Clean-up Efforts of River Continue Despite Setbacks

On-lookers were surprised when Massachusetts' frequently spontaneous Governor William F. Weld '66 jumped into the Charles River last summer, in an event publicizing the river's clean-up.

What was even more shocking to some was that he emerged from the water unscathed.

The slow-moving river that meanders through the Harvard campus before emptying into Boston harbor has been a mess for years.

Earlier in the century, when sewage pipes were draining directly into the Charles, the river gained infamous national status for its brown color with a pop hit's refrain that claimed Boston residents "love that dirty water."

But in recent years, local cities and clean water advocacy groups such as the Massachusetts Water Resources Authority (MWRA), the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the Charles River Watershed Association (CRWA) have begun to address the problem.

Over the past six months the MWRA dramatically increased the capacity of pipes that, during wet weather, carry raw sewage and storm water to its state-of-the-art $43.1 billion Deer Island sewage treatment plant.

Independently of the MWRA, some Charles River communities such as Cambridge are beginning to separate their sewer lines from their storm drains.

With major construction going on at the intersection of Quincy, Broadway and Cambridge streets, the Cambridge Public Works Department is now in the second phase of its project.

With a greater capacity to clean waste-water generated during storms, raw sewage that mixes with storm water and empties into the river from combined sewer outflows (CSOs) will be almost totally eliminated--a major boon for water quality.

The MWRA's steps come as part of a major new effort to re-think the waste-water treatment process in the entire Boston Metropolitan area.

Over the course of the next 10 years, the MWRA plans to spend $423 million dollars to reduce CSO's output in Boston Harbor and its contiguous waterways, including the Charles River.

Yet even with this substantial commitment, some are upset that the MWRA's program has not done enough to address problems in the Charles.

Ken Moraff, assistant to the EPA's regional administrator and one of the agency's lead lawyers for water quality standards said that the MWRA program is a step in the right direction, but that it is just a start.

"We think that it is a good first step, but that won't do the job on the Charles," Moraff said.

Indeed, this year's events indicate that there is much work left to be done on the river.

Following a series of sewage leaks in riverside communities, including one next to the Weld boathouse in September, two Harvard rowers contracted potentially-fatal blood poisoning after dirty river water contacted open blisters on their hands.

But despite the two infections and the river's heavy use by students, the Harvard community has had little to say about the river's problems.

Earlier in the year, coaches who run practices on the river said they treated the problem with "prudent awareness," but were not altering their practice schedule.

"It causes us some concern, but it hasn't actually affected our operations in any way," said Harry L. Parker, the men's heavyweight crew coach.

Addressing the Problems

While crew teams continue to make use of the river, local officials argue over priorities for the clean-up. Many, like Moraff, complain the MWRA has not fully addressed the Charles' CSO problem.

But as the marginal cost of CSO removal increases, organizations such as the MWRA, are searching for alternative ways to clean the river.

Although CSOs are a significant factor in the water quality problems, storm water runoff is also a major issue.

During any rainstorm, pollutants in city streets are washed into the river.

However CSO output only occurs in extremely wet storms and is a mixture of raw sewage and rainwater that seeps into overflowing sewage systems. It is a concrete problem which can be easily solved if money is provided to update disposal systems.

Solving the problem of storm water runoff, however, is not so simple.

Since runoff does not originate from any given place, it is difficult to eliminate.

Treating runoff is feasible by controlling pollutants including fertilizer, dog droppings, antifreeze and oil from cars.

But such a project requires the cooperation of an entire community or legislation preventing use of many products. Thus, curbing runoff is often a difficult task.

Unfortunately, most believe that runoff--and not CSO output--is the Charles River's primary problem.

Robert Zimmerman, executive director of the Charles River Watershed Association--a group which is urging the MWRA to include more funding for Charles River CSOs--agreed that CSOs are not the largest problem.

"Even if you eliminated the CSOs, it would not meet EPA standards [for swimming]," Zimmerman said.

Yet while he acknowledges that curbing CSO output is not the solution to the river's problems, Zimmerman advocates focusing more attention on the sewer outlets, arguing that it would still "dramatically" clean up the river.

Zimmerman said that the MWRA feels that because runoff problems are impossible to eliminate, EPA standards are impossible to achieve.

But the MWRA itself emphasizes that their plan, while it may only eliminate CSOs in Boston harbor, will still reduce some CSO output.

After all, CSO output will now only occur at a maximum of three and a half hours per year, according to Michael J. Hornbrook, the MWRA's director of sewage facilities development.

Hornbrook added that those who have criticized the MWRA have based their complaints upon numbers which are segmented from the authority's entire plan.

Although only $21 million of the $423 million clean-up budget will be spent on the Charles River, much of the budget will be spent on projects indirectly aiding the river.

"If we don't have the capacity at Deer Island, we start choking," Hornbrook says. "The more ability we have to get the sewage out there, the less it goes into the Charles basin."

But while officials at the EPA and CRWA acknowledge that the Deer Island plant will be helpful, they are skeptical about the MWPA's proposal to kill remaining bacteria flowing into the river with chlorine.

"We're not convinced that they can remove all the toxic chemicals from the water and we're also not convinced that the chlorine can remove all the pathogens," Moraff says.

Instead of treating CSO output with chlorine, Moraff and Zimmerman advocate eliminating CSOs by entirely disconnecting municipal storm drains from sewer lines, a process which for the Charles River alone would cost an estimated $200 million.