Over 60 volunteers from Somerville, Cambridge, Arlington, and Boston showed up in the pouring rain on Earth Day 2025 for Save the Alewife Brook’s DCR Path Earth Day cleanup & Alewife MBTA Sewage Outfall tour. Then another dozen volunteers arrived to help after the rain stopped. It’s unbelievable how many people care so deeply about this Brook!
Using mad muscle and a hook on a rope, we pulled a shopping cart, bike, and bike trailer from the Minuteman bike path bridge.
Photo by Ann McDonald.
Amazingly, we also found a large fresh water mussel shell near the Brook.
Beth Melofchik & David Stoff discuss the find of a mussel shell. Photo by Charles Teague.
The reason that it is so amazing that we found a mussel shell is explained by Greg Harris in his wonderful Cambridge Day article, titled “Alewife Floaters, and what you can do about them”.
“Alewife Floaters are a species of freshwater mussel that as adults live embedded in the sand and mud, but as larvae have evolved an ingenious way to reach new areas of a river system: They hitch a ride in the gills of the Alewife herring (as well as related fish, such as the blue-back herring and the American shad). When its host fish were so abundant that they were a pillar of Massachusetts tribal sustenance, and fertilized soil for the early European colonists, the mussel must have been abundant, too. What does it do for a body of water to have such a species in it? Consider this: A single mussel can filter 15 to 20 gallons of water a day, capturing and cycling nutrients, structuring the stream bed as a habitat and forming the basis of a food web for other species. Mussel beds can revitalize an urban river.
Even now, when Alewife Brook is mostly bereft of its fish because of its quality, sometimes you see a Floater shell or two. Maybe you, like me for the longest time, assumed they were archaeological, or someone’s lunch dumped in the river. But no: They are evidence that despite the pollution, the shallowness, the channelization, the gunk that’s accumulated – some fish do make it through. And some Alewife Floaters hitch a ride. Nature is that powerfully resilient, that ready to come back. To provide ecosystem services, once we know to value them.”
Big thanks to the volunteers who came out in the rain for our DCR Park Serve Alewife Earth Day Cleanup:
Thank you, Arlington Select Board Member Diane Mahon!
Thanks also to: John Anderson, Renee Kelley, George Laite, Logan B, Melissa Mahoney, Jean Baptiste Brun, Paul Lipsky, Ben Flaumenhaft, Caroline Sherrard, Charles Teague, Anna Currin, Jennifer Ingram, Ulli and Steve Rapp, Alex Simmons, Michael Everman, David Mussina, Yawen Timurdogan, Maureen Urban, Daniel Place, Phillip Veatch, Han Chen, Shuo Cheng, Jean-Marc Guettier, Nathaly Herrel, Diandra Chamberlain, Andy Forbes, Rachel Zoll, Sunyoung Park, John Williams, Ken Domino, Jess Strzempko, Lindsey Leigh, Marian Miller, Amro Elbakri, Henry Kilgore, Eric Grunebaum, Alexa Wadsworth, Jimmy Johnson, John Tortelli, Suzanne Chiarito, Angelique Bradford, Tom Galow, Nancy Frost, Joel Snider, Sam Murphy, Maureen & Bazil Jackson, Bob Tosi Jr, Jennifer O’Brien Chang, Olivia O’Donnell, Michael Lonetto, Justin Kunimune, Gwen Speeth, Chris Logan, Sabrina Morais, Colleen Fitzgerald, David Bel, Dakota Tyson, Reva Stein, Cody Canning, Jen Thompson, Erica Tangney, Joann Keesey, Eleanor Wolf, Sparsh Chaudhri, Susan and Jeff Denham, Sam Pierce, Pauline Tran, Thais Pinheiro, Phil McHenry, Laurianne McHenry, Ivy Xu, Sonya Green, Bivianne Velásquez, Melissa McWhinney, Adam Lanman, Lauren Coffin, Susann Wilkinson, Gerri Strickler, Sydney Ross, Robin Shaw, Danny Balel, Elaine Campbell, Angela Poiré, Ann McDonald, Kristin Anderson, Eppa Rixey, David Stoff, Linea Rowe, John Green, Phil Mahoney, Mark Foster, Christine Metzler, Beth Melofchik, Gilbert Martin, Janine Hart-Hueber
Volunteers gather in the rain at Bicentennial Park. Photo by Jimmy Johnson.