Over 300 Alewife Brook supporters attended the public Alewife CSO Sewage Pollution meeting on January 22nd. Another 100-200 people registered.
Thank you for your support. The State and Federal regulators were there. They work for all of us and they took note of your concern.
MWRA tried to silence us.
So we fought back and won a seat at the table.
Massachusetts Water Resources Authority did not want the Watershed Associations to make 2-3 minute statements at this important meeting. We fought back with our “FRED: Let us speak!” campaign, which yielded 189 emails to MWRA’s Executive Director, Fred Laskey.
In response to those emails, MWRA’s contractor CBI suggested the creation of a new CSO Control Plan Advisory Board. We want an Advisory Board that allows the Watershed advocates a seat at the planning table.
Your Comments in the Poll and in the Chat Were Awesome.
Attendees were asked in a poll: What hopes and/or concerns do you have?
Here are screenshots of poll comments:
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A common theme in the chat was how long the process is taking.
The Proposals.
“If you can’t bedazzle them with brilliance, baffle them with BS!”
Above: A Proposed Minimum Plan, aka: 2050 Typical Year of Sewage Pollution Control. Sewer separation in Somerville is great! However, this plan fails because it was engineered to result in 26% more sewage pollution than what we have now. That is in average years and much would be worse during rainy years.
Above: Somerville’s proposal includes two stormwater wetlands in Davis Square. One wetlands is sited in a parking lot and the other on private property.
Replacing parking lots with Green Stormwater Infrastructure will get support from environmentalists and will make Davis Square incredibly beautiful. But taking private homes by eminent domain is not a serious proposal.
We need workable solutions.
Above: Somerville’s Mystic River Alternative where 100% of the CSOs are already treated.
Somerville’s Alewife Brook CSO outfall at Tannery Brook discharges untreated sewage pollution into parks, yards, and homes. The Tannery Brook CSO outfall is a serious health hazard.
We recommend that Somerville focuses resources on Alewife Brook.
Above: MWRA’s Storage Tunnel along Alewife Brook would have to be 32 feet in diameter to achieve “virtual CSO elimination.”
What was missing from the proposals:
- A solution at the Alewife MBTA station for the Alewife’s worst CSO outfall.
- Sewer Separation and Green Stormwater Infrastructure in Cambridge.
- Upgrades to MWRA’s regional sewer system, which is often overwhelmed during storm events. For instance, on Sunday, 2/16/2025, Deer Island Wastewater Treatment Plant was overwhelmed and discharged “blended” untreated sewage.
- A CSO treatment facility, which would not only treat sewage but also improve stormwater quality.
- Alewife Brook Dredging Project, to improve water quality, reduce flooding, and make the brook boatable.
Football Fields vs. Swimming Pools of Sewage.
Cambridge and Somerville dueled over sewage volume metaphors to describe the size of CSO detention tanks. Cambridge’s metaphor made more sense and is easier to understand. It stated that a football field is 360 ft x 160 ft. At one foot deep, it can hold 431,000 gallons of sewage pollution.
It is easy to imagine a 23-foot deep tank under the Dilboy Park football field. That would hold almost 10 million gallons of untreated sewage pollution from Davis Square. This may be the size tank needed to achieve “virtual CSO elimination” for the Tannery Brook CSO outfall.
This seems like a large tank, but other cities are creating larger storage solutions. And Sewer Separation and Green Storm Water Infrastructure can reduce the size of a CSO detention tank at Dilboy Park.
Note: this idea has *not* been floated publicly by MWRA, Cambridge, or Somerville.
What we learned.
If no work is done, we expect to see upwards of 20.9 million gallons of untreated sewage discharged into the Brook annually on average by the year 2050. But weather will be more erratic in 2050, so there will be much more sewage pollution during rainy years.
The new plan must include either “virtual elimination” or a treatment facility for all Alewife CSOs.
Backsliding: Making a Bad Situation Worse.
The polluters – MWRA, Cambridge, & Somerville – presented their modeling numbers for sewage pollution control. They altered the “Typical Year” volume of sewage pollution that they agreed to in Federal Court*.
The result is a 26% increase of sewage pollution.
In the slide above, the “Prior Typical Year” for Alewife Brook shows the CSO discharge volume of 9.9 million gallons. The Typical Year CSO volume of 7.29 million gallons is the court mandated annual permitted volume.
The purpose of the Updated Long Term Control Plan is to improve conditions, not worsen them. Note that many years have more rains than in a “typical year.” In the future, the weather will be more erratic, with more wet years.
Planning for the minimum level of Alewife CSO control ensures failure. And it will lead to at least 26% more sewage pollution than what we have today.
Footnotes:
* Table 3-1 from MWRA’s most recent 2023-cso-annual-report , which shows that Previous Typical Year CSO volume is 7.29 million gallons:
** The CSO control requirement in the original Long Term CSO Control Plan [7.29 MG] is also used for the wasteload allocation for Alewife CSOs in the Harbor Pathogen TMDL. This substitution should not be allowed under the Clean Water Act’s “Anti-backsliding” rules. (CWA section 303(d)(4)(A)).
Public Meeting #4 January 22, 2025 Meeting Materials:
Agenda
Recording
Slides
Poll Results
One Response
Dear Coordinators and Friends of Save the Alewife Brook,
There was a time when Fred Lasky was on our side and able to accomplish the marsh development of the Cambridge 4 acre storm water wetland for Cambridge that you are now proposing for the Davis Sq. area. We at Friends of Alewife Reservation at the time in 2018 had proposed the same for flooding the area between Cambridge Park Drive and Smith Place in Cambridge on south side of tracks behind Iggys. We used the example of Charles River Watershed Association that had purchased 8 thousand acres which has now saved much flooding from Boston area.
I was disappointed in the absence, and mention of “Little River” flowing from Belmont to Somerville line as if no one knew it existed, as a source of the pollution and needing amelioration.. Alewife Brook is the narrow downstream impact of upstream’s Little River of Cambridge and Belmont and even Arlington which flows through Little Pond in Belmont into Little River. Today, a gigantic development is proposed at Blair Pond which flows to Little River and more attention will need to be paid to it than neighborhood opposition or compliance.
Advocates for cleaning our regional Alewife Corridor will need to include the abutting wetlands and waterways in their perspective, and you have the numbers to do so. The comments give me much joy as I see you have not given up and carry on the needed environmental struggle for a protected planet. Thank you for this difficult task and willingness to get the job done. MWRA has accomplished much for the metropolitan area by cleaning up the Harbor. Hope they will not stop now.
Thanks for letting folks share in my sharing.
Ellen Mass
Former President
Friends of Alewife Reservation