A rare opportunity to lock in legal requirements to help protect Alewife Brook for years to come.
Tuesday April 9th at 7 PM
MassDEP has proposed another “Water Quality Variance” to waive water quality standards for Alewife Brook for up to five years. The variance would allow Cambridge, Somerville, and MWRA to continue to dump untreated sewage from their Combined Sewer Overflows (CSOs) into the brook while they finalize their new Long Term Control Plan (LTCP) to control CSO discharges. The polluters were granted a three-year extension to submit that plan.
This public comment hearing is our chance to demand that DEP include protections for our community in the variance. We can’t wait for action until the new CSO control plan takes effect in 2027. DEP must require Cambridge, Somerville, and MWRA to reduce CSO sewage discharges NOW! DEP has not yet agreed to do so.
Whether you live in the floodplain, jog, commute, cycle, walk your dog, stroll with your kids, watch birds, or play your guitar on a bench along Alewife Brook, this Public Hearing is for YOU.
You’ll have up to 3 minutes to tell your story about why you love the Alewife, and why it’s important to you that MassDEP end the dumping of sewage in our brook.
Demand a safe, healthy, boatable Alewife Brook NOW!
Ultimately, we want an end to CSO discharges in Alewife Brook. We want to enjoy it as a brook and not see it used as an overflow sewer. Then no water quality variance would be required.
In the meantime, we demand that DEP include the following protections for the Alewife Brook community in the CSO Variance:
- An on-site warning-light notification system for the Alewife Greenway, so we know when CSOs are discharging sewage into our park, sewage that often floods over the path
- Green Infrastructure to capture stormwater and reduce CSO discharges NOW
- Action NOW to address massive sewage discharge volumes at Somerville’s Tannery Brook CSO (SOM001A) & Cambridge’s Alewife T Station CSO (CAM401A) before the new CSO control plan goes into effect in 2027
- Consequences for the polluters for their failure to meet Boston Harbor Clean-Up Court Case requirements for Alewife Brook CSOs
- Massachusetts Environmental Policy Act (MEPA) review of the new draft LTCP before the plan is set in stone
- A requirement that the polluters continue to work to eliminate sewage discharges in the Alewife Brook even if the Boston Harbor Court Case is resolved
- Ongoing community involvement in variance decision making, with input from the Department of Conservation and Recreation and waterbody advocacy groups on how direct measures like sediment removal, channel maintenance, and habitat restoration can improve water quality and support boating, fishing, and other recreational uses of the Alewife
- Requirements informed by actual volumes of sewage discharged, not based on hypothetical “Typical Year” modeling
For more information:
Download MassDEP’s variance fact sheets here and here.
And the full language of the proposed variance here.