By Arleyn Levee, Founding Member, MMOC
This article, published in the March, 2026 issue of The Fenway News, clarifies reporting in the February issue of the paper. It highlights the complexities of defining causation—and addressing remediation—for the Muddy River’s low-water levels and resulting mudflats.
Kudos, Arleyn!
On behalf of the Muddy River Restoration Project Maintenance and Management Committee (the MMOC), I want to commend The Fenway News for your ongoing attention to the Muddy River, most recently with the February cover story. Low-water levels and resulting mudflats continue to plague the innovative and historically significant linear park, even after the remarkable work achieved by the Restoration Project, a unique collaboration among City of Boston, Town of Brookline, the Commonwealth, and the US Army Corps of Engineers.
The mudflats have been described as an “unintended consequence” of this complex rehabilitation process. Whatever the cause, the solution will require the collaboration of professional, government, and community resources to ensure a sustainable future for the Muddy River and its parklands, our valued urban resources.
As the MMOC continues to lead these efforts, it’s important to share what we know. These clarifications to the recent article might be helpful:
- The Muddy River has always been a sluggish waterway. There is a minimal change in elevation along its course (from its sources to its outlet at the Charles River). This is why, when Frederick Law Olmsted chose to retain the Muddy as a picturesque feature in his linear park system rather than putting it in a culvert, he deepened it, re-contouring the banks to maximize its scenic benefits.
- Initially in the Muddy River Restoration Project, it was anticipated that the Army Corps of Engineers would dredge the entire riverbed (i.e., bank-to-bank dredging), but for various reasons, this did not happen. The riverbed was dredged only in selected places deemed critical. The clogged area in the photo accompanying the article [see the image at the top] is one of those areas that was not dredged.
- The cofferdam device was installed to allow the Army Corps to daylight the river that had been put in a culvert when the Sears Company (the original occupant of the Landmark Building) privatized the land into a parking lot. While there have been significant changes in the waterway over the 20+ years of planning and construction, the present low water areas and mudflats are not necessarily a consequence of recent cofferdam alterations.
- Global climate disruption must be considered in calculating mitigation of low water levels. Climate change has created prolonged dry and hot periods, resulting in scorched landscape conditions with intense, short rain bursts that easily run off parched ground—with no adequate budgets for local irrigation systems that would ameliorate negative climate impacts.
- Among the Muddy River Restoration Project’s initial goals was ensuring that Best Management Practices for sustainable, affordable management are included in the reconstructed Muddy River parklands. While the MMOC’s stewardship is meant to protect the rehabilitation work that has been achieved, public maintenance budgets and skilled staff are difficult to sustain. As the leaves and debris in the photograph clearly show, there are urgent and ongoing maintenance needs. Cleaning riverine waterways has its own set of complications. Likewise, sustaining the appropriate healthy vegetation to hold the fragile river banks and limit growing river siltation remains a challenge driven by limited budgets.
- Impending development pressures threaten to alter the environmental framework along the park’s periphery. It is critical that all new developments need to be considered in conjunction with the riverine park’s environments to avoid shadow, heat, wind, and glare damage on the park’s fragile ecosystems.
Arleyn Levee, Hon. ASLA
Founding Member, MMOC
Former Board Chair, Olmsted Network
Established by the Commonwealth in the 1990’s as the Project’s citizen oversight committee, the MMOC’s membership includes a diverse range of local institutions, community environmental groups and concerned individuals, each of whom is committed to stewarding and protecting the Muddy River and its linear parks, understanding its value to a diverse public.
Photo: Steve Chase for The Fenway News, February, 2026.
