Amplify Arlington - 07/31/2026

Hi there, I'm Josh Gishri and you're listening to Amplify Arlington, a news podcast highlighting local stories and upcoming events. Let's dive into our stories starting with Ed and the recent disability pride celebration. >> Hey, good afternoon. Arlington celebrated disability pride with a community gathering at the Edwards Arena Trike shed, bringing together local organizations dedicated to making the town more welcoming and accessible. Residents have the opportunity to meet members of the Arlington Disability Commission, learn about adaptive recreation opportunities like recumbent bikes, and connect with organizations serving people of all ages and abilities. One highlight was Arlington Soccer Club's TOPS soccer program, which creates an inclusive environment for athletes with intellectual, emotional, or physical disabilities. And I think we'll go to Jean next for another story. A new exhibition has opened at 13 Forest Gallery featuring work by a collective of print makers exploring working backwards through printmaking. The show's title is a fitting figure of speech. Print makers often need to prepare elements of an image in reverse. Layers of ink are then applied sequentially to reveal the final design. 15 local print makers are featured and their works will be on display through September 11. Kristen. >> Yes. Um, Arlington's Art in the Park celebration brought together art and history during this annual tradition. Visitors participated in community crafting activities before joining the Cyrus Don Art Museum for a sculpture and architecture walking tour through Arlington Center. Led by museum co-founder and board president Jerry Tremble, the tour explored the stories behind historic buildings, revolutionary era landmarks, and Cyrus Don's public sculptures. The next tour will be on Thursday, August 13th from 6 to 700 p.m. Josh, as a reminder, Arlington opened three cooling centers throughout town where residents can take a break from high temperatures during designated hours. The centers at Calvar's Church, St. John's Episcopal Church and Arlington Eats provide air conditioned spaces for anyone needing relief from the heat, especially older adults and residents who don't have access to reliable cooling. Hours of operation are available through the town of Arlington's website. Here's some upcoming events to look forward to. Uh, on Sunday, August 9th, from 12:30 to 2 p.m., the Tiny Shed Arts and Discovery Series will continue with a performance by Detour, whose musical stylings span pop, rock, soul, and jazz. The free Sunday afternoon concerts are presented through the partnership between Arts Arlington and several community organizations, bringing live music to the bikeway in Arlington Center. Another partner in that group is the uh Arlington Commission for excuse me, the Arlington Tourism and Economic Development Council. On Monday, August 10th, from 5 to 7:00 p.m., bring your own craft night at Maxima Hive offers a relaxed evening of making conversation and tea for teens and adults. Local artist Patricia Alejandro will be on hand to offer tips and guidance for your knitting, embroidery, crochet, drawings, or whatever creative projects have been patiently waiting for your return. Participants should bring their own supplies, though a limited selection of kits will be available for purchase. Registration is required at maximuscenter.com. On Saturday, August 15th, from 2 to 4 pm, three Arlington museums are joining forces for Family Day, an afternoon of hands-on activities celebrating local history, art, and culture hosted by the Arlington Historical Society, the Cyrus Don Art Museum, and the Old Schwam Mill. This event includes interactive exhibits and a storytelling performance by public historian Sha Osborne. His presentation, Freedom Further Extended, explores the lives of black patriots Lemule Haynes, Quac Walker, and abolitionist Sarah Peters, emphasizing ideals first articulated during the American Revolution. Admission is free and activities will take place rain or shine. Josh, >> on Saturdays through September 26, the Arlington Historical Society's concert and beer garden series continues at the Jason Russell House. This event this Saturday, August 8th, from 2:30 to 6:30 p.m. features performances from Fuselage and Kingsley Flood on the historic lawn along with food from Atravete Arabar and beverages from Arlington Brewing Company. It's a chance to enjoy local music in one of Arlington's most historic settings. And as we all know, history and beer go well together. Now, we hope you check out these local events. If you've got time, let's turn our attention to our oped piece. We have two very special guests on the podcast this week. Um, Jean and Kristen. Gene Benson and Kristen Anderson. I will allow you to introduce yourselves. Today we're talking about something that I think is really important for all Arlington residents to be aware of and many of you are already aware of um which is CSOS and what's happening with the Aife Brook. So before we dive into that conversation, Gan, why don't you introduce yourself, let people know, um why you've come in today. >> Okay. So my name is Jean Benson. I'm on the steering committee of Save the Lwife Brook. And as I think a lot of people know, raw sewage is dumped in the brook often when it rains. And what Save the Lwife brook aims to do is to convince um the state MWR Cambridge and Somerville to stop doing the dumping. >> Great. And Kristen, >> yeah, my name is Kristen Anderson and um I am also a steering committee member um at Save the Wife Brooke. Um, I'm also a former a butter to the brook. I had um the brook flood water come into my house through the back door. I had no idea what was in the water. My neighbors didn't know what was in the water. Um, and we all got sick from