SOMERVILLE — Pity the Mystic.
The gritty 7-mile river that flows from Medford and Arlington to Boston Harbor rarely earns better than a “D” on the federal government’s annual water quality report card. Raw sewage still spews into the river during severe storms — including almost 4 million gallons in December. Vast mats of invasive water chestnut clog the surface in places.
Comments
Great Article. It seems poor ommunities are always getting the shaft. Maybe if Newton or Wellessley were on the Mystic we would see it cleaned up. I don't love that dirty water.
TheFlaneur needs to hike himself to a map of the Mystic River Watershed and count the number of municiplities and state agencies that fall within the Mystic watershed. He's naught but a keyboard tapper with little field experience and his typing product shows it.
This is truly an awakening about the Mystic River. Being from Medford, I have a fondness for the River. I agree with TheFlaneur that if other more $$$$-cities were on the Mystic, it would be cleaned up and quickly. Maybe it's about time that people from Medford stand up and get their city's needs noticed so that improvements get implemented.
You guys want to clean up the Mystic River, you just don't want to pay for it yourselves. My town got bagged dumping raw sewage into the North River decades ago. We got sued for Clean Water Act violations. We lost. We had to build a new sewage treatment plant. Cost almost $30 million. We're still paying for it. Suck it up and deal. Stop whining.
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Medford, Somerville, Arlington, Woburn, Stoneham, Winchester, Belmone, Everett, Malden. . . How many of those communities would be considered havens of poverty? Each of them is located within the Mystic River water shed. But which have needs for grimey industries such as scrap metal facilities that may empty toxic gunk into the Mystic River. And as far as visibility of that river is concer ned - has the Glob reporter ever walked or driven a car from Wellington Circle to Somerville or over Route 16 toward Medford Square? Or bothered to go to the Mystic Lakes in Arlington/Medford? The ex-MDC spend considerable sums back in the latter years of the 20th Century to upgrade the Medford (and to a lesser degree Somerville) and Malden banks of the Mystic. Below the Aerhart Dam, there are for sure major industrial faciltieis such as a power plant and a large scrap metal yard. But where does the Mystic's fresh water mix with the saltwater tides? Maybe one reason the Mystic stays fouler than the Charles is that it does not have a Harvard, MIT, Mass General and often nationally-televised July 4 concert site on its banks. Say what?
What?