Council urges state, MBTA to factor Alewife sewage mitigation into redevelopment RFP

The Cambridge City Council voted 6— to 3 to ask Governor Maura Healey and MBTA leadership to make combined-sewer-overflow (CSO) mitigation an explicit priority in planning for redevelopment around the Alewife MBTA station.

The council—s order asks state leaders and the MBTA to collaborate with the city, MWRA and neighboring communities to significantly reduce untreated sewage discharges into Alewife Brook, to prioritize stormwater and CSO solutions as part of the Alewife Station redevelopment, and to recommend green stormwater infrastructure at the site where feasible.

Why it matters: Alewife Brook has been identified by residents and environmental groups as a location where heavy rains have repeatedly sent raw sewage into public spaces. Councilors said the redevelopment process for a once-in-a-generation MBTA site presents an opportunity to integrate stormwater and CSO controls into a large public project that can deliver both housing and environmental infrastructure.

Key facts

- The council approved the order as amended by a 6— to 3 vote. The majority vote included Vice Mayor McGovern, Councilor Nolan, Councilor Siddiqui, Councilor Sabrina Wheeler, Councilor Wilson and Councilor Zuzi. The minority vote was cast by Councilors Azim and Toner and Mayor Simmons.

- Council amendments removed a prescriptive requirement for a fixed "3-acre" minimum of green infrastructure and converted any prior language reading "require" into "recommend," after staff urged that specific engineering decisions should follow technical study.

- City staff and engineers told the council the CSO system and stormwater hydraulics in the Alewife area are technically complex and that detailed engineering work and watershed analysis are needed to determine appropriate CSO controls.

What speakers said

- Eric Grunenbaum, who flagged the Alewife sewage issue in public comment, asked the council to press the state to make CSO mitigation an integral part of any redevelopment RFP. He told the council: "We ask for real action. First, we want the sewage problem to be integral to the RFP not an afterthought with backroom discussions." (public comment)

- City staff warned the council that requiring a specific engineered solution at the RFP stage could be premature; staff argued detailed hydraulic and wetland analyses must inform the shape and scale of any wetland or CSO-storage…