David Stoff and Ann McDonald, activists, look out at the water in the Alewife Brook Reservation by a sewage outfall on Friday, March 13, 2026, in Cambridge, Mass. (Lucie McCormick/MIT Graduate Program in Science Writing via AP) 

Read the AP story here. Read the NBC story here. Washington Post here. Boston Herald here. U.S News & World Report here. UK Independent here.

From sea-to-shining-sea, all across the country, all eyes are on Massachusetts, watching to see what happens at Alewife Brook and the Charles and Mystic Rivers.

Massachusetts is once again at the center of a national conversation about environmental justice and whether the Massachusetts Water Resources Authority chooses to complete the job of modernizing its badly aging sewer infrastructure. 

In the 1980s and 1990s, Massachusetts led the way for the nation’s response to violations of the federal Clean Water Act. A cleanup was required to address the billions of gallons of poop in the Boston Harbor, on its beaches, and in the Charles and Mystic rivers. 

The Boston Harbor Cleanup was a victory for the Clean Water Act. Investments in sewer infrastructure transformed one of America’s most polluted harbors. The Harbor Cleanup became the national model for how cities across the country are held accountable for sewage pollution. 

The question now is: In the face of Climate Change, will MWRA continue to burden Greater Boston’s most vulnerable Environmental Justice neighborhoods with its harmful sewage? 

What happens here will lead the way for cities across the country… making this one of the most important environmental decisions in the country right now.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

Thank you to journalists Ashley D’Souza and Lucie McCormick
from MIT’s Graduate Program in Science Writing for their amazing work on this story.

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Here is an incomplete list of news outlets that reproduced the story: