Save the Alewife Brook is a grassroots organization that is working to address flooding and water quality problems in the Alewife Brook. Let’s take the Brook back for the people, to make it a safe and beautiful place.
Our Mission
Save the Alewife Brook is concerned with
Combined Sewer Overflow discharges which send sewage-contaminated water into the Alewife Brook. During major flood events, that unsafe flood water enters the homes, yards, and parks of area residents. Save the Alewife Brook is also concerned with Climate Change, which threatens to increase sewage water discharges and flooding.
Save the Alewife Brook is an inclusive, growing, grassroots residents activist organization that is reaching out to residents in Arlington, Cambridge, and Somerville. We believe that by raising public awareness and by growing resident participation, public pressure can be used to create solutions to improve Alewife Brook water quality and to reduce area flooding and the impacts of Climate Change.
Save the Alewife Brook was founded in 2021
by Kristin Anderson and David White.
David White has served on the Arlington Conservation Commission since 2000. He has been actively involved with the Friends of Arlington’s Great Meadows, the Reservoir Committee and stewardship activities on Arlington’s conservation and open space lands. He currently chairs the Water Bodies Working Group of the Conservation Commission which oversees the health of local water resources such as Spy Pond, Hills Pond and the Reservoir. David also represents Arlington’s Precinct 21 at Town Meeting.
Kristin Anderson is an Arlington Town Meeting Member with up-close and personal experience with the Alewife Brook. She lived next to the Brook, and during a couple flood events, had flood water in her house for days. After the flood receded, she learned that it was contaminated with untreated sewage. Following that experience, she revived the Sunnyside Neighborhood group to help develop consensus among neighbors, while fostering a greater sense of community, in order to effectively advocate for common needs. Combined Sewer Overflows and flooding were the major focus of the neighborhood group’s work. She was also a member of the Tri-Community Flood group at its inception. The Tri-Community Flood Group, also referred to as the ABC Flood Group, was a regional effort with representatives from Arlington, Cambridge, and Belmont.