Author Archives: SavetheAlewifeBrook

Add your name and email address to our Petition Comment Email shown below. Dear MassDEP, The health of our community and the multiple environmental justice neighborhoods along the Alewife Brook depend on your protection. Protect our brook, our park, and our homes from pathogens in the sewage flood water by enforcing the existing Class BContinue reading “MassDEP needs YOUR feedback.”

A rare opportunity to lock in legal requirements to help protect Alewife Brook for years to come. Tuesday April 9th at 7 PM MassDEP has proposed another “Water Quality Variance” to waive water quality standards for Alewife Brook for up to five years. The variance would allow Cambridge, Somerville, and MWRA to continue to dumpContinue reading “MassDEP Special Public Hearing on Alewife Sewage Pollution:”

Special Alewife Sewage Pollution HearingTuesday, April 9th at 7 pmZoom REGISTER HERE Please register now. There is power in numbers. A Real Hearing on Alewife Sewage Pollution. Finally. Demand an End to Untreated Sewage Pollution. A safe neighborhood and path for walkers, joggers, and cyclists. An on-site beacon light sewage warning notification system on theContinue reading “MassDEP wants to hear from you.”

On March 21, 2024, the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection hosted a meeting at their headquarters in Boston where we talked about Alewife Brook Water Quality. The main topic was the issuance of a new Alewife Brook CSO ‘variance’, which would allow MWRA, Cambridge, and Somerville to continue to dump untreated sewage into Alewife BrookContinue reading “A Great Meeting With MassDEP.”

Join us on Saturday morning, April 13th, for an Early Earth Day Alewife Greenway Path Clean-Up and CSO Tour. We will gather trash along the path next to the brook. While we’re there, we’ll provide a tour of the Combined Sewer Outfalls and the Concrete Sewage Death Channel. We’ll discuss what we’re doing together, to make AlewifeContinue reading “Early Earth Day Alewife Path Clean-up & CSO Tour”

Photo by David Stoff. Local meteorologist Dave Epstein has predicted 2-5 inches of rain tonight, Wednesday, March 6th. When we receive just less than an inch of hard, fast rain, we experience untreated sewage pollution discharges into Alewife Brook. When we receive more than a couple of inches of hard, fast rain, the Alewife BrookContinue reading “SEWAGE FLOOD WARNING”

In 2023, 27.8 Million Gallons of untreated sewage pollution was dumped in Alewife Brook by the Massachusetts Water Resources Authority, Somerville, and Cambridge.1 So what does that number mean? A way to visualize 28 millions gallons is to imagine a 6-story building the size of a football field full of sewage pollution. Imagine if allContinue reading “2023 Alewife Sewage Pollution”

Join Save the Alewife Brook in person or remotely via ZOOM Wednesday, October 25th at 1 PM Support House Bill 886 ~ An Act Relative to Combined Sewer OverflowsA Sensible, Achievable, and Necessary Response to Raw Sewage Being Dumped into our Waterways through Combined Sewer Outfalls Register to speak about the second to last bill,Continue reading “Come with us to the State House!”

Join us in the Sunday Parade! SUNDAY OCTOBER 8, from 11 am to 1:30 pm at 11 am gather at the Day Street Parking Lot in Davis Square, Somervilleending in Harvard Square, Cambridge, at around 1:30 pm Parade with Save the Alewife Brook, musicians, and puppeteers. Join us, to demand a safe, clean, and restored brook, forContinue reading “March in the 2023 HONK! Parade”

Governor Maura Healey’s first budget includes $100,000 for the Alewife Brook. Funding will go through Mystic River Watershed Association for a hydraulic and dredging study. Construction of the Alewife channel with a crane dredge, circa 1909. From the Department of Conservation and Recreation, courtesy Massachusetts State Archives. Why do we need a study of theContinue reading “State Passes $100K for Alewife Brook!”

Please sign the following email petition: Michele Barden EPA Region 1 5 Post Office Square, Suite 100 (06-1) Boston, MA 02109 RE: NPDES MA0103284, Part I. B. 2. b.(8) You can’t dump untreated sewage into Alewife Brook without telling us. There are too many of us living too close to it. The Alewife Greenway/Bike pathContinue reading “Send A Public Comment to EPA!”

This is not Alewife Brook – it’s the Alewife Greenway under sewage flood water! The public has a legal right to know when hazardous, untreated sewage is discharged into Alewife Brook because it is a serious health risk, especially during flood events. But residents are not informed. On Tuesday, August 8th, 2023, folks had noContinue reading “Public Health Warning Failure!”

he State of Massachusetts, through its agency the Massachusetts Water Resources Authority, unfairly uses Alewife Brook poor water quality to justify not spending money to end sewage pollution.  How does this make any sense? Well, it doesn’t. So here’s an analogy which might help the reader to better understand the MWRA’s poor thinking on theContinue reading “The Weaponization of Alewife Brook Water Quality”

On May 17th, students from Cambridge’s Fayerweather Street School rallied to end the sewage pollution that is destroying our environment. They marched from their school to the Alewife Brook, where the 3rd & 4th Grade students leading the year-long watershed project had installed an educational public art exhibit. Students also wrote letters to state legislatorsContinue reading “Cambridge Students March to Save the Alewife!”

