Community Meeting
Sunday, January 11th, from 6 pm – 8 pm
Hybrid meeting via Zoom or in-person at:
Just A Start 430 Rindge Ave, Cambridge, MA 02140
Sewage elimination plans in Alewife Brook and in the Charles and Mystic rivers. MassDEP sent MWRA back to the drawing board. But MWRA has not changed direction.
What do you want to see in the new plans?
Presentations and Q&A from your friends at:
YOU CAN HELP. GET INVOLVED.
BE HEARD. FREE PIZZA.
Free pizza when you register and join us in-person at:
Just A Start 430 Rindge Ave, Cambridge, MA 02140
Parking is available at the Alewife T parking garage or at Russell Field.
Alewife Brook is the scene of the largest untreated Combined Sewer Overflow (CSO) discharges in any river or stream in Greater Boston.
“If you look on the left hand-side of this graphic, you can see that sewage discharges are in the 10s of millions of gallons. On the left is Alewife Brook and all of that sewage is untreated. That means that proxy indicators like E coli and the parasite and viruses are all live. They’re going down the river and impacting people. The blue is the total treated sewage in the Mystic River.
If you look across all of Boston on the right, this small stream of Alewife Brook actually gets more untreated sewage in every place in the Greater Boston area, except for Fort Point Channel, which is being washed out by the tide twice a day.
Untreated sewage discharges at Alewife Brook are an acute problem that need to be addressed.”
– Patrick Herron, Director of the Mystic River Watershed Association
from the 4/3/2025 CSO Listening Session
People pushed baby strollers through untreated sewage floodwater on the DCR Path during Alewife Brook flood events in 2023.
Video by David Stoff.
Say No to Sewage Pollution!
Save the Alewife Brook is a growing grassroots environmental group with supporters in Cambridge, Arlington, Somerville, Belmont, and Medford. We are working to address flooding and water quality problems in the Alewife Brook.
We are especially concerned with the Combined Sewer Outfalls, which discharge sewage water into the Alewife Brook during many storm events. During major flood events, sewage contaminated water from the Alewife Brook flows into the homes, yards, and parks of the area’s most diverse and vulnerable neighborhoods, which are considered Environmental Justice Populations. To make matters worse, the Alewife can reverse direction during some flood events, sending that contaminated floodwater back to North Cambridge and Belmont, towards their most diverse and vulnerable neighborhoods.
A review of FEMA flood maps reveals there are an estimated 1200 East Arlington residents, 3500 Cantabrigians, and 300 Belmont residents living in the Little River – Alewife 100-year flood plain. Climate Change threatens to exacerbate the problem, with wetter rain seasons, more frequent and more severe storms, and sea level rise.
Climate Change makes the sewage discharge problem exponentially worse.
The hope for the communities around the Alewife is improvement of brook water quality and adaptation to the effects of climate change through regional resiliency strategies.
Environmental Health is Community Health
RAW SEWAGE POLLUTION: Combined Sewers are the Problem.
Sewer Separation and Green Infrastructure is the Solution. During intense rains, Cambridge discharges tens of millions of gallons of raw sewage into Alewife Brook through combined sewer pipes. Parts of the city still have an antiquated sewer system that combines rainwater and sewage into a single pipe. Cambridge’s old combined sewer system is a relic…
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Community Meeting
Sunday, January 11th, from 6 pm – 8 pm Hybrid meeting via Zoom or in-person at:Just A Start 430 Rindge Ave, Cambridge, MA 02140 Sewage elimination plans in Alewife Brook and in the Charles and Mystic rivers. MassDEP sent MWRA back to the drawing board. But MWRA has not changed direction. What do you want…
Keep reading
Thank You, MWRA?
Deer Island Wastewater Treatment Plant and digester domes peeking out from behind the clouds. Shot from a plane out of Logan, Thanksgiving 2025. Photo credit: Kristin Anderson In the 1990s, households and businesses in Greater Boston paid for the Boston Harbor cleanup with sewer rate increases that enabled borrowing. Now those old long-term loans are…
Keep reading
Join our Google Group: https://groups.google.com/g/save-the-alewife-brook
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Bravo Ellen Mass and Green Cambridge
Hello,
I imagine you are aware that there is a proposal for a 25 story, 600 unit building in davis square. I am concerned that much of the sewage of this building will end up in alewife brook. Obviously the developer and pro housing people claim there is enough capacity. I don’t know for a fact that the davis square sewers overflow into Alewife brook, so if there’s any information out there, i would like to know. Thank you
Hi Rob, I lived and grew up in in Woburn for over 60 years I would like to talk to you about wat I know IT’S NOT GOOD AT ALL AND IS COVERED UP BY THE CITY IT’S MORE THAN SEWAGE.