it. And um, so um, that's why I'm here today because I want to make sure that this doesn't happen in the future. And we have right now a once-ina-lifetime opportunity to see the problem fixed. And um one thing that Save the Lwife Brooke has done besides um uh bring attention to the matter uh is to find solutions and we see solutions and so we're pushing forward um a positive plan to end sewage pollution at Elwifebrook. So before we go in a little further, can you tell me a little bit about the history of Sale the Save the Obrook, how it got started um and some of the the ma major things that are going on? Uh if people are not aware, if you haven't signed up for updates from the town, I highly recommend doing so. Um I received on July 29th that was the last time that there was a notice that the brook had um sewage that was being pumped through it and to for residents to be aware that if they were walking around the wife Brook area where it connects to Little River um just over the bridge uh Route 2 um that area was going to be impacted. and seeing those alerts so frequently and almost I feel like every single time that it rains >> um is it can be really off-putting and especially for those residents that live in those areas. >> Yeah. Um yeah. So, uh, I started this group, um, uh, after complaining repeatedly, um, to my friend David White, who's a longtime member of the Conservation Commission. Um, about this ongoing, uh, combined sewer overflow, sewage pollution being dumped into Elwifebrook. Um, and we decided and and David said, "Well, why don't we start a group and start letting people know about it?" Because when I would tell people about this, they were in complete disbelief. They could not believe uh very few people were aware that this was happening. This goes back to um uh days of the pandemic in 2020. And so we decided that we would start um this group and we would start with a tour of the combined sewer overflow outfalls along the brook. And um so we had we put flyers up and we called some friends and um uh sent out some emails and we asked them to join us um at uh the Massav Bridge over in um uh Bsentennial Park by the brook and um David St showed up and he's a longtime a butter um and uh George Le showed up and he's uh lives a couple blocks away from in the brook and Ann McDonald showed up and she's a Cambridge resident who lives on the other side of the brook. Um, and we said, "Okay, we're going to take a tour of these CSOs." Well, we didn't even know where the CSOS were or what they looked like. Luckily, because David St was there, I said, "Okay, David St. can you show us where the CSOS are?" And he was like, "You don't know where the CSOS are and you're giving a tour?" He's like, "Okay, I'll show you." And that that was the beginning of it. So we just started from there and we started a website and started collecting names on a petition and we have thousands of supporters and um David White said we have to get Gan Benson involved in this and Jean brings um immense uh uh you bring a lot to the table. So Gan why don't you talk a little bit about um uh your knowledge and uh experience. >> Okay. But first, I I do want to say for people who don't know that these C csos are basically pipes that dump into the brook when it rains and there are six of them in Elwifebrook. One is from Somerville, one is from Mass Water Resources Authority and four are from the city of Cambridge. and Elwife Brooke has more untreated sewage going out of CSOS than anywhere else in the Boston metropolitan area. So, this little brook is the worst of any place in the Boston metro area. So, um, I was an environmental lawyer, an environmental justice lawyer for much of my life and worked a lot on Clean Water Act issues. And actually, for a number of years, I worked at the Massachusetts Water Resources Authority, but I left in um 2003, so I've been gone long enough to feel comfortable in in doing this work on this side. >> Yeah. I guess if I could throw in again here, Josh, um, >> even using the term to me cso, it's it's kind of jargon, but I think I almost wish we could invent something else that says what it really is. It's a sewage discharge pipe. >> And Jean has a good point like >> and even you when you didn't really even know it was coming from, it's like it's still kind of a mystery, I think, to most people. It's like, okay, what is it? What what's happening here? And um just to repeat some of what Jean said, it's like the sewers treatment plants, as much as they've been updated at Deer Deer Island, um that you can't get the flow. It can't handle the flow when there's a mixed heavy rain and the normal raw sewage flow. So it has a backup release system where it's designed to blow it into nearby open water bodies. And you know in the big picture, Gan mentioned the number of sites and I was doing some math looking at things, but there's there's one looked like a real culprit to me is Cambridge 401A. It's another jargon type title and it last year 2025 I showed put out 9.5 million gallons. >> But even there, the engineering reports that one looks at it's they call them MGs and to me it's sort of softening somehow what we're talking about. We're talking millions of gallons of raw sewage. That's right. mixed into a small brook that has really not a lot of volume, right? >> Or a lot of movement in it. You know, in a normal day, the brook's not really moving that much. >> Um, but was funny to me, I picked up on one thing. It is linked to heavy rainfalls and climate change and so forth. And these things were designed probably these sewer systems, what 100 years old when they built these cso concepts. They they thought it was a good thing back then probably um to discharge it somewhere. But there was one number that jumped out at me at that 401 that site 401A. Um if you look at 2025 between