On the evening of Tuesday, January 12, 2021, Governor Baker signed into law the Combined Sewer Overflow (CSO) notification bill H.4921, An Act promoting awareness of sewage pollution in public waters. Though it only took moments to be signed, efforts have been underway for nearly a decade for this momentous bill.
Now—no matter where you live in Massachusetts—you will be informed when a Combined Sewer Overflow (CSO) happens in your local waterbody. During heavy rains, rainwater is filling the capacity of pipes that are designed to handle both sanitary sewage and stormwater (combined systems). To handle this surcharge, this excess flow is dumped in the river (sewage and stormwater) so that it does not flood our streets and homes. Prior to this bill being signed there was no requirement to inform community members about these events—meaning you could be out recreating right after millions of gallons of sewage were dumped in the river.
“Beyond protecting public health--this bill also raises awareness about a legacy infrastructure that is allowing sewage r to flow directly into our rivers, lakes, ponds and streams, said Patrick Herron, Executive Director at the Mystic River Watershed Association. “I want to call out and thank two local elected officials, Senator Jehlen and Representative Provost, who made it their business to know about CSOs from tracking conditions in the Mystic River watershed and decided to do something about it.”
Developing strong legislation takes time. Time for research, writing, building support and ultimately passing the legislation through the statehouse and the Governor’s office. As a window into the challenges of developing legislation, we are sharing a timeline of how this bill was ultimately passed, and tells the story of some amazing partners who took action even prior to the bill passage to inform our communities about Combined Sewer Overflows. We want to give a special thank you to the then Kennedy School Rappaport Fellow Nathan Sanders, and Senator Jehlen and Representative Provost for their leadership and understanding that Massachusetts residents should know when sewage would be in their rivers, and for them to be able to recreate safely.
RESEARCH - 2011/2012
The first step this team took was to determine how often CSO’s were happening and if there were other notification systems out there. The team, which included the Mystic River Watershed Association, turned to the City of Cambridge, which has a notification system for Alewife Brook and the Charles River. This was the only notification system in all of Massachusetts. Across Massachusetts, in 2011 alone, there were 181 active CSO discharge sites discharging a total of 2.8 billion gallons of sewage.
INITIAL BILLS -2013 to 2017
The first draft of the bill was written in July 2013 entitled: “An Act Promoting Public Awareness for Safe Recreation in Public Waterways” and filed in the 2013 legislative session. While the bill gained some attention, it failed to draw sufficient support in this legislative session.
Bill filed in the 2013-2014 legislative session
Bill refiled in the 2015-2016 legislative session
Bill refiled in the 2017-2018 legislative session
CREATING A STATEWIDE COALITION - 2018/2019
Rep Provost met with the Mass Rivers Alliance at the end of 2016 to ask them to consider adding the bill to their 2017-2018 legislative priorities and coordinating advocacy efforts. Mass Rivers agrees and begins to build an alliance across the Commonwealth to include the Mystic River Watershed Association, Charles River Watershed Association, Merrimack River Watershed Council, Neponset River Watershed Association and Connecticut River Conservancy, and Environment Massachusetts. Together, Sen. Jehlen, Rep. Provost, their legislative staff, and advocates work on redrafting the bill language to align with statewide notification requirements that have now been mandated in other states. The group spends considerable time redrafting the bill with the Chairs and staff of the Joint Committee on Environment, Natural Resources and Agriculture, who come to lend their support to the bill.
Media attention adds new energy behind the bill as significant CSO discharge volumes are released to the Merrimack River in October 2018 due to heavy rain and at other times due to a power outage at a treatment plant.
Sen. Jehlen and her staff work tirelessly to pass the bill in the Senate in 2018, but it fails to pass the House before the legislative session ends.
Bill refiled in the 2019-2020 legislative session with a third legislative sponsor joining the bill: Representative Linda Dean Campbell, whose constituency extends into parts of the Merrimack River watershed.
More media attention brings this bill into the public eye.
BRINGING IN MUNICIPALITIES & WASTEWATER TREATMENT FACILITIES
Sen. Jehlen, Rep. Provost and Rep. Campbell and advocates organize conversations with wastewater treatment plant operators who have raised concerns about the bill and work to bring the group to a consensus
Led by Mass Rivers, MyRWA and fellow advocates begin to meet with legislators to again build support for the bill, but also begin reaching out to municipal leaders to shore up their support for the bill as well in a sign-on letter.
Along the way, MyRWA participated in many conversations with municipalities, wastewater operators, elected officials including with the office of former House Speaker Robert DeLeo, and agencies on the importance of this bill. And while at times, it really felt like we were stuck, we scored some incremental progress from this work
We educated regulatory agencies on the impact that these discharges were having and the importance of updated requirements in permits and models of notification from other states
In January 2019, Mass Rivers Alliance, Mystic River Watershed Association, Charles River Watershed Association, the Merrimack River Watershed Council, Neponset River Watershed Association and the Connecticut River Conservancy participated in a meeting with wastewater treatment operators and the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) so that all sides of the issue can be heard. At the close of the meeting, DEP Commissioner Suuberg weighs in and lends support for a bill noting that ‘something needs to be done’.
Fred Laskey at the Massachusetts Water Resources Authority was listening to us and worked closely with MyRWA on this issue. The agency overcame early concerns about technology and the ability to notify the public - to express support for the bill in 2020 and roll out a new notification system in July 2020. You can now easily sign up for notifications when discharges occur and review the past year of data. Sign up here: https://www.mwra.com/harbor/html/cso_reporting.htm
In 2019, the City of Cambridge determined that it was possible to upgrade its metering and telemetry system to provide automated notice within a few hours. They launched a much-improved notification system at the end of 2020. You can sign up here: https://www.cambridgema.gov/Subscribe
BILL PASSAGE JANUARY 12, 2021
Within 2 hours of detecting a CSO activation, the sewage plant must issue a public alert that reports where the discharge is occurring, when it began, an estimate of how much sewage was released, the areas that are expected to be affected by the discharge, and precautions that the public should take. The public alert must be updated every 8 hours during an ongoing discharge, and once the discharge ends the public must be alerted within 2 hours.
The public can sign up for an email or text message alert. The report must also be sent to the region’s 2 largest newspapers, and posted on the sewage plant’s website. The state may also require that the alerts be posted on social media and via “reverse 911” telephone alerts.
The state will create universal standards for reporting on CSO events within one year. Currently, no such standards exist. By May 15, the state will release public reports that provide details of the prior year’s CSO events.
We are grateful for the tremendous amount of work that went into this bill—and look forward to the rollout of this important public health initiative. If you want to make an impact and get involved in environmental advocacy we encourage you to join MyRWA’s policy committee. Newcomers are welcome to test it out at our next meeting on March 2nd at 7PM.
