Public comment · Alewife Brook
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Speak up for a sewage-free Alewife Brook.
There is a $340 million draft CSO sewage plan in the works for Alewife Brook, which is designed to allow sewage discharge volumes that are 50% worse in future 5-year storm events than they are in today’s 5-year storm events. A 5-year storm event has a 20% chance of happening in any year. The Alewife CSO Sewage plan was not engineered to keep up with Climate Change.
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UpdatedCSOControlPlan@aecom.com
arlington@savethealewifebrook.org
Public Comment on the Draft Updated CSO Control Plan
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Public health & safety
1. End CSO Sewage Pollution
End CSO sewage discharges in the Alewife, Charles, and Mystic Rivers for just $45/year
Governor Healey's Executive Order No. 618 calls on the state to significantly reduce or eliminate combined sewer overflows, to protect public health and ensure our waters are swimmable and fishable. Please eliminate CSO sewage pollution: no discharges except in a storm that occurs roughly every 25 years. MWRA's cost to end sewage discharges in all three rivers (Alewife, Charles, & Mystic) is only $45 more per year to households.
2. Alewife Brook over-the-bank sewage flooding is being ignored
The draft plan does not look at community health impacts of Alewife Brook sewage
In many rainstorms, sewage floods over the banks of Alewife Brook and into the Alewife Reservation park and path - and into nearby yards and homes in larger storms. The proposed CSO Long Term Control Plan fails to take that into account. The state must consider the public health impacts and reject a plan that would continue the dumping of sewage into the Brook in many years when the Brook floods.
3. People have gotten sick
All Alewife CSO sewage discharges are untreated - live pathogens go straight to the brook
Sewage at Alewife Brook is discharged untreated. E. coli counts run nearly 1,000 times above EPA's safe-contact level, and residents are exposed to live norovirus, intestinal worms, and other pathogens. People have gotten sick. This must end.
Environment & wildlife
4. Dredge the sewage sediment & Restore the Brook
Dredge 16+ tons/year of CSO sediment with the Army Corps of Engineers
River restoration and CSO sewage elimination is the most effective strategy to improve water quality. The concrete channel in Alewife Brook limits wildlife biodiversity and prevents ecological restoration. Restoring the river could also provide needed flood storage. The Alewife Brook should be safe for boating and fishing year-round. Let's invest in a safe, beautiful, fishable brook for the residents and for wildlife.
5. Build more stormwater wetlands to support sewer separation
Acres of DCR parkland available for three new stormwater wetlands
There is public parkland available for Green Stormwater Infrastructure, to support wildlife. Complete separation of Cambridge's remaining combined pipes and some of West Somerville. I do not want grey concrete infrastructure like storage tanks or a tunnel on Alewife parkland. That is not a park amenity. At Alewife Brook, the answer is not CSO storage tank and tunnel on public parkland. Grey infrastructure is not an improvement on Alewife public parkland. No to a tunnel on public parkland! Yes to green infrastructure on public parkland!
Smart urban planning & infrastructure upgrades
6. MWRA, Cambridge & Somerville are halfway done with the work. Finish the job!
The Draft plan is 99.9% tanks with only 0.1% sewer separation, with no elimination of sewage outfalls. Stay on course. Finish the job.
The draft plan is 99.9% tanks and only 0.1% sewer separation, still dumping 15 million gallons of raw sewage in a 5-year storm. Separation cuts CSOs, SSOs, basement backups, and adds regional sewer capacity. It is the climate-resilient path. Half the sewer separation work in Cambridge is now done. Under the first Alewife Brook Sewage Control Plan, half the CSO outfalls were eliminated, Cambridge separated 283 acres of combined sewers, and the 3.4-acre Alewife Stormwater Wetland was created. Half the work is done. The cities and MWRA must follow the goals of the first long-term plan and finish the job!
7. Tanks are not Resilient to Climate Change
Tanks are undersized even for 2-year storms and can't be expanded
The proposed tanks and tunnel are undersized even for a 2-year storm and cannot be expanded once built. As climate change drives more intense storms, this rigid concrete infrastructure will be overwhelmed and outdated once constructed.
8. Support the Community Plan
The Alewife Community CSO Plan Eliminates CSOs
I support the Alewife Brook Community CSO Plan developed by the Coalition to End Sewage Pollution. It eliminates CSOs, reduces SSOs, reduces flooding, improves water quality, and can be funded by MWRA.
9. Fix the two worst sewage outfalls: MBTA Station & Tannery Brook
The worst outfall in the MWRA system
Cambridge's Alewife MBTA outfall (CAM401A) discharges roughly 70% of Alewife sewage and is the worst in the MWRA system. Cambridge and Somerville sewage outfalls are in violation of the Boston Harbor court case. Finish sewer separation in North Cambridge and re-route Somerville's combined sewage to an existing treatment facility.
10. Sherman Street Tank Neighborhood Impact
The benefits of the proposed Sherman Street tank do not justify the quality of life and health impacts of installing a 2.1-million gallon CSO tank in a residential neighborhood
A tank filled with raw sewage in a residential neighborhood risks exposing residents, including schoolchildren and other members of vulnerable populations, to sewage smells and harmful aerosolized bacteria. The city has not offered any guarantee that in a major storm accompanied by power outages, a backup generator would be available to keep the tank's odor control system running. Tank neighbors want real solutions that will fix the problem, not a band-aid solution that maintains the status quo and guarantees continued CSO discharges into the Alewife Brook. The Sherman Street CSO tank prioritizes speed over long-term mitigation ability, which makes no sense given that CSO volume is expected to get larger over time.
11. The Alewife T site is an opportunity
Alewife T redevelopment is the ideal site for a tank + green infrastructure
Ending sewage releases into Alewife Brook must be a priority in the Alewife MBTA Station redevelopment. The 10-13 acres of the Alewife MBTA garage - state-owned land - are perfectly situated for green and gray infrastructure. The site includes the outfall pipe responsible for most of the area's sewage discharges.
Equity & Environmental Justice
12. An equity issue
Sewage floods the area's most diverse and vulnerable neighborhoods
Sewage floodwater reaches the area's most diverse and vulnerable Environmental Justice neighborhoods. Unhoused residents living near the outfalls are especially exposed. Continuing CSO discharges here is an equity failure as well as a public health failure.
Accountability & Legal Obligations
13. No downgrade of water quality standards, enforce Class B
Reject any Water Quality Standard downgrade and enforce the Class B standard
Reject MWRA's proposed Water Quality Standard revision. A downgrade rolls back decades of progress and locks in four times more sewage by 2050 under climate change. Alewife Brook is Class B: safe for human contact, healthy fish, no untreated sewage. The rivers shall flow, be free from sewage, and perform essential ecosystem functions.
Funding: The plan is cheaper if MWRA pays
14. A regional problem requires regional funding
MWRA should not make Cambridge and Somerville pay
Cambridge and Somerville should not shoulder the cost of hundreds of millions of dollars. MWRA was created in 1984 to solve exactly this problem. At roughly $45 per household per year across the MWRA system, ending CSOs in the Alewife, Charles, and Mystic is affordable. MWRA is using Alewife Brook as cheap hydraulic relief for its regional sewer system. Using our money, MWRA cleaned up the beaches of South Boston, Dorchester and Quincy; how can the state justify leaving a Alewife an open sewer forever?
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