Enters stormwater management agreement with EPA.
The Mystic River.
Photo: Wikimedia Commons.
The agreement, in the form of an Administrative Order on Consent, requires the Town to submit an Illicit Discharge Detection and Elimination Plan, assess its sanitary sewer system, and remove all illicit discharges to the system within five years.
This agreement is part of a larger effort by EPA New England, the Commonwealth of Massachusetts and communities to improve water quality within the Mystic River watershed.
Each year, EPA New England — in collaboration with the Mystic River Watershed Association — issues a Water Quality Report Card for the Mystic River Watershed.
During the 2015 calendar year, tributaries feeding the Mystic River in Belmont including Winn’s Brook, Little River, and Alewife Brook received grades ranging from "F" to "D+" based on poor bacterial water quality.
This effort has allowed EPA to inform communities of exactly where illicit discharges are occurring so they can be addressed as quickly as possible.
As part of the Boston Harbor cleanup effort, EPA New England enforcement actions under the Clean Water Act have eliminated in excess of 37,000 gallons of sewage per day from discharging to storm drains in the Mystic River watershed, and have eliminated nearly 200,000 gallons per day of sewage discharging to the Boston Harbor watershed as a whole.
For more information about EPA’s Mystic River efforts, visit EPA’s web site at www.epa.gov/mysticriver.