In an August 13th article for Sierra Magazine, science journalist Saimi Sidik explores the “decades-long quest to clean up the Charles River:
“Today, the Charles is much cleaner, largely because Boston has separated most of its systems for handling sewage and stormwater. Yet poor water quality still makes the river unsafe for swimming about 30 percent of the time. That’s partly because storms bring new threats to the river’s system—bacteria, pathogens, and waste from the city’s streets…
One of the biggest problems is the nutrient phosphorus, which is abundant in plant fertilizers, pet waste, goose poop, leaf litter, and many other forms of debris found around the city. Increased storms, supercharged by climate change, exacerbate the issue by causing more frequent and destructive stormwater runoff. When rainwater carries phosphorus into the Charles, it leads to toxic algal blooms, which make the water unsafe. In 2007, the Environmental Protection Agency directed the Boston Sewer and Water Commission to reduce the amount of phosphorus in the lower Charles by between 48 percent and 96 percent.
The city is still working toward that goal, and officials plan to let nature do the heavy lifting. Plans are afoot to let rainwater meander through natural environments that will clean it before it enters the river—a type of green stormwater infrastructure.”
The article cites MMOC member Lisa Kumpf, senior restoration program manager for the Charles River Watershed Association, and CRWA’s efforts to incorporate “a mix of small, distributed green infrastructure and large, centralized features.”
Leverett Pond, for example, “serves as a catchment for runoff before it enters the Muddy River and then the Charles. Rainwater that falls over about four and a half square miles drains into Leverett Pond, bringing an unpleasant mixture of city debris along with it. Oil slicks are a common occurrence. Adding to the mess is raw sewage from houses in which the plumbing has been erroneously connected to the stormwater system, although the sewage system is supposed to be separate. When you approach the pond, ‘you will smell it!’ Kumpf said…
[T]he Charles River Watershed Association would like to remake it into a natural wetland where water would slowly meander through a circuitous path, allowing time for plants to sop up excess nutrients and bacteria to die in the bright sunlight before the water flows into the Charles. This might reduce phosphorus flowing through the Muddy River by 25 percent, the association estimates.”
Read the full article.
Image: Friends of Leverett Pond
