Great news! The Town of Arlington has taken action to protect the community and environment from the harmful effects of Alewife Brook sewage pollution. Under the leadership of Selectboard Chair Steve DeCourcey, Vice Chair Diane Mahon, and Town Manager Jim Feeney, the Town of Arlington has called upon Governor Healey to coordinate efforts between the MBTA, MWRA, DCR, and DEP to ensure that Combined Sewer Overflows (CSOs) and flood mitigation are an integral part of the MBTA’s Alewife Station redevelopment plan¹. The Town also reached out to MBTA General Manager Philip Eng to consider the health, safety, and environmental needs of surrounding communities in the project’s design².

Town of Arlington Calls for Green Solutions 

The Town of Arlington is urging Governor Healey and the MBTA to address untreated sewage pollution and flooding in the Alewife T Station redevelopment planning process. They propose several environmentally friendly solutions to the Alewife’s sewage flooding problem:

1. CSO storage under the Alewife site
2. Inclusion of an adjacent stormwater wetland
3. Sewer separation
4. Prohibition of new connections to combined sewers

A Watershed Moment

While the MBTA’s plan to redevelop Alewife Station presents an amazing opportunity to provide transit-based housing, it also poses a significant risk.³ The project could exacerbate the already critical CSO problem, particularly concerning Outfall Number CAM401A. This single CSO, located feet away from the proposed development site, discharged over 20 million gallons of untreated sewage in 2023, exceeding the permitted annual total for all Alewife Brook CSOs.

YOU CAN HELP! GET INVOLVED.

Join us at this month’s MBTA Board Meeting
Thursday, December 19 at 10am
At the State Transportation Building, 2nd Floor, 10 Park Plaza, Boston, MA

Please join Save the Alewife Brook at Thursday’s in-person Monthly MBTA Board Meeting. We will respectfully ask the good folks at the MBTA to support Arlington’s call for a Greener Alewife MBTA Station. To ensure community involvement in the process, we ask for the formation of an MBTA Alewife Development Advisory Committee.

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Click here to RSVP for the MBTA Board Meeting

Documentation:

1. Alewife-Letter-Governor-Signed.pdf ↩︎
2. Alewife-Letter-MBTA-Signed.pdf ↩︎
3. MBTA’s Alewife Development packet ↩︎