MARION — The Silvershell Pump Station, an unassuming single-story beige building, sits in sight of Silvershell Beach and the Atlantic Ocean.

It may seem like an idyllic location to manage wastewater. That seaside location in fact poses peril to the structure in certain potential situations. 

To address the risks associated with the pump station existing so close to the coast, the state granted Marion $85,000 for an improvement project, a portion of a $5.2 million package awarded to 16 projects to support “coastal communities in combating climate change impacts,” according to an Oct. 16 news release from Gov. Healey’s administration and the Massachusetts Office of Coastal Zone Management.

The funding will be utilized to design coastal storm resiliency improvements, to construct a bypass connection for the station and to conduct preliminary designs for restoring the station’s force main, according to wastewater manager Nathaniel Munafo.

The storm resiliency goals include figuring out better ways to have a standby generator at the site and to provide flood protection for the existing pump station structure, which is in a high-risk flood zone, according to Munafo.

“Anything that we can do to protect the existing structure and keep it resilient and available and running is something we'd like to do,” Munafo said.

The bypass connection for the station would essentially allow for a portable pump to be connected to the force main, the discharge line of the pump station, according to Munafo.

“If something were to happen to that pump station, be it whatever kind of disaster that takes that pump station offline and makes it unusable, should that happen, we could bring in a portable pump, hook it up to the existing pipelines that we already have and utilize those to provide sewer service for everybody who's served by this station,” he said.

For the force main improvements, Munafo said the existing pipeline is about 65 to 70 years old, the oldest force main in Marion. 

The goal would be to explore options to rehab the line, which takes wastewater to the next point in the collection system at which it can flow by gravity, according to Munafo.

“Any sort of failure in the sewer system in a coastal town like Marion is something we're trying to avoid if we can,” he said.

The pump station’s close proximity to the water poses risks to the structure. Those potential dangers include high exposure to rising sea levels, extreme precipitation and heat, and flooding events like storm surges, according to Munafo.

“The biggest one to us is certainly the fact that it is so close to the water, both in distance and in elevation, that it puts it at risk in those big storm events and flood events that can impact the station, whether it's by damaging the building, knocking out power, any sort of risk,” Munafo said.

The Silvershell Pump Station and the project to improve its resilience to coastal storm risks is “part of the aging infrastructure that we have here in town for the sewer system,” according to Munafo, who said the $85,000 grant from the Office of Coastal Zone Management had a $10,000 match from the town of Marion.

“It's important that we keep our infrastructure available and resilient and moving, and we want to maintain service for those who are served by this pump station as much as possible and as long as possible throughout these storm events,” he said.