"In a just Commonwealth, your zip code would not determine your exposure to Combined Sewer Overflows" - Dr. Nathan Sanders
On October 25th, Executive Director Patrick Herron had the privilege to join the Charles River Watershed Association, Save the Alewife Brook, the Massachusetts Rivers Alliance, and other partners to testify in front of the Joint Committee on Environment & Natural Resources to support the Massachusetts Bill H.886, requiring the reduction of sewage overflows into Massachusetts rivers. You can view his full testimony along with that of Charles River Watershed Association Executive Director, Emily Norton, below.
Video via the Charles River Watershed Association
The October 25th legislative hearing came on the back of a particularly wet year for the Commonwealth. In many parts of the state, including the Mystic River watershed, towns and cities rely on old combined sewer and stormwater systems to move polluted water from homes, businesses, and streets to wastewater treatment facilities. However, during heavy rains, to prevent water from backing up into residents’ homes, these systems are designed to discharge water laden with partially treated or untreated sewage into rivers and streams. Already this year, more than 5 billion gallons of sewage have flowed into Massachusetts waterways. In the Mystic River watershed alone, more than 160 million gallons discharged into the Mystic River and its tributaries as of late October. The Alewife Brook, a small stream that flows into the Mystic, received the largest volume of untreated sewage in greater Boston. Sewage-laden water overflowed the banks into backyards, basements, and the popular Alewife Greenway commuter path.
CSO’s affect the ecological health of our water bodies, lower property values, and pose a public health concern to residents who reside downstream of outfalls. CSO’s also have an outsized impact on environmental justice communities. Patrick’s testimony highlighted these disproportionate affects, citing Dr. Nathan Sanders, whose research on Combined Sewer Overflows has demonstrated an increased risk of exposure to sewage for low-income communities and communities of color.
Read Patrick’s written testimony below, submitted to the committee in conjunction with his oral testimony.
Dear Chairwoman Rausch and Chairman Cahill:
I am writing in support of the Combined Sewer Overflow legislation, House bill H.886. The Mystic River watershed is the scene of the largest releases of untreated releases of combined sewer overflows in greater Boston. And we need a plan to reduce or eliminate them.
We know from the research of public health researchers that CSO discharges are associated with negative public health impacts. Research by Jagai et al. (2015) showed a correlation between extreme precipitation in CSO areas with a drinking water source and emergency room visits for gastrointestinal illness. Recent research by doctoral candidate Beth Haley and Dr. Wendy Heiger-Bernays of Boston University correlates volumes of discharge with acute gastrointestinal illness and suggests other means of exposure than just a drinking water source. And CSO water has many other pollutants in it than pathogens which cause disease.
Figure 1. Watersheds with 2x as many people of color have 4.4x as much sewage discharge. (Data: Dr. Nathan Sanders)
CSO discharges are an environmental justice issue because the burdens of this pollution are not shared equally among residents of the Commonwealth. As Dr. Nathan Sanders, a Berkman Klein Center Affiliate at Harvard University, writes, “In a just Commonwealth, your ZIP code would not determine your sewage exposure, but in Massachusetts today, it does.” Dr. Sanders’s research on CSO exposure in the Massachusetts show that on average, if a watershed has 2x as many people in poverty, it will have 3.4x as much sewage discharge. And on average, if a watershed has 2x as many people of color, it will have 4.4x as much sewage discharge (see figure 1). Environmental Justice communities deserve action to restore an equitable distribution of sewage burdens.
And finally, because CSOs are caused by high intensity rainstorms, we know this problem is going to get worse because of climate change. Modeling just completed by the cities of Cambridge and Somerville and the Massachusetts Water Resources Authority predict that untreated releases of CSOs will increase by a factor of 4 by 2050 if nothing is done.
Alewife Brook in Cambridge and Somerville is especially vivid nexus or example of all these issues of wastewater pollution and environmental justice. It has multiple CSOs that introduce untreated sewage. It is surrounded by environmental justice neighborhoods as defined by the EEA. Alewife neighborhoods are among the top 10% in the country in terms of their exposure to and proximity to toxic wastewater in streams, according to the US-EPA EJ screening tool.
CSO pollution also reduces the other public values our rivers and streams can provide. Thousands of neighbors, rowers, and recreational boaters and other users of park spaces downstream on the Mystic are affected. In the Alewife intense storms means CSO-contaminated water even overflowing onto shared-use paths and back yards.
We believe the bill sets a reasonable timeline and standard for the reduction or elimination of CSO pollution. And we believe that this is the moment for public investment. Communities in the watershed collectively have the resources to invest. It’s time to do it.
We are at an inflection point, a moment where substantial infrastructure today is necessary to forestall a predictable increase in pollution tomorrow, pollution that will endanger public health, degrade aquatic ecosystems, and reduce the value of rivers and streams that should be jewels of our shared public spaces.
Sincerely,
Patrick Herron
Executive Director
Mystic River Watershed Association