August 14th and October 20th, it's roughly 60 days. 63% of its volume came out in storms in that short 60-day span. >> And that was like just under six million gallons. And that's gallons. Six millions of gallons. It's like >> one can picture millions of gallons. That's, you know, when your toilet flushes, you're talking two to five gallons depending on how old and how efficient your system you have. >> So divide, say four into that number. That's like that many toilets flushing. >> And you know, months, >> you you make an important point, which is so in 2021, a little more than 50 million gallons of sewage, combined sewage, was dumped into the brook. But you don't spread that out over 365 days. M >> it comes in short intense periods. >> And one of the um >> problems that's worse in the brook than anywhere else is that when it when it rains a lot, the brook overflows, >> overflows its banks >> and then it goes onto the public path. And we have pictures and videos on our website of people um with baby strollers going through the contaminated waters, little kids >> Yeah. >> riding bikes through the contaminated waters, people running, jogging through the contaminated waters. So, not only is using, you know, a brook as a open sewer unacceptable, but allowing it to flood into the park and as Kristen said, in really bad storms into people's backyards and into people's homes is unacceptable. >> Yeah, there there are and it's a very densely populated area. There are about 5,000 people who currently live in Elwife Brook's hundred-year flood plane. Um, so it really impacts a lot of people. Many people use that path. It's very popular and it's really a beautiful place to be except for the sewage, but on most days it smells terrible. I mean, it just smell it reeks. Um, and uh, I know that um, our friends in Cambridge and Somerville want to see this problem solved, too. They also use that parkland. It's not just Arlington that's impacted. Um, but you, Ed, you mentioned CAM 401A, which is the technical name for the Cso outfall that's at the the MBTA station land. Um, and that is the worst outfall, sewage outfall in all of the greater Boston area. And possibly the second worst one is downstream at Tan the Tannery Brook CSO, which is Somerville's ill wife cso out sewage outfall. >> Is that 001A? >> Yes. >> Yes. Psalm 001A. We call it the Tannery Brook CSO because it used to be a brook. There used to be a brook there and then Somerville um uh at the end of the uh 19th century in the 1800s basically buried it in the ground, put it inside um a concrete box. Um and at first they just it was just water that flowed through it, but then they started adding sewage to it. Now, that outfall is also really bad. And that one, it doesn't even do a very good job of screening out what what people what MWR refers to as floatables. And floatables are things that um like toilet paper, like solid human waste, like just the grossest thing you can condoms, used tampons. I mean, it's just absolutely disgusting. Um, and uh, so yeah, you you could have this amazing, beautiful stream going through these densely populated neighborhoods, but instead it's an open sewer. Um, so yeah, we look to fix that. >> Good. One thing I thought we'd bring up too is right now MWR and different agencies are presenting a plan that would be >> Thank you. A beautiful, beautiful segue, Ed. Yes. >> Theoretically would be completed by 2050 I think is the completion date which is 25 24 years from now which seems like a long time for from my perspective to be dealing with these issues. Um, I know your group did a letter to the Euronington editors and they published that which is great. I think it had some good links too that you could talk about as far as people can do some public hearing commentary sessions virtually. There's one virtual coming up August 10th that I think we'd like this group to be whoever's listening to us sign up for that and do something about. Um, but what it brings to mind, they're proposing some solutions with certain costs and you guys have some objection to some of their solutions. Could you talk about that a little bit? And I don't guess as a negative thing, it's just what what you're thinking. Yes. >> Yeah, sure. Um, so the MWR's plan includes projects for the Charles River, um, the Mystic River, and Elwifebrook. And in uh for the Charles River, they have hundreds of acres of sewer separation planned, most of it in Boston. Um >> just interject, sewer separation is when they get into the 21st century and they go into the streets and they put a separate sewer in. So then you have one for storm water and one for the sewage. So the sewage can go to the treatment plant and it doesn't get a lot of storm water and it doesn't overflow. So that's what almost every community has in the Boston metro area, but not Somerville, not Cambridge, not Boston. >> Arlington, for instance, has a separated sewer system. The combined sewer system, with a combined sewer system, you have to have combined sewer overflow, combined sewer outfalls. Um and so the best solution to that is sewer separation. Um and that means digging up the roads which is um >> disruptive and it takes time. Um and uh replacing the single pipe basically with two pipes um or really just adding a pipe I think. Um, and then making sure that the surrounding buildings are connected to the correct pipes. Um, so that all of the sewage is going in one pipe to the wastewater treatment plant and all the storm water is going to another place which is usually a water body like the Charles or the Mystic River. for Elwifebrook, it would have to go to a storm water wetland, um, which is basically like a constructed park land that's beautiful and supports wildlife and cleans the storm water and reduces flooding downstream. Um and so what we're looking for is