To the Editor:
I moved to Arlington 40 years ago. It seemed a solid, stable place to live and has indeed turned out to be so. I was appalled when I learned that the CSOs from Somerville and Cambridge regularly overflowed and dumped raw sewage into Alewife Brook and then into the Mystic River.
East Arlington is not the only one to bear the consequences of this healthcare and social travesty. Also included are the rate-paying citizens of Medford, Everett, Chelsea, and Somerville, as well as those of East Boston, Charlestown and the North End, where the river eventually dumps the sewage and runoff it has collected from the CSOs.
The MWRA has calculated the likelihood, frequency and volume of bad weather in the 2050s. It most certainly will be worse than at present. Unfortunately, we have repeatedly discovered that climate change impacts us more severely than we once thought likely. The same underestimation is likely to play out for the future. It seems unwise to initiate a project which – even before it begins – the MWRA acknowledges will not solve the problem.
The future is coming, whether we like it or not. Resources are always limited and inadequate to meet the needs of an urban area. The future is unknowable and there are indications of hard times ahead. Let’s be smart and build a system that will maintain and improve Boston as a special and desirable place to live, both currently and as we address the dire consequences of inadequate housing, keeping in mind that solving that issue will only make this one worse.
I urge you to revisit the current plan, considering the brook, the surrounding communities, and the second- and third-order impacts. These are the costs that reality will impose on us whether we want them or not. I watched with admiration the successful reconstruction by the MWRA of our regional sewer system in the 1970s and 80s. Let’s do that again. We’re Boston – there are lots of really smart people here. Surely we can come up with a better, more sanitary solution, one that better utilizes the resources we have available.
Gary Goldsmith, retired physician
This Letter to the Editor was published on Sept. 4, 2026.
