11/23/2004: 
Urban Archaeology
Sawin's Pond: On The EPA's Radar
from the Watertown TAB (not the Press or Sun)
Town cited by EPA
By Dan Atkinson/ Staff Writer
Friday, November 19, 2004
Watertown? Try Sewagetown.
On Nov. 9, the Environmental Protection Agency ordered Watertown, along with Brookline, Newton and Waltham, to remove pipes spewing sewage into the Charles River. While the Charles River Basin, between the Harvard and Longfellow bridges, meets swimming standards more than 90 percent of the time, according to the EPA, the Charles from Watertown to Boston meets the standards only 60 percent of the time.
However, the Watertown Department of Public Works is requesting to meet with the EPA, according to Superintendent Gerald Mee, to discuss and further define their testing results.
"We're not contesting them, but we're not saying they're right, either," Mee said. He said the DPW had not yet scheduled a date to meet with the EPA.
The pollution comes from "illicit," or misconnected sewer pipes, according to EPA spokesman William Walsh-Rogalski. A plumber may accidentally connect sewer pipes to storm drains, which drain directly into the Charles, or a sewer pipe can burst underground, with the waste making its way undetected into storm drains.
"There's no pattern for how it can occur," Walsh-Rogalski said. "The town has to look at maps, pop manholes, and then go house to house."
During Cambridge's cleanup of the Charles, officials tested individual toilets - flushing dye down the drain to see if it exits in the proper pipe, according to Cambridge environmentalist Roger Frymire, whose water sampling helped the EPA with its recent testing.
Frymire said the Sawins Brook area, which drains approximately one-third of Watertown, is a prime offender, with the water having a distinctive odor and dishwater color. However, things could be worse.
"There were no floatables," condoms, sanitary napkins, floating brown lumps, Frymire said.
Walsh-Rogalski said of the four towns, Watertown was polluting the least, but he still wanted to see fast action. He called for a plan to study where the pipes were located to be completed by the end of December, the actual study to be completed by the end of February and the pipes removed by the end of April.
"Until everyone does their part, we're not going to have a clean river," he said.
Town Councilor Susan Falkoff, who is also a member of Watertown Citizens for Environmental Safety, said she immediately called the EPA upon learning of its order and asked them to make a presentation at the Town Council meeting this Tuesday. Town Council President Pam Piantedosi would not comment, saying she was still reviewing the EPA's results.
I am trying to think of a time when the EPA ever issued an order to Watertown to fix all the sewage pipes that drain into the Charles River. This order covers a whole lot of other places in Watertown, like the Walker's Pond Watershed (which includes Walker's Pond, Pond 1 and Pond 2, all at Raytheon), which acts as the drainage for the western half of Watertown, and, like Sawin's Pond has a Mass DEP file number. Not to mention all the other ones that are even lesser known that drained the factories that used to line this part of the river, all the way down to Waltham. If the Charles River is ever going to be truly cleaned up, these sites will have to be remediated.
This story will also be cross- posted at the Athenaverse, which has recently undergone a major reconstruction, yet still remains the on-ramp for the cornucopia of sites that have sprung up in there.