sewer separation um and storm green storm water infrastructure with these uh uh storm water wetlands. And the reason that we think that that's so important is because by removing the storm water from uh the sewer system, you are increasing capacity in the regional sewer system. Um, you're not wasting money by treating storm water at Deer Island. You're reducing um, basement backups, CSOS, combined sewer overflows, and also what are called SSOs, which are sanitary sewer overflows. That's when you just have like sewage coming up through the manhole covers in the streets. MWR's system, their regional sewer system is often overwhelmed during these rain events. And so by doing sewer separation, you would see less of that >> and it would be it's it's just kind of a win-win winwin. Um the cities would have to do quite a lot of work in the process. Mhm. >> So in Cambridge for instance, um they have uh ordinances that would require them to add um bike lanes and also because they're tearing up the street and putting the street back together, they'd have to um also uh plant more trees for their urban tree ordinance. Um, another thing they would have to do is if they found um leaking gas lines, they would have to fix those leaking gas lines. We hear these things and we think, "This all sounds great." We talk to Cambridge residents and they're like, "That sounds great. I want that for my neighborhood." >> Um, the disruption is real, though. >> Um, so, and there's quite a lot of, you know, it's it's a lot of work and it would be expensive. Um, but the money is there to support doing it from the Massachusetts Water Resources Authority. And so we're saying, well, why not just do that? Because the plan that that they have presented is 99.9% tanks and storage and only 0.1% sewer separation. Mhm. >> So that means that once you have these larger storms, and those larger storms would be likely flood events as well, you're going to have way more sewage going into the brook because you haven't done any sewer separation. Um so the solution is sewer separation. Bring the old infrastructure um uh uh up to date, modernize it. >> And I guess from an engineering standpoint, that could be designed incrementally. You wouldn't do all of Cambridge or all of any big tract of land. You'd have to go by segment somehow as you work your way through. Yeah. And then >> but I guess two things as you were speaking I'd like to dwell on the financial a little bit. Um what I made a note to myself here as you were talking about how are people avoiding fines? It's my experience like when there's violations I have experience in New York State if if you're in violation of pollution and different rules that's are set by the state not even the EPA but state stuff. There were significant fines that got monstrous if you kept going. How where's that? What's happening there? >> There there are a couple things. One is because there are csos, the state has rules that allow them to continue to exist. So they issue what's known as water quality variances. And there is a water quality variance for Elife Brook, which means they continue to dump sewage in it. So, as long as they meet the requirements of the varants, >> they're allowed to continue to dump sewage, but they have to come up with plans to reduce or eliminate csos. There was a plan that they worked on. It didn't completely work. Uh, so that two of the six ones in awife brookke, the summerville one and Cambridge 401A don't even meet those limits. and they have to come up with a new plan. That's what's out for public comment. That's why they're holding meetings about it. But their plan is for the tanks. Um, this is also in federal court. It's the last little piece of the Boston Harbor case and MWA has asked the court to relieve it from any responsibility for the two outfalls in Elwifebrook that don't meet the limits. and the court will decide what to do about to do about that at this point. So, it's a complicated sort of regulatory process. It would be great if there was some sort of enforcement action taken against them for the two ones that are out of compliance right now, but really the bigger picture is let's get a good plan and not the plan that they've proposed to fix it. So what would people do to promote the plan that you guys like would they attend these public commentary comment sessions and then um will that be effective? I don't know >> there there is an open comment period that's happening right now. Um and uh we um have just published a blog post on our website with um uh information about >> wifebrook.org. Save the wifebrook.org. That's right. Um and uh there is there's a a link to uh providing uh public comment there. And um so that's what you want to do is is provide um a public comment. And you basically just want to say enough is enough. Let's finish this job. MWR did an amazing job with Boston Harbor cleaning that up. I mean it used to be disgusting. just absolutely disgusting. Um, we should have a safe place um to to a safe park to go to um a safe path to walk and bike along and we should have um neighborhoods that are safe to live in. >> Yeah. Well, Jean Kristen, thank you so much for coming in to talk about this. Please check out savethewifebrook.org. The public comment period is is now open for the next five months, I believe. And so >> until September 30th, >> although September 30th, we've asked for a one month extension. We don't know if they'll get we'll get it or not. >> So until September 30th with potentially, fingers crossed, a one-mon extension. Um I think that wraps things up here. So thank you all for listening to Amplify Arlington. If you missed anything or want to listen again, find us on ACMI's YouTube page or wherever you get your podcasts. ACMI, focused on you. >> Very good. Good job. Excellent work. >> Oh, that went by fast.