View or download the March-April 2018 issue as a color PDF here, or read single articles below.   Articles in this issue: Finding Sewer Leaks Means Detective Work Hidden Leaks in Pipes from Street to House Pollute Waterways by Anne-Marie Lambert Belmont has greatly accelerated investigating underground sources of water pollution in the last six months. This good news is tempered by the knowledge that we have 77 miles of sewer pipes and 56 miles of stormwater drains, all old. The average sewer pipe in Belmont is now 83 years old. The average storm drain is 64 years old. Our [READ MORE]

Almost 60 Mass Cities and Towns Restrict Checkout Bags by Terese Hammerle Our environment is swimming in plastic waste. The Sierra Club and others commonly assert that Americans use 100 billion plastic bags a year, or about 360 bags per year for every man, woman, and child in the United States. Massachusetts residents go through about 2 billion bags annually. These are 2010 estimates, when Washington, DC, became the first major US city to impose a fee on disposable paper and plastic bags. (“Disposable” indicates single-use; “reusable” means a heavier quality for multiple use.) Currently, about 60 Massachusetts cities and [READ MORE]

Connections to the Belmont Community Path by John Dieckmann The community path in Belmont connects or will connect to several existing and future shared use paths in our immediate region. To the east, there is the Fitchburg Cutoff Path running from Brighton Street to Alewife Station, the Linear Park from Alewife Station to Davis Square, and the Somerville community path from Davis Square to North Point Park in Cambridge. In Weston and Wayland . . . Eversource is constructing a maintenance access road along the right-of-way, which will double as the bike trail. These three path segments are part of [READ MORE]