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News from the Friends of the Blue
Hills Bye bye Blue Hills Reservoir December 20, 2005 By a decision dated Dec. 16, FBH's request for an injunction halting the ongoing draining of Blue Hills Reservoir on Chickatawbut Road in Quincy was denied by judge Charles Hely of Norfolk Superior Court. We sought the injunction in order to protect the fish and aquatic life that will be killed by the draining. The Reservoir has not been drained since 1977 or used since 1981. It was built in 1951 over a 16-acre wetland that was part of the first acquisition of land for the Blue Hills Reservation in 1893. MWRA is emptying the Reservoir in order to construct two concrete water storage tanks 40 feet high and 240 feet in diameter. They will eliminate over half of the Reservoir and replace the longest water view from any road in the park with a giant mound of dirt covering the tanks. It goes without saying that the $30 million tank project, which is the largest construction proposed inside the park for fifty years, will do major and lasting damage to the century-old Blue Hills Reservation. Nonetheless, since 1999 Friends of the Blue Hills has offered to support the project provided that MWRA agreed to replace the wetlands that will be lost, as is consistent with the commonwealth's long-standing 'no net loss of wetlands' policy. But MWRA has never offered to replace any of the wetlands it proposes to eliminate. As a result, the tanks will produce the largest net loss of wetlands permitted anywhere in Massachusetts since 1990 or earlier. For many years the state Dept. of Environmental Protection, which is charged with administering the Wetlands Protection Act, has routinely required public agencies which sought to fill protected wetlands to replace those same wetlands on a 1:1 basis. DEP Commissioner Robert Golledge chose to abandon that standard at the Reservoir without even requiring MWRA to explore options for meeting it. It is not the mission of the Friends of the Blue Hills to protect environmental standards from governmental efforts to undermine them. But we know that these standards have broad public support: seven legislators, two conservation commissions, sixteen statewide environmental organizations, and the mayor of Quincy called on MWRA to replace the lost wetlands, to no avail. Last week state representative Bruce Ayers (D--Quincy/Randolph) filed legislation that would require the tank project to meet the no-net-loss standard. Passage of this bill will reaffirm government's responsibility to follow its own rules, and prevent the public interest in wetlands and open space from being permanently subordinated. We expect that MWRA will oppose the bill, claiming it will make an already expensive project more costly. But the tanks will merely store water collected elsewhere, and there was no need to site them in protected wetlands in the heart of the Reservation. Indeed, MWRA has yet to make a convincing case that the tanks are necessary at all. Demand for MWRA water has been declining for decades, and the MWRA's longest-serving board member has called the project "costly and redundant." Although we recognize MWRA's mandate to provide a safe and clean public water supply, we do not believe this supply must come at the expense of other public interests. That is why we will continue to oppose the Reservoir tanks until MWRA consents to make them fiscally and environmentally responsible. Thomas Palmer President Friends of the Blue Hills Links: Bill filed by Rep. Ayers: "An Act Relative to the Protection of Certain Wetlands in the Blue Hills Reservation" (83K Word document) more info at: http://www.friendsofthebluehills.org/BHreservoir.htm ___________________________________________________________________________ You have received this message because you are on the Friends of the Blue Hills email list of members and other interested parties. If you have any comments, corrections to this list, or would like to be removed from it, please click here. |