Fwd: Meeting re Combined outfall and sewage in Alewife Brook

[Denis Kalthofer]

Hello All,

This is a climate change preparedness nightmare for Medford, Somerville, Cambridge, Belmont, Winchester, and everyone living near the Little River, Alewife Brook and Mystic River:

Here's what the SaveTheAlewifeBrook.org Website says about the history of the problem:

In 2015, the MWRA constructed a new Combined Sewer Outfall (CSO) known as MWR003 in the Little River/Alewife Brook. And they did this as part of the 2006 Long Term CSO Control Plan to eliminate CSOs!

The MWRA tied sewer trunks from Cambridge and Belmont into this new CSO to provide “hydraulic relief” for their failing and over-capacitated system downstream. So now, when the MWRA’s Alewife sewage system is inundated with rain, Cambridge’s and Belmont’s sewage gets dumped into the Little River / Alewife Brook. In 2021, the MWRA’s single Alewife CSO dumped 20 million gallons of sewage pollution into the Little River / Alewife Brook from that one CSO!

Here is the text of their petition:

• Elimination of all Combined Sewer Overflows (CSOs) to End Sewage Pollution
• Separated Sewer Systems to keep Sewage out of Stormwater
• A Safe, Beautiful, Fishable Brook for the Residents and for Wildlife
• New Green Infrastructure on State Land for Stormwater Cleaning
• New Grey Infrastructure to Reduce Flooding in the Face of Climate Change

-----Original Message-----
From: Evan Bell <evan...@betterfutureproject.org>
To: Denis Kalthofer <deniska...@aol.com>
Cc: 350ma-mystic-...@googlegroups.com <350ma-mystic-...@googlegroups.com>
Sent: Mon, Mar 14, 2022 11:10 am
Subject: Re: Meeting re Combined outfall and sewage in Alewife Brook

Hi all,

Thank you for this detailed update, Denis! I signed the petition. This could be a great thing to send out to the Cambridge-Somerville Node and even the MetroNorth Node (largely based in Winchester).

Best,

Evan

On Sun, Mar 13, 2022 at 7:36 PM 'Denis Kalthofer' via 350 Mass Mystic Valley active members <350ma-mystic-...@googlegroups.com> wrote:

Hello All,

Tonight's meeting about the Alewife brook is amazing. There are 50 people on this zoom session.

People from Arlington, Cambridge, Somerville, Belmont, Medford...

Town meeting members, water resource people, concerned citizens,...

Reports of sewage smells, invasive species, floods into basements.

Alewife brook has fish, swans, ducks, and walking trails. This winter we had to curtail our walks along the brook because it smelled strongly of sewage. 

The MWRA has reconstructed an existing outfall at MWR003, which did not separate storm water an sewage.

It dumps combined storm water and raw sewage into Little River, which flows into Alewife Brook.

From there, it flows into the Mystic river. So I assume it affects Malden and Winchester as well.

Here's some history:

WHAT WE’VE BEEN UP TO:

1. February 17th Massachusetts Water Resources Authority Final CSO Performance Assessment meeting It was so important that folks came out to that meeting! There were almost 90 people there!

Public support is the only leverage that we have!

Everybody, thank you for coming out!

The major takeaway from the MWRA’s Final CSO Performance Assessment report are that the Somerville’s Alewife CSO is out of compliance. This means that this particular CSO is really terrible. It needs to be addressed and as of last month, there was no plan to address it.

2. March 4th Wastewater Advisory Committee meeting This was a smaller meeting and only a core group of StAB supporters were there. We were able to ask questions about the MWRA’s CSO and learned that the MWRA is dumping sewage from Belmont from that particular CSO.

20 million gallons of sewage dumped in 2021. More than in 1980 before the reconstruction. The MWRA has not met their goals and needs to come up with a new plan.

Any more rain than their so-called "typical" year causes more sewage dumping. With climate change, there are no more typical years.

The group is looking for people to sign the petition at https://www.savethealewifebrook.org and volunteers for putting flyers on doors/talking to people.

Please let me know if we should send this out to the larger mystic valley group and/or other local 350 mass chapters.

Thanks,

Denis