CITY OF BOSTON LAUNCHES A PILOT GREEN STREET PROJECT IN

PARTNERSHIP WITH CHARLES RIVER WATERSHED ASSOCIATION

Beginning in mid June, the Charles River Watershed Association will be working with the Boston Environment Department (BED) to design and implement a pilot Green Street project in Peabody Square, Dorchester. The project is being funded through a grant by the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection under the 604b Water Quality Management Planning Program, awarded to the City of Boston in early spring of 2007. A Green Street is a street designed to collect and clean stormwater runoff in visible green areas within the right of way to reduce the amount of polluted stormwater that is piped directly to rivers or water bodies.

The Boston Transportation Department and Boston Public Works Department have been working with the St. Marks Area Main Streets, local businesses and residents on the Peabody Square Improvement Project since early 2006. The DEP Grant will enable BED and CRWA to incorporate Low Impact Development (LID) techniques into the redesign of Peabody Square to make it into a pilot project for Green Streets in the City of Boston.

“We are very excited to be partnering with the City of Boston in this important endeavor” said Bob Zimmerman, Executive Director of CRWA. “Hopefully this project will be the precursor to the City of Boston initiating LID retrofit projects as a part of redevelopment projects all across the City.”   

The Charles River Watershed Association has also been selected by the Allston Brighton Community Development Corporation (CDC) to develop guidelines for “Street Greening” in the Allston Brighton neighborhood. This project has been funded through a grant awarded by the State Department of Housing and Community Development for the “Allston Brighton Green Space Connections Street Design Guidelines” project.

“The Green Street Guidelines project provides a huge opportunity to the community to take its vision for a greener neighborhood to the next level” said Pallavi Mande, an Urban Restoration Specialist with CRWA “We look forward to working with the Allston Brighton Green Space Advocates and the neighborhood residents to improve their access to the Charles River and to make Allston Brighton a more environmentally sustainable community.”

On Monday, June 18^th, the Allston Brighton CDC and CRWA are hosting a public workshop on “Everett Street Greening” at 6:30 pm at St. Anthony's Church in North Allston. The workshop is the first in a series that will be conducted in different parts of the neighborhood to facilitate community participation in creating green, bike- and pedestrian-friendly streets in Allston Brighton. For more information on the workshop contact Heather Knopsnyder at knopsnyder@allstonbrightoncdc.org 

CRWA sees both the Green Street projects as opportunities to create an urban landscape that works with the environment rather than against it.  “The key to successful urban environments,” according to Kate Bowditch, Project Manager at CRWA, “is to understand the way land and water work, and to create built systems that mimic nature.  People embrace these ideas pretty quickly once they start to think about them.”

CRWA is a community-based nonprofit organization responsible for protecting the 80-mile-long Charles River and its 308 square mile watershed, using sound science, advocacy and legal expertise to understand and correct problems related to the environment.  For more information about the work of the Charles River Watershed Association, visit www.charlesriver.org, or call 781-788-0007.