 |
| Judge A. David Mazzone raises a glass of effluent at Deer Island in celebration of the opening of the Mass Bay Outfall |
In his very first order in the Boston Harbor Cleanup Case, the late, great U.S. District Court Judge A. David Mazzone ruled that “The Law secures to the People the Right to a Clean Harbor.”
That simple sentence has focused my advocacy and policy work for the more than 30 years I served as Director of Strategy & Communications at Save the Harbor/Save the Bay and continues to guide my work as Lead Consultant to the Legislature’s Metropolitan Beaches Commission.
Mazzone’s first order immediately gave rise to two important questions: “How clean is clean enough?” and “Who should pay?”
For the Judge, the answer to the first question was clear: Boston Harbor should be clean enough for boating and fishing and the region’s public beaches safe for swimming “damn near every day”. The answer to the second question was somewhat more complicated.
The Clean Water Act gave the Judge the legal tools he needed to craft a plan to replace the failing sewage treatment plant at Deer Island that served Boston and 43 cities and towns, which discharged more than 250 million gallons of largely untreated sewage from a broken pipe at the mouth of Boston Harbor every day. It also gave him the authority to replace the old primary treatment plant at Nut Island, ending 100 years of sewage discharge into the shallow waters of Quincy Bay.
Those two investments by the Massachusetts Water Resources Authority have dramatically improved the health of Boston Harbor, Quincy Bay and Mass Bay as well.
Unfortunately, the Clean Water Act did not give Judge Mazzone the same authority to address the discharge of filthy, bacteria laden stormwater which continue to make some area beaches, including Wollaston Beach, unsafe for swimming after even a small summer storm.
Though the Judge was able to share the costs of the plant, the pipe and addressing Boston’s CSO discharges among the ratepayers of the 43 Massachusetts Water Resources Authority cities and towns, communities like Quincy have been forced to shoulder the financial burden of managing stormwater with very little help from State or Federal Government.
When we cut the ribbon on the North Dorchester Bay Combined Sewage Overflow Storage Tunnel in 2011 that has made the beaches of South Boston the cleanest urban beaches in the nation, my phone rang off the hook.
The first call I received was from then Senator Michael Morrissey of Quincy, who truly loves the sea and the beach. He wanted to know why the costs of the South Boston project were shared among all the ratepayers of the 43 MWRA Cities and towns, while Quincy was forced to “go it alone”.
I explained to him that the South Boston project was primarily designed to address combined sewer overflows (CSOs) into Boston Harbor during all but the largest summer storms as required by Judge Mazzone’s orders in the Boston Harbor Case, and fortunately had the capacity to handle storm water during all but the largest storms with few additional costs.
Unfortunately, the persistent problems at Wollaston Beach were not caused by CSOs, but by filthy, bacteria laden stormwater discharges, which left the City of Quincy responsible for improving water quality on Wollaston Beach, and Quincy residents on the hook for the costs.
As a result, Quincy Water,
Sewer & Drain faces the seemingly endless task of examining virtually every
sewer connection and storm drain in the City looking for broken pipes and
illicit connections and repairing them one at a time.
The truth is that Quincy simply does not have the resources on its own – roughly $250 million - to construct a miles long tunnel to store and transport stormwater though Nut Island to Deer island for treatment, which would end storm water discharges on Wollaston Beach in all but the largest storms.
Quincy is not alone here. Coastal communities across the nation are struggling to find resources to address these problems, even as they wrestle with the existential threats posed by sea level rise, coastal flooding and inundation.
The Massachusetts Water
Resources Authority has done a remarkable job restoring the health of Boston
Harbor, Quincy Bay and Mass Bay. They deserve our heartfelt thanks and
continued support. Mayor Koch and the City of Quincy are doing their job as
well, and should be commended for their persistence and tenacity, which has
resulted in steady improvements on Wollaston Beach.
However, we all still have more work to do to make our beaches safe for swimming “damn near every day” as Judge Mazzone had hoped . To truly finish the job, both the State and Federal government have to step up to the plate and find new ways to help our coastal communities secure the resources they need to do get the job done.
Clean water is a core family value here in the Bay State. The Metropolitan Region’s public beaches are spectacular urban natural resources that belong to all of us. The costs of making them safe for swimming - and of protecting our coastal communities from sea level rise and global storming - should be shared by all of us as well.
Bruce Berman served as Director of Strategy & Communications for Save the Harbor/Save the Bay from for more than 30 years . He currently serves as Lead Consultant to the Commonwealth’s Metropolitan Beaches Commission and Chair of the Public Interest Advisory Committee of the Mass Bay Outfall Monitoring Science Advisory Panel.
Berman is publisher of the blog
The View From Sea Level at https://theviewfromsealevel.blogspot.com/ and curates the web portal and streaming video site www.bostonharbor.com
You can follow him on www.facebook.com/bostonharbor on www.instagram.com/bostonharbor1
at www.twitter.com/bostoharborone and now at www.tiktok.com/@bruceberman5
