Preserving the Trust: The Founding of the Massachusetts Environmental Trust

Boston Harbor

Set within Massachusetts and Cape Cod Bays, a 1,400 square mile water body stretching from Gloucester to Provincetown, is Boston Harbor, the area termed Bay de Isles by Samuel Champlain in 1605 and the site of one of the earliest of the European settlements in the New World. The estuaries of three small rivers - the Neponset to the south, the Charles to the west, and the Mystic to the north - comprise what is called the inner harbor. Outside of a line drawn roughly from Winthrop to Hull lies the outer harbor. Less than 50 miles from here is Stellwagen Bank, a shallow area so rich in endangered and other marine life that it is now designated as a National Marine Sanctuary.

Six distinct Boston neighborhoods and seven other municipalities touch upon the harbor. Within eleven miles of downtown Boston, there are thirty-one islands ranging in size form less than an acre to more than 200 acres. Eight different jurisdictions control the islands. In recognition of this complexity, Congress in 1996 authorized a Boston Harbor Islands National Recreation Area operating through a unique partnership of island owners and advisors. Upwards of a half-million people are now believed to visit the harbor islands annually.

An area of great natural diversity and beauty, Boston harbor is also the site of four centuries of human occupancy and use. It has suffered accordingly. In addition to direct runoff from adjacent areas, its natural flows are augmented by the delivery of wastewater from 43 Greater Boston area communities and some 5,500 businesses. The metropolitan water supply and waste disposal system, now the responsibility of the independent Massachusetts Water resources Authority, is responsible for approximately 1 million gallons of such flows per day. Until 2000, when the final phase of secondary treatment came on line, Boston harbor had the reputation of being one of the nation''s most polluted harbors.

The first federal enforcement conference on Boston harbor was held on May 20, 1968. It was reconvened on April 30, 1969. The finding was that Boston harbor was seriously polluted by the discharge of untreated or inadequately treated wastes. Following passage of the Federal Water Pollution Control Amendments of 1972 (the Clean Water Act), the pressure for remedial action further intensified. It was pointed out that even the provisions of Massachusetts'' own Clean Waters Act were being violated.