Industrial Pollution:

In Woburn, there are two Superfund sites: Industriplex and Wells G & H.

For information about other facilities that federal, state, or local governments have conducted compliance inspections, including a list of violations and enforcement actions, check out the EPA ECHO website.

Also check out the Surf Your Watershed site for the Mystic (n.b. the Mystic is included in the Charles River Basin on this website). Here you will find links to the Envirofacts Warehouse and the Enviromapper Database, both of which have information about toxics, water, waste, and air pollution, as well as radiation.

For information on specific toxics and how they affect health, see the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry.

Urban Problems:

Non-point source (NPS) pollution refers to pollution that does not come from a specific, easily-identifiable source, such as a pipe or smokestack. In terms of water quality, NPS pollution usually occurs as urban runoff. EPA has excellent information about NPS pollution and urban runoff. In our watershed, only 17% is designated as open space, and in Somerville, 85% of the land is impermeable! Therefore, urban runoff is a substantial problem!

Sewage and infrastructure are also major problems throughout the watershed. Some of the sewer and storm drain pipes are greater than 70 years old, and thus very leaky. Sewage filters out of the sewer lines in to the storm drains, which discharge directly local streams, ponds, and rivers. MyRWA has been sampling at many water bodies, and uncovered numerous places and pipes which have significantly high fecal bacteria levels. For more information, see Our Data.

In addition to leaky pipes, there are also numerous Combined Sewer Overflows (CSOs) in our watershed. CSOs are places where the sewer and storm pipes have been deliberately connected. For more information on CSOs, check out the National Resources Defense Council’s CSO Fact Sheet available at the Clean Water Network page. The Rouge River Project also has a good page describing CSOs.

The Massachusetts Water Resources Authority has a map of CSOs in the Mystic River Watershed and Boston Harbor area, as well as a current report on the progress of their remediation and control plan.