By Emily Norton, Executive Director, Charles River Watershed Association
This post was emailed to the CRWA community on February 26, 2026 and is reprinted here with the permission of Emily Norton.
Friends, I did not want to send this email. When I arrived at the MWRA Board meeting yesterday, in a conference room at the Deer Island wastewater treatment plant in Winthrop, I was hopeful that the MWRA Board would make the right decision, and vote for a plan that would lead to the elimination of sewage discharges into the Charles River.
After all, three of the MWRA Board members are appointed by Governor Maura Healey, including her Secretary of Energy and Environment. I thought they would vote to eliminate sewage discharges, in line with the Healey administration’s August 2025 Biodiversity plan, which sets a goal to “Significantly reduce or eliminate combined-sewer overflows.”
And three members are appointed by Mayor Michelle Wu, including her Chief Climate Officer. I thought they would vote to eliminate sewage discharges, in line with Mayor Wu’s support for a Green New Deal and numerous environmental initiatives. Because who would benefit from a sewage-free, swimmable Charles River more than the residents of Boston?
One Board member is appointed by the City of Quincy, which is where the Boston Harbor cleanup began, with City Solicitor Bill Golden’s fateful run along Wollaston Beach.
And all members are supposed to carry out the mission of the MWRA, which includes the words “protect public health, promote environmental stewardship.”
But, when faced with this generational opportunity to end this problem once and for all, that is not the course they took.
No, instead, the MWRA Board voted for a plan that will continue to treat the Charles River as a toilet, forever.
Why is sewage still being dumped into the Charles? Because in our remaining antiquated combined sewer systems, stormwater and household/industrial wastewater are collected in the same pipes and conveyed to the Deer Island wastewater treatment plant. During heavy and intense rainstorms, the combined system cannot handle the excess polluted water and releases it into the river. (See our explainer video here.)
The Clean Water Act prohibits the dumping of sewage into our nation’s rivers, and the Commonwealth’s water quality standards prohibit CSOs in the Charles. But regulations allow wiggle room – within reason – in order to give sewer system managers time to upgrade infrastructure, such as by separating combined sewer/stormwater systems or increasing capacity.
Unfortunately for the Charles, this regulatory flexibility has turned into a get-out-of-jail-free card, an excuse to kick the can down the road.
MWRA and the City of Cambridge are legally required to address the remaining nine CSO outfalls on the mainstem of the Charles River between Cambridge and Boston.
In October 2025, MWRA staff recommended a plan that would have reclassified the Charles to allow for more sewage discharges than occur today. (So much for “protect public health, promote environmental stewardship.”) Thanks to the massive outcry from the public, that plan was rejected.
But the new plan approved yesterday is only slightly better—it anticipates sewage overflows during and following rainstorms that bringh slightly over three inches of precipitation within a 24-hour period. We have seen storms like this in recent memory and will likely see more big storms in the future, thanks to climate change.
In contrast, the plan supported by CRWA and thousands of members of the public would have resulted in zero CSO activations except in the very largest storms, i.e., the once-every-25-year storms. That’s not never, but it’s pretty good, and we could live with that.
Why did the MWRA Board vote for this terrible plan? They claimed that fixing the sewage problem is too costly. However, under the MWRA’s own analysis, the difference in cost to MWRA ratepayers between the plan voted on yesterday and the plan preferred by CRWA and the public is less than $4 per household per month, in 2026 dollars.
The MWRA thinks it’s not worth it to the public to pay less than the cost of a Dunkin’ iced coffee per month to have a sewage-free Charles River.
What Happens Next
The MWRA Board’s vote does not represent final approval.
The proposed plan must still be reviews and approved by the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
That process includes a five-month public comment period, including at least one public hearing, with issuance of a final approved plan expected in January 2027.
We will be in touch when that public comment period starts. In the meantime, please join us in calling on the most senior political leader in our Commonwealth, Governor Maura Healey, to join us in supporting an end to sewage dumping into the Charles River.
