Boston Harbor - History

History

Since its discovery by John Smith in 1614, Boston Harbor has been an important port in American history. It was the site of the Boston Tea Party as well as almost continuous backfilling of the harbor until the 19th century. By 1660 almost all imports came to the greater Boston area and the New England coast through the waters of Boston Harbor. A rapid influx of people transformed Boston into a booming city. The health of the harbor quickly decreased as the population of Boston increased. As early as the late 19th century Boston citizens were advised not to swim in any portion of the Harbor. In the 1800s two of the first steam sewage stations were built (one in East Boston and one later on Deer Island). With these mandates the harbor was seeing small improvements, but raw sewage was still continuously pumped into the harbor. In 1919 the Metropolitan District Commission was created to oversee and regulate the quality of harbor water. However, not much improvement was seen and general public awareness of the poor quality of water was very low. In 1972 the Clean Water Act was passed in order to help promote increased national water quality.

Boston did not receive a clean water act waiver from the Environmental Protection Agency, leaving Boston with little incentive to increase water quality of the harbor. Since the mid 1970s organizations within the Boston community have battled for a cleaner Boston Harbor. More recently, the harbor was the site of the $4.5 billion dollar Boston Harbor Project. Failures at Nut Island sewage treatment plant in Quincy and the companion Deer Island plant adjacent to Winthrop had far-reaching environmental and political effects. Fecal coliform bacteria levels forced frequent swimming prohibitions along the harbor beaches and the Charles River for many years. The city of Quincy sued the Metropolitan District Commission (MDC) and the separate Boston Water and Sewer Commission in 1982 charging unchecked systemic pollution of the city’s waterfront. That suit was followed by one by the Conservation Law Foundation and finally by the United States government, resulting in the landmark court-ordered cleanup of Boston Harbor.

The lawsuits forced then Massachusetts Governor Michael Dukakis to propose separating the water and sewer treatment divisions from the MDC, resulting in the creation of the Massachusetts Water Resources Authority in 1985. The slow progress of the cleanup became a key theme of the 1988 U.S. presidential election as George H.W. Bush defeated Dukakis partly through campaign speeches casting doubt on the governor’s environmental record, which Dukakis himself had claimed was better than that of Bush. The court ordered cleanup continued throughout the next two decades and is still ongoing.

Before the cleanup projects, the water was so polluted that The Standells released a song in 1966 called Dirty Water about the sorry state of the Charles River. The song is still popular with Red Sox fans and is played regularly at Fenway Park.

Since the writing of the song, the water quality in both the Harbor and the Charles River has significantly improved, and the projects have dramatically transformed Boston Harbor from one of the filthiest in the nation to one of the cleanest. Today Boston Harbor is safe for fishing and for swimming nearly every day, though there are still beach closings after even small rainstorms, caused by bacteria-laden storm water and the occasional combined sewer overflow.