The Bulletin reports the river has incredibly high levels of both the sort of bacteria usually found with human waste and toxic PCBs - which is why the owner of the shopping plaza on the Hyde Park/Mattapan line hasn't put in the riverside restaurant he once wanted to.
On Friday at 5 p.m., DCR opened the newest section of the Neponset Greenway, a 1.3-mile stretch from near Central Avenue into Mattapan that includes the new Harvest River Bridge crossing the river between Mattapan and Milton.
If you pull into the parking lot for the Ryan Playground, on River Street, sort of opposite Gladeside Avenue in Mattapan, follow the new path into the woods, which will take you to the Greenway. Turn left and you'll soon come to the bridge, the river and the path towards Lower Mills. Read more.
Mark Smith watched the snow come down on Paul's Bridge and the Neponset River at the Hyde Park/Milton line this afternoon.
Ben Franklin outside Old City Hall was looking good in the snow as well: Read more.
Looking across the Neponset River Reservation towards the Great Blue Hill from Meadow Road, in the southernmost reaches of Hyde Park.
Among the items volunteers pulled out of the Neponset and its banks in Hyde Park during an annual clean-up drive on Sept. 24: Two cash registers (empty of cash), a Boston Herald honor box dumped near the river in 1995 (based on the date of a newspaper still inside it), a house oil tank, a wheelbarrow, computers, a highway sign, 12-foot sections of iron fencing, baby potties, TVs, radios, cinder blocks, bricks and other construction material, 18 shopping carts, 49 tires and lots of spaghetti that appeared to have been recently made.
The Neponset River Watershed Association sent volunteers to several points along the Neponset in Hyde Park this morning for its annual river cleanup.
Behind Le Phare Church on River Street on the Hyde Park/Mattapan line, volunteers struck the mother load of trash: An entire hillside covered in what looked like the detritus of months of buffets. Read more.
A drone video posted on Scott Eisen's channel shows the Milton rowing team and some fascinating scenery along the Neponset estuary.
People who cross the Neponset River between Dorchester and Milton on Granite Avenue traverse a bridge that looks like, and is, a relic of the days when the Neponset River was a working river.
The nation's first railroad, built in 1826, ferried granite blocks from a Quincy quarry to a wharf on the banks on Gulliver's Brook, which is just upstream of the bridge, and from which the builders of the Bunker Hill Monument got their granite blocks.
Schooner being loaded with blocks from the Quincy railway (the three-wheeled thing is one of the "cars"- from the BPL's photo collection):
Stanley Staco reports Boston and Quincy firefighters started searching the Neponset River Bridge - and the river under it - shortly after 8 p.m. They are now searching the water past the bridge in Dorchester Bay
Megs was among the drivers who got stuck in the resulting traffic jam at Neponset Circle.
Milton, Boston and State police continued searching along the Neponset River for Thomas Baker, 62, but began searching the woods of the nearby Blue Hills Reservation as well.
A roving UHub photographer who happened to be at the 88 Wharf building in Milton this afternoon watched a couple of guys settle in on the Dorchester side of the Neponset River for some ice fishing.
A report that somebody jumped off the Neponset River Bridge around 8:15 p.m. brought Boston firefighters by land and sea until they got an update that the jumper was at the Granite Avenue drawbridge upstream a bit, where they met state troopers, who told them that it was a couple of kids jumping off the bridge - who came out soaking wet on the Dorchester side and then ran away when they spotted a statie looking at them.
Ed Coppinger, who happened to be right in the area, reports that 30 first responders showed up, before realizing it was just a couple of kids, not a potential suicide.
Fireboat waiting for a drawbridge opening that never came. Photo by Todd Duval.
A brush fire along the Neponset River just upriver from the Granite Avenue bridge around noon brought a BFD fireboat - which then couldn't reach the fire because the bridge turned out to be stuck.
BFD spokesman Steve MacDonald reports it turned out the river near the fire was too shallow for the boat, anyway, and that the fire burned itself out about an hour later.
News that the bridge couldn't get up brought the Coast Guard and the State Police, to try to see what to do about that, because the Coast Guard requires draw bridges to be able to draw.
Brian MacLean photographed the Neponset River in Lower Mills yesterday.
Copyright Brian MacLean. Posted in the Universal Hub pool on Flickr.
Wicked bad traffic into Boston, wicked high tide at Neponset River Bridge. Photo by Boston Harbor Beacon.
State Police, of course, closed Morrissey Boulevard early this morning, which is what you can expect from a road built roughly two inches above sea level next to a bay. And that, naturally, meant shutting the exit to Morrissey off I-93 northbound.
At 7:59 a.m., Steve Bickerton tweeted:
Neponset Circle backed up Gallivan Blvd. to Eire Pub.
Michelle added:
Neponset Ave is a parking lot. 15 mins from Coffey Street to Lil Peach.
Meanwhile, upbay at Castle Island, Steve Brady reported:
The ocean is slowly devouring the Sugar Bowl, and the water is up to the sidewalk at parts of the causeway. Couldn't even see a hint of the harbor islands from the Sugar Bowl, either. Just the swollen ocean. Very eerie.
The Neponset River Watershed Association tweets that smelt were spotted yesterday in Quincy's Gulliver Creek, heading up the Neponset on their annual spawning run. Like the alewife, the smelt are anadromous, which means they live in the ocean but return to fresh water to spawn.
Neponset brush fire. Photo by BFD.
Boston firefighters are in the brush along the Neponset behind Ventura Street in Dorchester Lower Mills, battling a large brush fire.
The Dorchester Reporter reports on the latest state plans for a trail along the Neponset River from Dorchester to Hyde Park by way of Milton and Mattapan.
Mike Ball, who lives at the Hyde Park end, considers the trail's progress.
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