In an unusually sharp rebuke, a US District Court judge said he will personally drive by Massachusetts Department of Transportation worksites to make sure officials abide by a two-year-old order to control a soup of contaminants that can pour from highways into rivers and streams during storms.
“I know where the sites are, I’ll drive around and check. I want to see the equipment there. . . . I will ride herd on this now monthly to get compliance,’’ said Judge William G. Young, according to a transcript from a status hearing earlier this week in Boston. “I hoped for, I expected compliance. There has not been compliance.’’
The words were a far cry from 2008 when Young ordered the state to better control storm water from roadways after environmental groups sued, but largely praised the highway agency for doing a good job overall given fiscal and other constraints. At that time, he told them to come up with a plan to fix overall road runoff problems, but singled out for more immediate action a site on Interstate 190 in Lancaster that was polluting a waterway and two along Route 495 that were polluting the Charles River.
Since that time, Young said, “to say I’m disappointed is mild . . . The Commonwealth has, I won’t say ignored the order, but in essence has done nothing other than plan.’’
He said if work is not being performed at the three sites by June 8, he will impose “sanctions.’’ He did not specify what those would be.
Young also ordered the department to come up with a strategy to control storm water on some 2,500 miles of multilane highways by that date.
The state Department of Transportation protested the action, but promised to comply.
“While we disagree with the Court’s decision, the Highway Division will abide by the Court’s order,’’ it said in a statement.
“The cause of the purported contamination of these three sites has never been measured or otherwise observed,’’ the statement went on to say. “The Highway Division is now aggressively moving forward, as directed, with plans to implement improvements at the three sites. We understand the importance of storm water management, and we typically include drainage improvements in our roadway reconstruction projects.’’
The judge’s order was based on a lawsuit first filed five years ago by the Conservation Law Foundation, Charles River Watershed Association, and Leominster Land Trust to force state officials to prevent oil, brake fluid, heavy metals, and other contaminants from washing into waterways from its vast network of highways.
Roadway pollution is a major source of contamination in the nation’s rivers, lakes, and streams, and slowly, “green highway’’ efforts, such as using recyclable materials for paving or marking wildlife crossings, are beginning to take root across the country.
But environmentalists and scientists say storm water runoff is by far the most pressing problem — and the most expensive to fix.
Solutions involve slowing down the water so it doesn’t reach fragile waters too quickly and ensuring it percolates through soil, vegetation, and stones, which cleanse it. For example, runoff can be held in man-made ponds and wetlands until it can evaporate or seep through soil.
Christopher Kilian, Conservation Law Foundation senior attorney and director of its Clean Water Program, said the judge’s order underscores the vast amount of pollution permeating the state’s waterways — pollution that can be controlled.
“The reason we filed this lawsuit is that [the state] was completely ignoring the [federal] Clean Water Act for over a decade,’’ Kilian said. The judge’s order is a long time coming, he said.
Kilian says storm water is not being properly dealt with in more than 950 pipes from state roadways. While the state has received hundreds of millions of dollars for paving new offramps and other development, he says, it has failed to invest in controlling pollution on most of its roadways.
In 2008, state highway officials said it was difficult to conduct storm water management on roadways that weren’t undergoing any other work because of the prohibitive cost, which they estimated could total in the hundreds of millions of dollars.
If the state does what the judge has ordered, “it will result in an effective program to make sure the highway system doesn’t pollute the Commonwealth’s waterways,’’ said Kilian.
WATERSHED INFO
