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Residents urge Somerville to prioritize fixes for Tannery Brook CSO; council sends matter to finance committee
Summary
Save the Alewife Brook speakers told the council that repeated combined sewer overflows (CSOs) have flooded neighborhoods and parks with untreated sewage; presenters asked the city to prioritize spending on Alewife-area projects and the council voted to send the matter to the finance committee for follow-up.
Residents from Save the Alewife Brook told the Somerville City Council on March 13 that the city’s Tannery Brook combined sewer overflow (CSO) is causing repeated flooding of untreated sewage into nearby parks, paths, and basements and urged the city to prioritize CSO control work for the Alewife Brook watershed.
Why it matters: Presenters said flood water containing untreated sewage poses public-health and environmental-justice concerns for neighborhoods downstream of the Tannery Brook outfall. The group showed slides and cited multiple years of overflow volumes and instances when the Greenway path carried raw sewage during high-water events.
Kristen Anderson, a resident of Arlington representing the coalition, told the council that flood water containing “untreated sewage” had entered her home multiple times and made residents sick. She said the group has several thousand supporters across Cambridge, Somerville, Arlington and other neighboring communities.
Presenters displayed slides they said showed the volume of discharges from Alewife-area CSOs in recent years and said those outfalls are not in compliance with court-ordered cleanup thresholds. The presentation included figures the group attributed to state and regional monitoring: presenters cited a multi-million-gallon scale of discharges in recent years (presenters’ slides referenced 29,000,000 gallons in 2023 and other slide figures reported for 2021 and 2023; the presentation materials were shown during the meeting).
Speakers also described exposed “floatables” (debris and toilet paper) and said MassDEP’s 2024 water-quality variance includes new requirements the city must meet. They said engineering proposals exist for retention and control projects in the Alewife watershed and that the city is awaiting an EPA financial-capability assessment that will inform required spending levels.
Council response and action: Councilors thanked the presenters and encouraged public participation at a related April 3 listening session. The council voted to send the matter to the finance committee for further review and to coordinate committee-level follow-up with the infrastructure director and department staff.
Ending: The presenters asked the council to prioritize EPA-required spending to address the Tannery Brook CSO; finance committee follow-up was scheduled so city staff can respond with budget and project plans.
