Misinformation from MWRA

For Immediate Release
Contact:  Tom Palmer, Friends of the Blue Hills / 617-698-7759

The Massachusetts Water Resources Authority recently announced that it would award a bid later this month for its proposed $38 million buried tank project in the Blue Hills Reservoir on Chickatawbut Road in Quincy.

By filling over half of the 16-acre reservoir with dirt and concrete, MWRA will produce the greatest net loss of protected wetlands approved anywhere in the commonwealth since 1984.

Misleading and inaccurate MWRA statements about the site and the work have repeatedly found their way into press accounts and even court rulings, evidently because MWRA believes that anything recited often enough becomes true.

We're paying for these stories just like we pay for MWRA water and will be expected to pay for the tanks. But how credible are they?  Judge for yourself.


The Reservoir was never a wetland

MWRA endorses this fiction on its website, linking to a letter by a Quincy native to the GLOBE:

http://www.boston.com/news/local/articles/2006/03/09/pond_plan_for_blue_hills_makes_sense/

In fact the Reservoir was built over Twinbrook Swamp, so called because it lay at the headwaters of both Milton's Pine Tree Brook and Quincy's Furnace Brook. Twinbrook Swamp was protected for fifty-five years by the Reservation before it was dammed for the Reservoir by the MDC in 1951.  Here is the Metropolitan Park Commission's 1895 topographical map of the vicinity, made shortly after the entire area was acquired with public money "for the preservation of natural scenery" as part of the new Blue Hills Reservation:

http://www.friendsofthebluehills.org/reservoir/release110106/1895.htm

In 1951, long before the Wetlands Protection Act, Twinbrook was converted from a wooded wetland to open water, with no net loss of wetlands. Today the public value of wetlands is recognized by law, but MWRA insists that it be allowed to permanently eliminate 8.7 acres and replace none.


The reservoir is currently closed to the public

This MWRA factoid is intended to persuade us that millions of tons of dirt and concrete will improve access to the area.  For a preview of what the completed work might look like, see this smaller at-grade project in the Middlesex Fells:

http://www.friendsofthebluehills.org/reservoir/release110106/fellstank.htm

In truth, the Reservoir has been freely accessible since the Dukakis era, when it was shut down by MWRA predecessor MDC after operating less than thirty years.  Trail guides published in the interim by MDC and DCR show historic hiking paths throughout the area, and they recommend the Reservoir to fishermen:

http://www.friendsofthebluehills.org/reservoir/release110106/trailmapcomb.htm

We have often seen hikers and fishermen using and enjoying the Reservoir, and we have done so ourselves.  It is the largest body of clean open water remaining in Quincy.

We also note that the Reservoir can be seen from several points along the Skyline Trail, and the view from Chickatawbut Road, at 1200 feet, is the longest water view from any road in the Reservation. The only sense in which the statement "currently closed to the public" is accurate is in reference to the NO TRESPASSING signs MWRA tacked up on the dam when it began draining the Reservoir thirteen months ago.


There is no such thing as the Blue Hills Reservation

We note that MWRA's webpage describing the $38 million tank project makes no mention of the century-old Reservation, even though it is the finest component of Boston's metropolitan park system, and the tanks are the largest construction inside it since the interstates.


The tanks will protect us from terrorists

Added late in project planning, this argument went right to the top even though it was never elaborated. Frankly, we don't get it:

http://www.friendsofthebluehills.org/reservoir/GlobeSoCrtoon100106.htm


The tank project has "a long list of supporters"

This list is perhaps MWRA's most well-kept secret.  So far as we know, not a single elected official has endorsed the project.  In contrast, one mayor, two conservation commissions, seven legislators, and sixteen statewide environmental organizations have asked that the wetlands be replaced.

We urged MWRA to provide us with the supporters list, but got no response. It is cited on page 7 of MWRA's "Five-year Progress Report" released early this year:

http://www.friendsofthebluehills.org/reservoir/release110106/pg7.htm


Not so long ago MWRA did not insist that parks, wetlands, and open space be sacrificed for its expansion plans.  When it built a massive buried tank beside the Mass Pike in Weston in 1999, it not only consented to replace the wetlands that were lost, but gave the town $3.5 million to buy conservation land.

But now MWRA considers that the environmental standards it once followed, like the state's no net loss of wetlands policy, are too confining and must be set aside.

We don't agree.  We consider that the Blue Hills Reservation is too valuable to become a doormat for MWRA or any other public agency.  We are amazed that this project continues to lurch forward despite its dubious rationale, breathtaking price tag, and complete lack of public support.

Let's protect the Reservation for ourselves and future generations. 
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