Special Threats!

With this post, I will highlight several threats to the Charles River Watershed. Most of these topics, I have touched on in previous posts but will expand on here.

Development:

The Charles River watershed runs through one of the biggest cities in the country, and millions rely on the water and services it provides. Around the Boston area, some areas have as much as 80% impervious ground cover creating problems for draining, pollution, runoff, and flooding (CRWA). The following picture is from a map of the impervious surfaces around Boston, This image is from 2005, and there has been almost 2 decades of development since then.

Image Source: Charles River Watershed Association

As mentioned in a previous post, there are 19 dams around the Chares River Watershed. Many of them are in states of disrepair and no longer provide benefit to the people that live here, while also actively harming local ecosystems. These dams have become a focus of ecological and indigenous rights pressure as activists try to get them removed. In the meantime, the local government just approved millions of dollars for repairs and maintenance of dams in 2024.

Water Quality:

The Charles has a bad reputation for it's water quality, even earning the nickname "that Dirty Water" by Standells song Dirty Water. Since 1995, there has been a deliberate push to monitor and improve the water quality of the Charles River with annual ratings from the EPA and work by government and community leaders to clean up that dirty water.

Below is a graphic created by the Charles River Watershed Association for the most recent EPA rating.

Image Source: Charles River Watershed Association

These grades represent how safe the Charles is for recreational use such as boating and swimming. It is only in recent years that swimming in the Charles is becoming a possibility, although swimming is still only allowed in specific areas and under specific conditions. 

A major issue for water quality is Combined Sewer Overflows (CSOs), that lead to sewage being washed into the river and harbor by rainwater. In 2023, 39 CSOs lead to 70 million gallons of stormwater mixed with untreated sewage into the river (Cut the Crap project). You may find an interactive map of CSOs in the Charles HERE. 

Image Source: Charles River Watershed Association

For a different Class, I made a slideshow about a threat to the Charles that I wanted to add here as well. Although I have shown on this blog that the water quality for the Charles has improved, just a few weeks ago we just had the first major cyanobacteria bloom in 4 years. Blooms are created by excessive nutrients released in the water by pollution and waste.

Flooding:

As a result of climate change, participation in the watershed has increased by 60% since 1958 and is expected to increase by up to 78% over the next 50 years (CRWA, 2024). The infrastructure we have is not well equipped to deal with that, but a collaboration between the local governments and community leaders across the watershed, the Charles River Climate Compact, has formed to prepare for and avoid the damage from extreme weather and flooding. This model is one of the compacts first actions and lets you examine the flooding by storms all the way into 2070.

Sources:

Gov. Healey Awards Nearly $14 Million in Funding for Dams and Coastal Infrastructure. (2024, September 26). Charles River Watershed Association. Charles River Watershed Association. https://www.crwa.org/river-current/gov-healey-awards-nearly-14-million-in-funding-for-dams-and-coastal-infrastructure

Cevasco, C. (2019, June 18). Damming Fish and Indians: Starvation and Dispossession in Colonial Massachusetts. The Junto. https://earlyamericanists.com/2019/06/18/damming-fish-and-indians-starvation-and-dispossession-in-colonial-massachusetts/

https://www.crwa.org/cutthecrap 

https://www.crwa.org/climate-compact