In a June 6th report for Brookline.News, reporter Eliza Dewey writes that “the trail still leads to Brook House.” It’s been 18 months since an oil spill seeped into Leverett Pond and the Muddy River, despoiling the waterways and habitats—and jeopardizing the health of dozens of birds. A new investigation by the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection now points to the Brook House Condominiums as the culprit. Brook House continues to deny the claim, stating that the spill was caused further upstream.
According to Dewey’s article:
“The paperwork submitted by the Brook House, a large complex of more than 700 condos on Pond Ave, is known as a Downgradient Property Status (DPS) Submittal. It’s a form submitted by entities seeking to prove their innocence in a spill by showing that they are downstream from the true source of a given contaminant.
Paul Locke, former Assistant Commissioner for the Bureau of Waste Site Cleanup at the MassDEP, provided an interpretation of the jargon-heavy documents for Brookline.News. Locke, now retired, is not involved in the investigation and was only speaking generally to provide expert insight.
‘From not only this document but also the body of information that DEP and others have collected in this investigation, there does not appear to be clear evidence showing that the oil originated from anywhere upgradient of the condominium property,‘ Locke said in a phone call. ‘And this document doesn’t add any data to justify a downgradient property status at this time.‘
…The management of the condo complex, which has a history of oil leaks that were suspected to have contaminated the nearby body of water, denied culpability after the state gave them a notice of potential responsibility for the December 2024 spill. The complex told investigators that it removed its two underground oil tanks in May 2024—a fact later confirmed by the town’s environmental engineer and noted in the form published online.
The recent state document notes that after intermittent spills were observed in the Village Brook culvert feeding into Leverett Pond spanning from 2021 to 2022, oil was never observed upstream of the Brook House property during any of the subsequent state inspections.”
Dewey writes that MassDEP will continue its investigation and monitoring of the Pond and River.
Read the full report.
Photo: Ashley D’Souza for Brookline.News