On Saturday, April 22, 2023, Save the Alewife Brook volunteers met for an Earth Day Clean-up and environmental tour. We collected trash near three of the Alewife’s Combined Sewer Outfalls.  The event began with a reading of Governor Maura Healey’s message to the volunteers. We distributed t-shirts and Kolsvart Swedish Fish. We then began theContinue reading “Earth Day 2023 Clean-up”

Sunday, May 7th, 1:30–5:00 The Rindge Ave Greenway Plan Proposed by Friends of Jerry’s Pond Music * Bangladeshi Dance * Food * Arts & Crafts * Native American Fish Weir * Activities for Kids & Adults! Meet your neighbors to celebrate the planned reopening of Jerry’s Pond!Meet members of the IQHQ team and community groups.MakeContinue reading “Jerry’s PondFest !!”

Join us Saturday morning, April 22nd, for an Earth Day Alewife Greenway Path Clean-Up and CSO Tour! We’ll be working to gather trash along the path next to the brook. While we’re there, we will provide a tour of the Concrete Sewage Death Channel and the CSOs. Come see GHOST FISH art and listen toContinue reading “Earth Day Alewife Path Clean-up & CSO Tour”

Exciting news! New state legislation, HD3316, has been filed that would greatly improve water quality in the rivers and streams throughout the Boston area as shown on this map. It would limit the dumping of untreated sewage pollution and potentially leading to the building of new treatment facilities.  This legislation would bring the same levelContinue reading “Legislation to Reduce Alewife Sewage Pollution”

to Tonight’s CSO Powerpoint Presentation Which is Meant to Make You Think that Alewife Brook Sewage Pollution is a Good Thing Annotated Slides by David Stoff Meeting materials can be downloaded from the documents tab here. By “occasionally, excess flow”, they mean 51 Million Gallons of Untreated Sewage Pollution was dumped in the Alewife BrookContinue reading “A Brief Annotated Guide”

Add event to calendar Alewife Sewage Pollution Control Public Meeting #2Thursday, December 15th at 6 pm Zoom Register Here 1. EXPRESS Gratitude for Addressing Climate Change We thank Cambridge, Somerville, and MWRA for agreeing to include Climate Change Projections in the updated sewage pollution control plan. If applied properly, this is a huge win forContinue reading “Our Secret 3-Point Meeting Strategy”

There is huge news about a new plan to make desperately needed improvements to the sewage pollution problem in the Alewife Brook. The Massachusetts Water Resources Authority has promised to include Climate Change projections in their planning of new area combined sewer infrastructure, in response to the Alewife Brook’s hazardous raw sewage pollution problem. IncludingContinue reading “Local Alewife Brook News Story”

The weather should be good today. Take a three minute walk from Massachusetts Avenue, north along the Alewife Brook. And check out the kid-friendly Alewife GHOST FISH art installation and Somerville’s sewer outfall! Before there was a sewer outfall at this location (behind the Homewood Suites Hotel), there was a second brook that met theContinue reading “GHOST FISH on Halloween!”

On Sunday October 9, 2022, thirty supporters of Save the Alewife Brook marched in HONK! Fest from Davis Square in Somerville to Harvard Square in Cambridge.  Sara Peattie’s Puppeteers Cooperative marched with us, leading the way with a family of sea horses and the huge four-person puppet named Big Blue, the Goddess of Clean Water.Continue reading “HONK! Parade”

Former President of Friends of the Alewife Reservation Dear water protectors to Save the Alewife Brook, After 20 years, your water quality campaign for watershed conservation is a great boon to the residents of the Alewife Upper Basin in Belmont, Arlington, Cambridge, Somerville and to the downstream Medford and Chelsea Creek communities, and for theContinue reading “A Letter from Ellen Mass”

Join us on Sunday April 24th at 6 PM We have an opportunity now to promote our vision for a safer and more beautiful Alewife Brook. Please join us to discuss this on Sunday April 24th at 6 pm for Save the Alewife Brook’s April Community Meeting. April Meeting Agenda: Draft Scopes for the newContinue reading “April 24th Community Meeting”

Join us Saturday morning, April 23th, for an Earth Day Alewife Greenway Path Clean-Up and CSO Tour! We’ll be working with Everywhere Arlington Safe Streets to gather trash along the path next to the brook. While we’re there, we can show you the CSOs you’ve been hearing so much about. You’ll know us by our new redContinue reading “Earth Day Saturday Alewife Path Clean-up & CSO Tour”

On Saturday, 04/09/2022, the Boston Globe published our letter in response to the op ed, “The cleanup of Boston Harbor is incomplete”. (Note that we have subsequently determined that the 2021 Alewife discharges were over 50 million gallons.) Arlington’s Award-Winning Town Engineer, Wayne Chouinard, also had a letter published about the CSOs: In addition toContinue reading “Boston Globe’s CSO Letters”

Would you like to help flyer a neighborhood in Cambridge or Somerville that is connected to the sewer outfalls on the Alewife Brook? Please help our grassroots effort in North Cambridge and West Somerville, hanging our “Please don’t flush when it rains” flyers. We will be visiting neighborhoods that are still hooked up to theContinue reading “Volunteers Needed Now!”

