Lawrence Feldman has been elected president of the board of the Mystic River Watershed Association, GZA GeoEnvironmental announced. GZAGeoEnvironmental is a multi-disciplinary firm providing geotechnical, environmental, ecological, water and construction management services.
Patrick Herron, Karen Grossman, Barbara Kessner Landau, Shannon Ames, Caroline Rogers Broderick, John Reinhardt, Minka vanBeuzekom, David Burson, Joshua Boyce, and Lawrence Feldman.
MyRWA was founded in 1972 to protect and restore natural resources in the 22-community watershed north of Boston. MyRWA is led by professional staff and also organizes thousands of volunteers working together on a project-by-project basis.
Feldman, a 39-year veteran of GZA and a licensed professional, has focused his professional practice on the assessment, remediation and redevelopment of brownfield sites contaminated by oil and/or hazardous material, and on providing litigation support in cases involving such sites. He previously served on the LSP Board of Registration, and is a founder and past president of the LSP Association. He is currently serving as an appointee to the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection Hazardous Waste Site Cleanup Advisory Committee.
MyRWA Executive Director Patrick Herron said: “Our organization is very excited to have Larry take the helm of the board and steward this organization forward. Larry brings a wealth of knowledge on the environment and environmental rules in Massachusetts and has a pragmatic sense of how to chart a course for renewal and improvement of the Mystic. MyRWA is proud to have such talented and dedicated professionals leading the board of directors.”
GZA’s CEO Bill Hadge said: “Caring for our communities is a fundamental value at GZA. I am proud but not at all surprised to see Larry, through his new leadership position at the Mystic River Watershed Association, extending GZA’s rich legacy of sharing our ideas and our staff to improve our communities’ quality of life.”
Feldman, a board member of MyRWA since 2017, said: “MyRWA has an ambitious, comprehensive 2020 strategic plan to continue restoring and improving water quality and habitat, connect more people to the Mystic, increase climate resilience, and build the association’s organizational capacity. I’m excited and honored to bring my experience at GZA to helping to lead and fulfill these efforts.”
The Mystic River watershed extends from East Boston and Chelsea west to Watertown and Belmont, north as far as Burlington and Wilmington, and includes parts or all of the cities of Cambridge, Malden, Medford, Somerville, and Woburn. MyRWA monitors trends in water quality at 15 sites throughout the watershed with the help of a dedicated corps of volunteers. The association also operates a daily flagging system alerting boaters and recreational users to safe or unsafe water quality conditions and organizes volunteers for activities including riverbank cleanups, tree planting, and data collection on the recovery of river herring and eel migration through the Mystic River.
