Rep. Denise Provost and Sen. Jarrett Barrios, along with Senators Robert Havern and Pat Jehlen and Reps. Will Brownsberger, Paul Casey, Eugene O’Flaherty, Carl Sciortino, and Timothy Toomey, are proposing innovative legislation to create a Mystic River Water Quality Commission. The commission will investigate ways to improve water quality to allow fishing, boating & swimming, and to create more opportunities for recreation in the Mystic River Watershed. The Commission will include legislators, EPA, state agencies, and community representatives, and will report its findings to the Joint Committee on Environment, Natural Resources and Agriculture. The Commission will consider water quality throughout the watershed, including all its tributaries and lakes, and not just the Mystic River itself.
Please encourage your legislators to support House Bill 841, and thank them if they already have.
Contact MyRWA or Rep. Provost’s aide Liz Monnin at elizabeth.monnin@state.ma.us or 617-722-2810 for more information about how to encourage passage of this important legislation.
Latest Baseline Index Report
The Mystic River Watershed Association (MyRWA) has been monitoring water quality at ten sites in the Mystic River Watershed on a monthly basis since the summer of 2000. With the help of a dedicated group of nearly 30 volunteers, the Mystic River and several tributaries are tested for bacteria levels (E. coli), nutrients (total phosphorus and nitrate-nitrite), total suspended solids, dissolved oxygen, and water temperature. The 2007 Baseline Index Report provides a qualitative summary of these water quality parameters over a seven-year period. The report includes color-coded Baseline Index tables for each year, and provides a general assessment of water quality trends.
The 2007 Baseline Index Report indicates that none of the 10 monthly monitoring sites is pollutionfree in the Mystic Watershed. Each site has received a poor score for nutrient pollution in each year of monitoring. Bacteria contamination is also highly concerning, particularly during wet weather. Upper Mystic Lake often receives an excellent score for swimming and boating in dry weather, but some
tributaries regularly receive a poor score for both swimming and boating in dry weather.
Although there has been no overall improvement in water quality over the past seven years, this Baseline Index report marks an important contribution to our understanding of where problems in nutrient pollution, bacteria contamination, and low dissolved oxygen levels are the most pressing in the Mystic River Watershed. This information has enabled us to design increasingly rigorous sampling programs to precisely target pollution ‘hot spots’ and report our findings to municipalities and other stakeholders.
The information in this report also signals a call to action on the part of municipalities, state and federal agencies, citizens, and concerned community groups. The data we have collected since 2000 speak to the need for dedicated support from all stakeholders to clean up the Mystic Watershed. We encourage all stakeholders to contact us to learn more about opportunities to help reach MyRWA’s goal of a fishable and swimmable Mystic River.