At the March 4th, 2022 Massachusetts Water Resources Authority’s (MWRA) Wastewater Advisory Committee meeting, core activists from Save the Alewife Brook learned something awful about Belmont’s sewage. In 2015, the MWRA reconstructed a Combined Sewer Outfall (CSO) known as MWR003 in the Little River/Alewife Brook. They did this as part of the 2006 Long TermContinue reading “MWRA is Dumping Belmont Sewage into Alewife Brook”

Talking Points THURSDAY FEB 17th at 10 AMCLICK HERE FOR MWRA’s online meeting!Access Code: 2331 962 5386Password: February17 The Massachusetts Water Resources Authority (MWRA) is holding a briefing at 10 am on Thursday February 17 for their Combined Sewer Overflow (CSO) project’s Final Report.  This meeting is a final milestone in the completion of theContinue reading “MWRA Final CSO Report Meeting”

By Kristin Anderson and David WhiteThis article was originally published Sunday, January 16, 2022 at Cambridge Day Fifty million gallons of sewage-contaminated stormwater were discharged into the Alewife Brook from the cities of Cambridge and Somerville in 2021, according to websites for those two cities and the Metropolitan Water Resources Authority. There was as much sewage-contaminated water discharged into the AlewifeContinue reading “Despite upgrades, 50 million gallons of sewage were released into the Alewife Brook over 2021”

This article was originally edited by Jeff North and published at the Belmont Citizens Forum: Fifty Million Gallons of Sewage Released Discharges to Alewife Brook Have Persisted for Two Decades By Kristin Anderson and David White Fifty million gallons of sewage-contaminated stormwater have been discharged into the Alewife Brook from the cities of Cambridge andContinue reading “Fifty Million Gallons of Sewage-water Released”

Combined Sewer Outfalls (CSO) are where sewage overflows occur when the combined sewer system is overwhelmed by stormwater during rainy weather and sewage mixes with stormwater and overflows or discharges into a waterbody like the Alewife Brook. CSOs are a relic of outdated Combined Sewer Systems (also known as “one pipe systems”) from the 1800s, when flushContinue reading “CSOs 101: What is a “CSO”?”

In a recent YourArlington.com article about the new ARPA funding, Representative Sean Garballey was quoted as saying, “As the chair of the House Committee on Global Warming and Climate Change, I was proud to work on and help secure $100 million toward infrastructure for communities to adapt and become climate resilient, $100 million for water-and-sewerContinue reading “Representatives Sean Garballey and Dave Rogers Vote for Federal ARPA Funding for CSOs, Sewer Infrastructure, and Climate Change Resilience”

The Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection’s GIS map is a resource that displays information about all Combined Sewer Overflows (CSOs) throughout the Commonwealth. Each CSO is marked with a link to a pop-up window that displays a wealth information, including: the National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) permit ID, the system that it belongs toContinue reading “MassDEP’s Interactive CSO Map”

By Michelle Liebtreu and Daria Clark The Mystic River is cleaner today than it has ever been. The Clean Water Act has been a major environmental success story. But the work is not yet done. As the … Source: Stormwater Threatens Our Waterways

After receiving notification of multiple Combined Sewer Overflow (CSO) activations in the Alewife Brook, filmmaker Clare Nosowitz grabbed her video camera and her rain coat and headed out the door. The date was October 26, 2021 and the Alewife was experiencing rain at the start of a gusty autumn Nor’easter. On this day, less thanContinue reading “The Alewife Brook After CSO Discharges”

Here is a link to Arlington’s Interactive Wetland Regulations GIS map. If you click on “layers” and select the FEMA Hazard Zones, you will see which of our neighborhoods are expected to get flooding in 100 year storm events. https://tinyurl.com/arlingtonfloodmap You can also download PDFs of the flood maps:

The Save the Alewife Brook group hosted a “Spooky” Combined Sewer Overflows (CSOs) tour of the Alewife Brook in East Arlington on the lovely morning of Saturday, October 16. Twenty Arlington residents, including some Town Meeting Members came out for the event.  The goals of the group are summarized in a petition that was distributed:Continue reading “COMBINED SEWER OVERFLOWS (CSOs) SPOOKY WALKING TOUR
SATURDAY, OCTOBER 16^th 2021“

During major flood events, the Alewife Brook washes onto the yards and into the homes of Arlington residents. Most of those flood events also include sewage contaminated discharges from the active Combined Sewer Overflows (CSOs) from Cambridge and Somerville.  Climate change, with its wetter rainy seasons, more intense storms, and sea level rise, is expectedContinue reading “Petition to Stop Sewage Discharges & Flooding in the Alewife Brook”