities and towns to begin planning for climate change resiliency. The Town of Stow received funding through the Massachusetts Executive Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs (EEA) administered MVP program to conduct a Community Resiliency Building (CRB) workshop.
Geosyntec's work focused analyzing and prioritizing the nearshore estuaries and embayments by delineating the 47 estuarine watershed boundaries, encompassing all tributary areas that are tidally influenced, as well as open water regions of the estuary that contain important ecological resources; developing a set of geospatial indicators that can be used to assess the ecological health of each estuarine watershed; and comparatively analyzing each watershed with regard to management priority along the entire MassBays management area and within each of the MassBays planning regions.
Tide gates are used to drain and manage areas which tides regularly cover for agricultural or other uses. The purpose of this project was to perform a state-wide tide gate inventory, then to use information from the inventory to develop a comprehensive and easy-to-use web-based geospatial analysis tool with information and planning tools related to tide gates in Massachusetts.
© 2026 Geosyntec Consultants, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
