By Meg Muckenhoupt
The Mystic River’s most recent water quality report card, released on August 13, gives Winn’s Brook an F for 2019—and the Little River and Alewife Brook earned Ds. The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) creates the annual report card in collaboration with the Mystic River Watershed Association. It grades segments of the Mystic River’s lakes, river, and streams on how frequently they meet bacterial standards for swimming and boating. The Upper Mystic Lake and the Chelsea River got an A grade; they met boating and swimming standards 90% or more of the time in 2019.
Graphic: Mystic River Watershed Association
Winn’s Brook has been getting failing water quality grades for years. The bacteria contaminating Winn’s Brook and other Mystic tributaries are E. coli and enterococcus bacteria, found in sewage. Thanks to legal orders from the EPA, the town of Belmont has been cleaning up illegal, illicit, and accidental connections between sanitary sewers and storm drains that empty into local waterways for years (see “Sewer Repairs In Progress to Clean Up Wellington Brook and Winn’s Brook,” Belmont Citizens Forum Newsletter, September 2018.)
Clearly, there is more work to do. This spring, Belmont embarked on a $500,000 effort to replace and reline sewers along Wellington and Winn’s Brook (see “Cleaning Belmont’s Water Means More Work,” Belmont Citizens Forum Newsletter, May 2020). However, the effect of that work won’t be clear until the the 2020 water quality report card is released.
There is hope: Everett and Chelsea worked together to control sewage discharges into the Mystic River and brought the grade for the Island End creek from F in 2016 to a B for 2019. Belmont could have clean waterways too, if the town can keep sewage under control.
Meg Muckenhoupt is editor of the Belmont Citizens Forum Newsletter.
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