Keeping Our Harbor Clean

in Charlestown

Courtesy of Boston Harbor Now

Look around. Decades of advocacy have transformed Boston’s once filthy harbor into a centerpiece of recreational, educational, economic opportunity—and civic pride. Activists, lawyers, and legislators came together to enact the federal Clean Water Act in 1972. Teams of local citizens then involved the federal court to apply the act’s provisions to the harbor before you. The result: sewage is no longer dumped into the harbor. The Deer Island Sewage Treatment Plant now processes wastewater from 43 Greater Boston communities to meet stringent state and federal standards.

Ongoing stewardship ensures Boston Harbor grows ever healthier. Responsible boaters pump their waste at proper facilities. Volunteers participate in waterfront clean-ups. Groups, including Boston Harbor Now, The Harborkeepers, Save the Harbor/Save the Bay, and New England Aquarium’s Live Blue Ambassadors actively promote healthy marine habitats and responsible commercial uses.

Look and you may see a tugboat escort a fuel barge, a car-carrier head in, sailboats skim past or a loon dive for a mussel. Boston’s harbor clean-up serves as a model for civic engagement and a continuing success story.

The Deer Island state-of-the-art wastewater treatment plant includes multiple giant digesters. Managed by the Massachusetts Water Resources Authority, the plant processes wastewater from more than two million people as well as 5,500 businesses and industries.

Photo by Liz Nelson Weaver

Courtesy of Boston Harbor Now

The clean harbor is likely one of the factors leading to the increase in eiders and other shorebirds nesting on the Harbor Islands.

Sign Location

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Community activists. Colonial law. Political will. New state regulations. The combination created the 43-mile Boston Harborwalk–a public path, stretching from Logan Airport through seven neighborhoods to the Neponset River. In 1978, the Massachusetts Office of Coastal Zone Management (CZM) sought to improve public access to the waterfront. They succeeded by integrating early Colonial laws into new state regulations.

In the decades that followed, community activists, city and state government, and developers of shoreline projects have worked together to ensure the Harborwalk is always constructed along the waterfront. Some sites also provide public amenities–bathrooms, meeting places, kayak launches,
etc. The result is a fabulous path welcoming residents and visitors to our vibrant clean harbor.

Early Colonial laws established public right of access along tidelands to protect citizens’ rights to fish, hunt, and navigate at sea and along the shorefront. These laws go back even further: They stem from Roman law, which was incorporated into English law and brought over to Massachusetts by English
settlers. Then, in the 1640s, Massachusetts Bay Colony passed laws permitting private docks in the intertidal area (between low and high tide) as long as public access was retained. Almost all of Boston’s waterfront is filled land that was once the intertidal area. This, together with the centuries-old legal right of access, served as the underpinnings for the 1978 CZM regulations.

Resources

Acknowledgments

  • Warm thanks to New England Aquarium Education Director John Anderson for his guidance.
  • Our gratitude to the Perkins School for the Blind and David W. Cook for their partnership in creating the audio files.