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EPA: Charles River Rowers Competing on A Much Cleaner River

Release Date: 10/19/2000
Contact Information: Amy Miller, EPA Press Office (617-918-1042)

BOSTON - As the 2000 Head of the Charles regatta gets underway this weekend, rowers will compete on a Charles River that is cleaner than it's been in decades, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency announced today. EPA-New England also announced additional projects and investments designed to achieve the agency's goal of a river safe for swimming and fishing by 2005.

The Charles River met boating standards 94 percent of the time through August 2000, compared to only 39 percent of the same eight months in 1995, according to data collected by the Charles River Watershed Association. The river was safe for swimming 65 percent of the time in 2000 compared to only 19 percent in 1995.

The improvements are the result of a multi-pronged effort by EPA New England, the Massachusetts Water Resources Authority, municipalities and other environmental groups to stop pollution in the lower 10 miles of the river.

"When 5,000 rowers compete on the Charles this weekend, they will be gliding through water that is substantially cleaner and safer than it was five years ago," said Mindy S. Lubber, Regional Administrator of EPA New England. "EPA New England is committed to making this a river that is safe for swimming. Our goal will be accomplished through eliminating illegal sewer hook-ups and sewage overflows, and reducing the amount of dirty stormwater that flows into the river."

EPA's Clean Charles 2005 initiative was launched in 1995 with the goal of making the river fishable and swimmable by Earth Day 2005. EPA measures improvements in the river on an annual basis. Over the last five years, the improvements have been dramatic, although the incremental improvements appear to be getting smaller each year.

"This demonstrates what we expected from the start: that more and more we need to focus on the pollution coming from streets, lawns and other non-direct sources," Lubber said.

To address this so-called "non-point source pollution," EPA and its partners are turning their attention this year to reducing the amount of contamination in stormwater that flows to the Charles.

Using EPA funding, the Center for Watershed Protection (CWP) in Maryland has identified 22 sites where structural improvements could greatly reduce stormwater contamination. These structural controls, such as detention basins and artificial wetlands, filter stormwater before it enters a body of water such as the Charles. The organization has also designed stormwater control projects in several communities, including Wellesley and Brookline. EPA and CWP will work with those two communities in the year ahead to construct the projects.

CWP will also work with EPA to help municipalities implement plans to better manage their stormwater. These plans, which address a range of environmentally sound practices from storm drain maintenance to street-sweeping, will help communities keep water that starts as rainfall on its streets from washing pollutants into the Charles and its tributaries.

Finally EPA will continue to work with the Clean Charles Coalition, a group of 13 major institutions along the Charles, including Harvard, Boston University, MIT, Polaroid and others to improve stormwater management among businesses and institutions in the Charles watershed.

In the year ahead, EPA will focus on hot spots of bacterial contamination in the river. Although municipal efforts have eliminated more than one million gallons of raw sewage that used to flow into the river through illicit connections, problems remain. In the year ahead, EPA hopes to identify remaining sources of illicit connections and work with municipalities to address them. The agency will also continue working with the Watershed Institute, an educational and advocacy group at Boston College that has established a field curriculum focused on the Charles River. In this curriculum, students at 12 high schools in the lower watershed area are tracking the recovery of the river through studies of birds and insects.