Hey, there! Log in / Register
Cambridge switching to crisp, clear, clean MWRA water for several months
By adamg on Sun, 08/28/2022 - 3:03pm
Cambridge Day reports Cambridge will be shutting off the water from its reservoir out by 128 on Tuesday for several months because it could take that long to acquire and install better filters to reduce what has become a rising amount of nasty PFAS in Cambridge's supply. In contrast, MWRA water, which Bostonians and other greater-Boston-area residents drink, has shown little to no PFAS.
Neighborhoods:
Free tagging:
Ad:
Support Universal Hub
Help keep Universal Hub going. If you like what we're up to and want to help out, please consider a (completely non-deductible) contribution.
Comments
Color me shocked
You’re telling me that a drinking water reservoir abutting an interstate freeway, that’s also less than 5 miles south of an Air Force base, is contaminated with PFAS?
Utterly shocked. Could not have imagined this at all.
Firefighting foam
It's probably mostly from firefighting readiness drills at Hanscom and it's probably 50 years of build up (Class B foams started getting use in the 70s and it wasn't until 2018 that the DoD realized it was poisoning the aquifers with it near military bases).
What is Cambridge’s (and
What is Cambridge’s (and other metro Boston cities like Winchester’s) reasoning being not being permanent on MWRA supply. It’s better tasting water than Cambridge in my experience, and would open up the reservoirs including fresh pond (currently fenced off) to recreation. Which is needed in metro Boston for people especially in the hot (and getting hotter) summer days for people who don’t have beach houses or boats, or the money to drive and park at beaches.
Because MWRA is very expensive.
It’s customers (I am not currently one), we’re made to foot the bill for the cleanup of Boston harbor, a mess 300 years in the making. The water is much better and the supply is fine, but signing up with that agency is very daunting.
Cambridge is already an MWRA member
Usually just for sewage, but that's how how they got to sign up for its water. So Cambridge has already been paying for the harbor cleanup.
MHIP
Probably 20 years ago the Globe ran a story about how the MWRA guards its membership on the water side, mainly to make sure the supply doesn’t diminish. Cambridge will be paying a lot more for their supply than Boston does, as well.
Conversely, they are more open with sewer membership, as more members means more money to treat the wastewater.
Thanks. That answers my
Thanks. That answers my question as to why MWRA water is more expensive than Cambridge's own supply: unfair pricing to punish a newcomer.
It wouldn't make sense for the underlying costs to be cheaper for a city of 100,000 to manage their own watershed, reservoirs, and filtration plant, rather than sharing costs with a system that serves several million people which has to have a better economy of scale.
I think a buy-in surcharge is legit.
Cities and towns not already in have avoided the MWRA like the plague for a long time. Can't really blame them, no one was asking to sign up when they were building Deer Island, tunneling out into MA bay and building a new aqueduct 600 feet below Metrowest. Billion$ were spent and are still being paid off. Towns (rather than the people who live in them) shouldn't expect to just show up today and expect to pay the same flat rate as people who have been funding all of the above for decades. If you allowed that every town in the state would line up to join.
That said, Cambridge is a special case right now and I hope some kind of accommodation could be made because of the emergency.
Not exactly
I suggest you check out the MWRA website for a cleaner history.
It isn't "punishing" anyone. The cities and towns agreed to back up water supply rates when they opted out of the MWRA system. It costs actual money to connect them up - like actual people going into actual places to physically start up the supply. Then it needs to be tested since these systems don't run regularly. They also don't pay for the water supply system needed to get the water to Cambridge - the pricing reflects that.
They made a choice to not join the system
Cities and towns were allowed to opt out if they could maintain their own systems.
Some of the bigger cities had enough capacity to make it worth their while to stay off the state system.
Other communities that are having constant problems due to development and areas of town with salt water intrusion or well failures adding people to their systems are considering joining.
Why doesn’t Cambridge just use MWRA water?
Aside from this PFAS issue Cambridge water has very high mineral content which has corroded pipes and wrecked appliances for years (something I imagine their major research institutions aren’t too happy about)?
Notable
Every time there’s a problem with the MWRA supply (which is very rare*) Cambridge makes a big deal about how superior their locally controlled system is. Yet they have no problem with MWRA water when their system is on the mend.
*This last happened when that bolt broke in Weston and the Boston area minus Cambridge had a boil order for a week or so. 10 years ago?
In the bad drought 5 years ago Cambridge had very low water.
