In “Belmont’s Underground Pollution Problem,” Belmont Citizens Forum Newsletter November/December 2019, the caption on page 2 in the article should read as follows: “According to the town’s July 31 report, this year the town has redirected 504 gallons/day—or more than six 80-gallon bathtubs per day—of sewage from Belmont’s brooks and ponds to the Deer island treatment plant.” We regret any confusion this error may have caused.
By Meg Muckenhoupt As you recover from a month of pies, plum puddings, sufganiyot jelly doughnuts, fruitcake, fudge, hot cocoa, panettone, eggnog, and every other cold-season excuse to eat sugar, pause to remember that neither sugar cane nor honeybees are native to New England. Sugar cane is a tropical plant, and there were no honeybees north of Florida before 1630–and those bees which did arrive spent more than a month trapped in a hive in the hold of a wooden ship that creaked and lurched its way across the open ocean. Sugar maples did yield syrup, and that syrup was [READ MORE]
To the Editor: As a neighbor, fan, and defender of poor Clay Pit Pond, I especially enjoyed the recent article (“Clay Pit Pond Progresses from Eyesore to Asset,” Belmont Citizens Forum Newsletter, November/December 2019). I would like to add a few more details on the recent history of the pond. When we moved to Belmont in the fall of 1974 there was a shopping cart in the pond by the inlet and advertisements about the upcoming Kiwanis Fishing Derby. I found the cart and derby in great contrast. Apparently the pond was regularly stocked for the event. No one noticed [READ MORE]
By Grant Monahon The goal of protecting Belmont’s small town environment has taken many forms for the Belmont Citizens Forum (BCF) during the last 20 years, and it will undoubtedly take many more directions over the next 20 years. Belmont’s efforts to preserve its natural and historical resources, limit traffic growth, and enhance pedestrian safety will only become more challenging, not less, and we will continue to pursue issues identified as important to our supporters. As a board, we are mindful that we will need new and younger leadership. We are not going away, but new perspectives would add great [READ MORE]
By Anne Paulsen Many Belmont citizens worked very hard in the 1990s to save as much McLean land as possible from development. The McLean Open Space Alliance led by Judy Record, and after her untimely death, by Martin Duffy, Martha Moore, and Fred Paulsen, worked for several years to forge an agreement with McLean to deed 72 acres to the town for public use. Lone Tree Hill and the surrounding private open space are a testimony to that effort, and the Judy Record Fund has made valuable contributions to the upkeep of that property. But another valuable addition to the [READ MORE]
By Kenneth Stalberg How did the newsletter in your hand find its way to you? It’s a long process involving many dedicated volunteers. As the BCF mailing coordinator, or “Mailing Maestro” as I’m listed in the BCF Newsletter, my job begins after all the articles have been written and edited and the newsletters have been printed. The first step is finding a board member who’s able to host a mailing party. The newsletters, about 2,200 of them in seven or eight heavy cartons, will be delivered to his or her home. On the evening of the mailing party (the date [READ MORE]
By Sue Bass Litigation was not the plan when we considered forming what became the Belmont Citizens Forum. McLean Hospital blindsided us by filing for a Massachusetts Land Court declaratory judgment that the rezoning of its land was not “illegal contract zoning.” The initial BCF board members—none of whom were lawyers—had never heard of contract zoning, much less that it might be illegal. It turned out that Belmont’s deal met the textbook definition of contract zoning. The courts agreed but the Appeals Court ruled in November 2002 that Belmont’s contract was not illegal. Meanwhile, in June 2001, 20 Belmont residents [READ MORE]
By Sumner Brown Belmont has two types of water trouble. One is flooding during heavy rains. The other trouble comes from leaking sewer pipes. Flooding Today, as I write this, there is no flooding in Belmont. Floods are rare enough that we do not make ourselves perpetually anxious about them, but parts of Belmont are vulnerable. In both Belmont and Arlington, people live in what were swamps, and there seem to be 100-year storms every 10 years. Climate change may have something to do with this. The Belmont Citizens Forum advocates for rain gardens and other measures to slow the [READ MORE]
By Sumner Brown Belmont has turned a corner about how we think of traffic. Twenty years ago, our hope was to find ways to make it easier for cars and trucks to pass through Belmont. Now our objective is to protect residential streets from rush-hour traffic and make life easier for pedestrians and bicyclists. The Belmont Citizens Forum has played a part in our traffic turnaround. In 2002, the Belmont Citizens Forum’s Planning and Zoning Committee brainstormed about Trapelo Road. They thought about bike lanes and lots of trees. The committee engaged graduate student classes at MIT and the Boston [READ MORE]
By John Dieckmann A detailed design of Belmont Community Path Phase 1, the segment from Brighton Street to Clark Street, including the pedestrian underpass, is currently underway. It has taken more than 20 years to get here. The following is a brief summary of the events that got this started and eventually, got us to this point. First, by way of history, the right of way that is the basis for the Belmont Community Path and the overall Mass Central Rail Trail exists because beginning in 1870, a group of entrepreneurs built the Mass Central Railroad, later renamed the Central [READ MORE]
