The good news is MONEY and community support.
The Massachusetts Water Resources Authority voted in favor of a commitment of $340 million at Alewife Brook. That is a solid starting point for the early draft plan at Alewife Brook.
We would not have received this financial commitment without community support, from folks like you. Thank you. We have had the dedicated support of Senator Pat Jehlen, and Representatives Dave Rogers, Steve Owens, & Sean Garballey. We are making progress by working together.
Additional support comes from Arlington Town Manager Jim Feeney, Arlington Selectboard Chair Diane Mahon, and Selectboard Member Steve DeCourcey.
We have also received support from Cambridge City Council and Somerville City Council, which is awesome. Thank you!
For only $44 more per year to households,
MWRA can end sewage pollution in three rivers.
The MWRA produced financial analysis at Energy and Environmental Affairs Secretary Rebecca Tepper’s request. We learned that for only $44 more per year to households, MWRA can eliminate sewage in Alewife Brook,… and in the Charles and Mystic Rivers!1 Thank you, Secretary Tepper.
Now the bad news: more sewage in the future. A lot more sewage.
MWRA’s misleading name for its Alewife Brook plan is “0 CSOs in 2050 Typical Year.” The Typical Year is somewhat like an average year, so many years will be above average, meaning more rainstorms and more sewage in the brook in those above average years. The plan does not end dumping of raw sewage in the brook.
In fact, Climate Change will make it much worse, with a lot more sewage in much larger storms. In a single 5-year storm event Cambridge and Somerville will dump 15 million gallons of raw sewage into the brook. 15 million gallons in just one storm! MWRA’s plan is hardly a vision of public health or environmental justice. MWRA ignored public health and flooding in its Alewife plan.
MWRA’s plan for Alewife Brook, as approved by the MWRA Board of Directors in February 2026.
MWRA’s plan rejects Climate Resilient strategies.
The antique combined sewer systems in Cambridge and Somerville are not compatible with Climate Change. When we get more rain in the future, we will get more sewage pollution. And it will be an apparently exponentially growing amount of sewage with an increase in rainfall.
The Climate Resilient strategy2 for combined sewer systems is sewer separation with Green Stormwater Infrastructure. Yet MWRA’s Alewife Brook plan includes less than 10 acres of sewer separation. If MWRA’s plan gets built, the combined sewer systems in Cambridge and Somerville will dump more sewage in the brook. The old combined sewer systems were designed for yesterday’s storms, not tomorrow’s.
Rather than modernize the old sewer systems in Cambridge and Somerville, MWRA wants to build storage tanks and a tunnel. The storage tanks and tunnel are undersized even for relatively small 2‑year storm events. Tanks and tunnels cannot be expanded later at a reasonable cost. As climate change drives more intense storms, rigid concrete tanks and tunnels will quickly be overwhelmed and outdated.
The Alewife Brook Community CSO Plan solution.
Because the MWRA plan is so bad, we decided to create a better plan.
The Alewife Brook Community Combined Sewer Overflow Plan:
✓ Eliminates CSO sewage pollution
✓ Paid for with MWRA funding
✓ Reduces Flooding
✓ Improves Water Quality
✓ Climate‑resilient
✓ Increases sewer system capacity, locally and regionally
The Community Plan includes sewer separation, Green Stormwater Infrastructure, dredging & river restoration. It increases capacity of the local and regional sewer system by removing large volumes of stormwater.
Footnotes:
- For information about funding, see the Funding section of the Community Plan, pages 17-25. ↩︎
- For information about Climate Resilient strategies, see the Climate Change section of the Community Plan, pages 27-29. ↩︎