The MWRA towns had no real problems while The Peoples Republic kept show pics of a muddy res.
There was a newer aqueduct installed by the the MWRA which took pressure (literally) off the existing 100 year old pipe. I don’t think there’s been any breakage since then.
Equally important
While the MWRA is best known for Deer Island and the harbor cleanup, its other major project was working on the water system. Both the MWRA and its member towns have invested heavily over the past few decades in fixing leaky mains and pipes, to the point where the MWRA now pumps far less water out of the Quabbin than it did in 1980.
The MWRA says the "safe yield" of the Quabbin, even in an extended drought, is 300 million gallons of water a day. Last year, the average daily draw was 191 million gallons. Unlike in towns with their own wells right now, there is no water emergency in MWRA communities.
The reason for the new aqueduct, the one that kind of exploded at the end in Weston, was to add redundancy to the system - the Hultman, the main aqueduct into the Boston area, had never been shut down for repairs and it had developed numerous leaks along its path over the decades.
I had family and friends
I had family and friends growing up in Cambridge, Bedford, Tewksbury etc... The Chelsea and Winthrop wing of the family was often perplexed about the near constant water shortages or do not use orders we heard about. At the time I had no clue the Quabbin exists or how it was made (and so many people in Boston still don't know) but now as an adult I see how huge of an investment it was.
It's actually one of the reasons why while I knew those other communities were supposed to be "nicer" I often didn't feel that way as a kid lol. I still have memories of my aunt yelling at me not to drink the water from the faucet I poured into a cup.
I realize it would cost Cambridge more money to be in the MWRA system but honestly they have the money. Just pay for it... And then if you must send a water surcharge Bill to the big universities and then hold a water festival thanking them for helping foot the extra cost. If I was paying Cambridge prices and getting their water I'd be willing to pay a little more to get a better water supply. I'd also be curious how much they actually do end up spending on their water including pensions for workers , equipment and if it would be possible for them to lease out the land that's currently off limits because of the supply.
Infrastructure
Infrastructure projects aren't sexy, but they pay off.
I followed Adam's link, and saw that, along with finding and fixing or replacing leaky pipes, the changes included putting low-flow plumbing into a lot of buildings.
Conservation has outrun population increases
Pretty amazing, that.
The only time the Quabbin got low enough to worry about was during the 1960s.
The MWRA has successfully promoted conservation and successfully tightened up the system to reduce waste. The net effect: at least eight years of water when the reservoir is full. One of the more "overbuilt" systems in the world.
That's why MWRA cities and towns are not having water restrictions.
It's great the Quabbin has capacity
But I still feel unsettled when we go through a long drought like this. I don't water my lawn and I conserve water wherever possible even if when there's no pressing "need". Everyone should do the same.
We don't know how long this drought could last and there's no backup to the Quabbin.
2016
Cambridge hooked into MWRA when the reservoir went below 10% capacity.
Worcester and a number of other cities and towns did the same.
I remember a side conversation behind me at a NOAA drought workshop in 2016 discussing whether it might be possible to connect Southern NH by way of one of the border cities because there were some old connections around. It was getting pretty desperate.
Cool, clear water
Cambridge's chloride levels
Cambridge's chloride levels are through the roof, thanks to road salt from Route 128. Who is going to do anything about it? Of course the people whose careers are managing Cambridge's water system wouldn't advocate for eliminating their own jobs.
Progress
In the 1950s, building Route 128 was seen as progress. Even if it went right through the middle of the City of Cambridge's watershed. Imagine trying to construct it today, it would be a mess of 4(f) and other federal issues to try to do so. But we didn't care about salt and PFAS in the '50s, other than the Russians trying to control our minds with fluoride.
Given that Cambridge can turn a valve and switch to MWRA water, which is, by most accounts, superior water (I know there are people who say they can tell the difference, I can't, but I might be hard-of-tasting for water), maybe it's time for Cambridge to make a more permanent switch. The Quabbin seems to have ample capacity, and Cambridge could potentially integrate its reservoir system in with the Quabbin system as an emergency backup (like several others in the region). I know the City is proud of its water system, but it might be time to consider a different path.
Thanks!
I seriously enjoy good water talk (no sarcasm!).
Could have been like the town
Could have been like the town south of Boston that I grew up in, where they had to move the rainbow gunk out of the way of the water tanks. My parents felt that kool-aid was better than soda but did they know that the water glowed in the dark for the first ten years of my life?