By Evanthia Malliris At the end of 1999, when the Belmont Citizens Forum was taking shape in response to the McLean land development, Sharon Vanderslice said to the board of directors, “What this group needs is a newsletter.” Those words launched 20 years of a bimonthly newsletter—121 issues to date—that examines in-depth topics critical to BCF’s mission. Transforming words into action, Sharon became newsletter editor, establishing the newsletter’s standards and substance that continue today. Volume 1, number 1, published in January 2000, included an analysis of legal action seeking to overturn the McLean property rezoning; a review of plans to [READ MORE]
By Sue Bass This is the 20th anniversary of the Belmont Citizens Forum Newsletter; the organization was founded a little over 20 years ago. How did that happen, and why? In 1995, McLean Hospital began exploring publicly how to turn part of its 238-acre campus into cash. Psychiatric drugs had revolutionized mental health care; instead of long walks and fresh country air, medicine could prescribe quicker-acting treatment. McLean no longer needed a bucolic campus, and families relying on health insurance could no longer pay for it. The hospital was $40 million or more in debt. This was not the first [READ MORE]
By Jim Graves As a founding board member of the Belmont Citizens Forum (BCF), who has been inactive in recent years, I am honored to share these thoughts on why the BCF has been so valuable and to applaud the individuals and supporters who have sustained the BCF for 20 years. Prior to starting the BCF, the founders worked to first improve, then oppose, and nearly defeat the development and zoning changes proposed for 238 acres of open space owned by Partners Healthcare and its subsidiary, McLean Hospital. Legal challenges by the BCF and supporters slowed implementation, and notably, [READ MORE]
By Roger Wrubel Many of us lost a dear friend, inspiration, and role model for aging gracefully when Elizabeth “Libby” Atkins, long-time Juniper Road resident, died at the age of 94 on August 19. I first met Libby when I interviewed to become the next director of Mass Audubon’s Habitat Sanctuary in 2000. She and her husband Elisha, who had grown up on the estate that became Habitat, let me know how much the sanctuary meant to them both, and I never forgot it. Elizabeth Potter married Elisha Atkins when he returned from the Pacific theater of World War II [READ MORE]
The November/December 2019 Belmont Citizens Forum Newsletter is now available as a PDF. Read individual articles below. Belmont’s Underground Pollution Problem By Anne-Marie Lambert If only the 504 gallons of household wastewater which had been pouring into Wellington Brook and Winn’s Brook through underground culverts every day had been more visible, perhaps we as a town would have addressed the necessary repairs more urgently. With our leaking sewage, however, we have deliberately spaced out the painstaking detective work needed to find the sources of household wastewater silently polluting our brooks over several years. Read more. Clay Pit Pond Progresses from [READ MORE]
These Belmont Journal stories focusing on Belmont’s environment appeared on the Belmont Media Center (BMC). See a complete list of programs at the Belmont Journal Environmental News YouTube channel, bit.ly/belmont-journal-youtube. —Roger Colton Rock Meadow provides a diverse microclimate in Belmont. The Belmont Journal covers the master plan being developed by the town’s Conservation Commission to ensure Rock Meadow’s preservation. bit.ly/BJour-RockMeadow After many years of fits and starts, progress is now being made on the remediation and preservation of the McLean barn. BMC explores the progress with The Belmontonian editor and publisher Franklin Tucker. bit.ly/BJour-McLeanBarn Belmont’s 2019 PorchFest provided a bike [READ MORE]
Welcome Meg Muckenhoupt The Belmont Citizens Forum is pleased to welcome Meg Muckenhoupt back as our executive editor. Meg edited the BCF Newsletter from 2004 to 2016 and has since graced our pages as a guest editor and the author of our “Belmont Roots” feature. Meg is the author of several books, including Cabbage: a Global History, and the forthcoming The Truth About Baked Beans. She also writes gardening articles for sites, including reviewed.com, a branch of USA Today, and works as a research associate for Frances Moore Lappé’s Small Planet Institute. In her spare time, Meg cofounded a community [READ MORE]
By Meg Muckenhoupt For everything, there is a season, and late fall is the season for cleaning up. Take down the tomato stakes, put away the lawn chairs, and move all the clutter away from your windows and doors so you can feel if there are any drafts coming in. Air leaks make your home colder, and make you waste money and pollute the air with more greenhouse gases in a Sisyphean attempt to heat the great outdoors. Areas around pipes, electrical outlets, baseboards, vents, and pull-down attic stairs are also common sources of air leaks, which can usually be [READ MORE]
To the Editor: I read the article about traffic in the September/October BCF Newsletter with interest. I frequently ride through Belmont on my bicycle and sometimes drive through. I strongly support the rail trail, the underpass at Alexander Avenue, and the connection to Concord Avenue. But also, I am hoping that Belmont will take more advantage of its dense network of residential streets to provide improved bicycling through routes. The barrier across Claflin Street between Farnham Street and Alexander Avenue offers a good example of such a treatment, though it could be revised to be more bicycle friendly. Clearly its [READ MORE]
By Katherine Venzke Around town there is constant talk about the state of business in Belmont. How is Belmont Center faring with the new-ish parking meter system? What’s with all the new development in Waverley Square? And how will the Bradford development affect commerce in Cushing Square? These discussions happen on the sidewalks, in cafes, at Town Hall, and in the local media. They also happen, often, at my shop. This “talk” found some direction and mission last year with the formation of the Belmont Business Study Committee (BBSC). The town pulled together business owners from each of the Belmont [READ MORE]