The Dumping of Raw Sewage has to be Fixed

The “plan” recently announced by the Mass. Water Resources Authority (MWRA) that would continue to allow for raw sewage to be dumped into our watersheds in the Greater Boston area during periods of heavy rainfall is, in a word, unacceptable.

We hasten to note that we do not blame the MWRA for this sad state of affairs.

Rather, it is the lack of political will by our elected officials to address this issue that is the problem.

This is reminiscent of the situation we faced decades ago when the Charles River was the subject of the pop song “Dirty Water” and when the high levels of pollution in Chelsea Creek, the Mystic River, and Boston Harbor peeled the paint from homes and cars in Chelsea, Revere, and Winthrop.

It was not until the 1980s that Governor Michael Dukakis finally took the action necessary to create the MWRA, which has done so much to make our harbor and surrounding waterways cleaner.

About a decade after the MWRA’s creation, Dukakis’s successor, Bill Weld, dove into the Charles River from a dock in his suit clothes to demonstrate how much cleaner the Charles had become.

But the job of making our waterways free from raw sewage remains unfinished. We — both our public officials and citizenry —  need to commit to a plan that will eliminate raw sewage from the waterways that surround us. Accepting the status quo for generations to come is not the answer.