Please attend tonight’s Cambridge City meeting on the Sherman Street Tank as part of the Alewife Combined Sewer Overflow (CSO) Plan.
6 – 8 pm Thursday, May 28
via Zoom
What we are asking you to do:
Please come to the meeting and speak during public comment. Even two sentences makes a difference.
The City needs to hear from you that an undersized concrete storage tank is not an acceptable plan for the worst CSO outfall in the entire MWRA system. There is power in numbers! We need you tonight. The more people who show up and say this, the harder it is to push through a bare-minimum approach.
Your voice matters.
The City is proposing its plan now. This is our chance to push for a meaningful solution before the plan gets locked in. Let the City know that the community won’t accept a plan that leaves Alewife Brook an open sewer.
When you speak, here are some suggestions:
Ask the City for sewer separation and green stormwater infrastructure as the strategy and solution for this sewage outfall in the new Alewife CSO plan! Cambridge already finished half the sewer separation work at Alewife ten years ago. MWRA funding is available now to finish the job. The City’s plan is 99.9% tanks and that means it will still dump 15 million gallons of raw sewage into the brook in a single 5-year storm. Sewer separation removes stormwater from the system, and eliminates CSOs, reduces flooding, prevents basement backups, and increases capacity across the whole system. Sewer separation is the Climate Resilient solution.
Here are some additional sample statements that you can borrow from:
“I’m here to ask the City to include complete sewer separation and green stormwater infrastructure in the Alewife CSO plan, not just tanks. Cambridge already did half this work ten years ago. MWRA funding is available to finish the job – let’s use MWRA funding to pay for this work.”
“The City knows that Climate Change will bring bigger storms and more rainfall to the area. But the old combined sewer system was built for yesterday’s storms, not tomorrow’s. The Climate Resilient strategy to CSOs is sewer separation and green stormwater infrastructure. Let’s finish the job of sewer separation and add more Stormwater Wetlands. We must do this now, using MWRA funding. Stop dumping sewage into Alewife Brook.”
“The DCR Alewife Masterplan includes more constructed wetlands. Let’s finish sewer separation and send the stormwater to new stormwater wetlands on state parkland to clean the stormwater and end raw sewage pollution at Alewife Brook. It’s good for community health and the environment. Sewer separation it is the Climate Resilient solution to the problem of CSOs.”
“People have gotten sick from exposure to Alewife sewage flooding. Why are we wasting money on an undersized tank, when we could be using MWRA’s funding to upgrade our infrastructure? The Climate-smart solution is sewer separation and Green Stormwater Infrastructure!”
Say yes to:
Sewer Separation
Green Stormwater Infrastructure
New Alewife Stormwater Wetlands
Why Sewer Separation?
Cambridge finished half the Sewer Separation at Alewife ten years ago. Sewer separation and the Alewife Stormwater Wetlands was Cambridge’s strategy for the first CSO plan. It’s time to FINISH THE JOB OF SEWER SEPARATION in the new CSO plan, while the city can use MWRA’s funding to pay for it.
Sewer Separation is modernizing and upgrading the sewer infrastructure by removing stormwater from the sewer system.
Removing stormwater from the sewer system means:
CSO* Elimination
Fewer SSOs**
Less Localized Flooding
Fewer Basement Backups
Increased Local Sewer System Capacity
Increased Regional Sewer System Capacity
* CSO = combined sewer overflow
* SSO = sanitary sewer overflow
At Alewife Brook, all CSOs and SSOs are untreated.
What about the tanks?
99.9% of the Alewife CSO Plan is tanks. When the tanks fill up, 100% of additional sewage is dumped into the brook. Raw sewage floods into the park, the bike path, yards, and homes. The plan will result in 15 million gallons of sewage pollution being dumped into the brook in a single 5-year storm event.
At Alewife Brook the answer is not tanks and tunnels. The answer is sewer separation with green infrastructure. Sewer separation eliminates CSOs by removing stormwater from the sewer system and green stormwater infrastructure reduce flooding and cleans the stormwater.
It’s fiscally irresponsible for the city to reject MWRA funding for sewer separation and green stormwater infrastructure.
Please make your voice heard. Say YES to sewer separation and green stormwater infrastructure, not 99.9% tanks!
END SEWAGE POLLUTION AND RAW SEWAGE FLOODING