CRWA in the News

River dance 

By Jon Brodkin, Metrowest Daily News 

Thursday, January 5, 2006

Local and state officials are facing some key decisions in 2006 that will have long-term impacts on the Massachusetts environment.

The fate of the Charles River will be decided in a high-profile debate between the Department of Environmental Protection and towns facing new limits on water withdrawals from the "stressed" Upper Charles River basin.

"All 15 towns in the watershed that are up for new permits will get their new permits sometime in the coming year, hopefully by the spring," said Bob Zimmerman, executive director of the Charles River Watershed Association. "It will be interesting to see how many then ask for administrative law review."

The DEP plans to issue new permits limiting water usage to 65 gallons per person per day, down from the current limit of 80. Towns and legislators who have criticized the limits say they are arbitrary and that the DEP failed to seek their opinions before implementing its new permitting policy.

State Rep. David Linsky, D-Natick, threatened "legislative action" in November, but last Thursday said he expects a compromise.

"I don’t think it’s in anyone’s interests to have a battle here between the towns that need to provide public drinking water for their residents and the environmental agencies," Linsky said. "I think that the 65 gallons per day is unreasonable and it will need to be raised. Where it will be raised to I don’t know yet."

More problems?

Zimmerman argued that conserving water today will prevent much bigger problems in years to come.

"We have to save the water we have for the time being," Zimmerman said. "The Charles, for all intents and purposes, is 100 percent wastewater in August and September because we’ve pumped our aquifers so low."

The towns that draw water from the Upper Charles River basin are Millis, Milford, Franklin, Bellingham, Medway, Dover, Medfield, Holliston, Natick, Needham, Norfolk, Sherborn, Wellesley, Walpole and Wrentham.

While there is uncertainty over the immediate future of the Charles River, advocates for the Assabet River say 2006 will be the year communities start designing projects to reduce pollution from wastewater treatment plants.

Several legal battles seemed imminent over new limits on phosphorus discharges from treatment plants in Westborough, Hudson, Maynard and Marlborough.

The communities that operate the Westborough, Maynard and Marlborough plants appealed their new permits to the Environmental Protection Agency this year, but Westborough and Maynard later dropped their protests.

The Marlborough permit appeal is still pending, but the Organization for the Assabet River is pleased operators of three of the plants will now begin planning upgrades to meet new phosphorus limits that take effect in 2010.

"We’re excited that both the town of Maynard and town of Hudson [and Westborough] are going to be starting on the road to upgrading their wastewater treatment plants," said Julia Blatt, executive director of the Assabet River group. "They’re starting the process so by the year 2010 they’ll be meeting lower phosphorus limits."

Anchors a-weigh

The year 2006 will also be one in which there is debate over a proposed ocean management policy, changes to zoning laws and what environmentalists call the chronic under-funding of the state’s environmental agencies.

The Legislature’s Environment, Natural Resources and Agriculture committee recently approved an ocean management bill that would make Massachusetts the first state to craft a comprehensive plan to protect ocean waters up to three miles from the coast, said Christopher Hardy, legislative director of the Massachusetts Audubon Society.

He hopes the bill will be approved by the full Legislature in 2006.

"Many coastal states are looking to Massachusetts, this experiment, to see what they should do," Hardy said. "Fishing stocks are low, water quality is poor. Our oceans are in peril, also from climate change. There’s just an enormous amount of conflicts going on in our oceans that are only going to get worse."

The Audubon Society is also promoting legislation to eliminate an "Approval Not Required" - or ANR - provision in zoning laws that allows developers of certain subdivision projects to build without local oversight.

"We’re trying to foster compact, dense development in village-like settings, as opposed to this sprawling roadside development that is really sponsored by our state’s zoning law," Hardy said.

Green green

As in past years, environmentalists will also lobby Gov. Mitt Romney and legislators for more environmental funding. This year, environmental agencies saw their first significant increase in funding in about 6 years, but budgets for the major agencies are still down about 25 percent from a few years ago, said Jim Gomes, president of the Environmental League of Massachusetts.

The state parks system is understaffed and budget cuts at the Department of Environmental Protection have made it difficult to enforce laws against polluters, Gomes said.

What has suffered most, he said, is "the ability of the Department of Environmental Protection to make sure that all the thousands of companies that can cause pollution are in compliance with laws and regulations and permits. It’s just the cop-on-the-beat function."

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