Hannah Sammut

By Hannah Sammut

Until about 30 years ago, the Charles River was dubbed an “open sewer.” Millions of tons of raw sewage were pumped into the water daily due to crumbling infrastructure. The Standells even based their 1965 hit “Dirty Water” on the repugnant river. Fed up with the public safety and environmental risks associated with the polluted water, grassroots organizations campaigned for a complete re-evaluation of how the Charles was maintained.

And it worked. Decades of data collection, lobbying and research identified the key problem — combined sewers. Heavy rainfall was causing these antiquated systems to pump wastewater straight into waterways. The Boston Sewer and Water Commission eliminated most of the problematic infrastructure, and built lines for wastewater to be sent to the newly constructed Deer Island Treatment Plant. 

Forty-three Massachusetts communities send their untreated water to be cleaned at this facility. 300 million gallons of clean water is then pumped into the Atlantic. In the short term, this project was highly successful; the Charles is now the cleanest urban river in the United States. Ask any Bostonian; they’re proud to share the victory of making their water swimmable again.

However, the glory days are over, and the organizations that campaigned for a cleanup are now realizing the unintended effects of their actions. Many, including Bob Zimmerman, former executive director of the Charles River Watershed Association and current professor at Harvard University, are trying to convince the public that the way water is claimed as a resource needs to be done in a more flexible and sustainable way.

“We’re dead wrong,” he says. “We’ve proved that the infrastructure that we’ve built will not sustain us.”

The very same treatment plant that diverted sewage from the Charles and the harbor is actually proving to be detrimental to ecosystems.

“We’re consuming water at such a rate, and we’re not putting any back into wetlands,” Zimmerman says. With reclaimed wastewater getting pumped back into the ocean rather than cycling back to rivers, resources are being depleted. Last September alone, regions of Massachusetts experienced extreme drought.

Luckily, there is a solution. Zimmerman and the rest of his team at the Charles River Watershed Association (CRWA) have developed a novel plan for reducing the current strain on rivers and streams.

Community Water and Energy Resource Centers (CWERCs) are proposed infrastructure plans that not only reduce the amount of clean water being pumped back into oceans, but would also produce heat, electricity and fertilizer as byproducts. While the idea may seem outlandish, the CRWA not only proved that these centers would work, but that it would be completely self-sustaining financially. Even if these systems received no additional capital investment, the cost of the facility would “break even” over a span of 20 years. The centers operate on a much smaller scale, therefore minimizing the strain on one particular resource.

The best part? CWERCs can be adapted to fit into any urban or suburban setting, nationwide.

In simple terms, it would work like this: raw sewage would be brought to the CWERC, which would be treated on-site rather than pumped to a larger treatment facility. The water would be cleaned by a bioreactor, which contains anaerobic organisms that eat the solid sludge with the assistance of local food waste (which would otherwise end up in landfills at a high cost). The organisms excrete “biogas” as a byproduct, which consists primarily of methane. The methane (which is a cleaner alternative than other energy options, such as burning coal) can then be burned to produce electricity and thermal energy for a power grid, as well as be compressed to form natural gas that powers vehicles. 

The heat from the wastewater and the anaerobic processes would be captured by a heat pump. The thermal energy captured would be used to heat and cool buildings within the CWERC’s district. Remnants of organic matter from sewage and food waste would be stripped of remaining ammonia and would then be sold as a nutrient-rich fertilizer.

As for the treated water, it has two destinations: back to local bodies of water and to our own homes and businesses. While this water remains non-potable (meaning current state and federal law won’t allow it to be used for drinking and bathing purposes), it can be used safely for everything else, from irrigation to toilet flushing to even washing clothes.

Citing Massachusetts’ own droughts from 2016-2017 and in 2019, Julie Wood, the deputy director of CRWA, says, “The prevalence of drought should get more thinking about using reclaimed water.” Pushback against using reclaimed water varies from public opinion of thinking it’s “dirty” (when in reality it can be treated to drinking standards) and from those worried about infrastructure costs, though Zimmerman argues these concerns are nominal compared to the direct impacts of not using reclaimed water.

The latter half of the CWERC development plan also includes best management practices (BMPs) to implement in urban settings to minimize stormwater runoff. These BMPs include “green infrastructure,” which uses natural plants and green spaces to allow water to re-enter natural ground systems, thus reducing the amount of polluted runoff via storm drains that enters bodies of water.

“Stormwater pollution is a giant threat to water quality,” says Patrick Hogan, water resource official of the Neponset River Watershed Association. Hogan advocates for BMPs to be allocated in towns within the Neponset Watershed region. “We need to work into our thinking that … anything that goes into the stormwater drain, goes directly into the river. BMPs prevent that strain on stormwater systems.”

CWERCs are still in the planning stage, but Zimmerman is campaigning for the first one to be built in his own town of Littleton. He hopes that the success of a functioning CWERC will inspire and influence other regions to make sustainable changes in the way water is consumed and replenished. He’s identified another region to expand the project as well— drought-stricken California. Agriculture industries in the region tap into both local rivers and groundwater to irrigate fields. Without any replenishment, California’s Central Valley is physically sinking, with some areas dropping as low as 2 feet annually.

Zimmerman claims that the greatest challenge is trying to get others to change their ways and understand the brevity of the impacts current systems have on the environment. He’s expressed concern that the great American rivers that communities have relied on for centuries will run dry without any proper action.

 “There needs to be a fundamental change in our outlook. If we don’t restore and respect our resources, we are sentencing ourselves to death,” he says. “That’s no joke.”