$1.3 Billion to Keep Sewage Out of the Charles, and Advocates Say It's Still Not Enough. Comments Close Today

When it rains hard, the old shared pipes in Cambridge and Somerville overflow, and raw sewage goes into the Charles, the Mystic and Alewife Brook. The MWRA and the two cities have a plan to fix it: about $1.3 billion, aimed at zero overflows in a typical 2050 rainfall year. At the last public hearing Wednesday, the Crimson reports, 22 people spoke, and nearly all of them said it doesn't go far enough.

The draft had three price tags: $770 million that still allows some overflows, the $1.3 billion recommended plan, and $4.7 billion to stop overflows even in severe-storm years. Advocates want the strict one. "Zero in a typical year does not mean zero sewage," the Mystic River Watershed Association's director said, adding that up to 41 million gallons would have spilled under this plan in recent years.

The neighborhood fight is a 10-million-gallon storage tank under Magazine Beach, Cambridge's second-largest park. State Rep. Mike Connolly blasted it, and the City Council unanimously opposed it last week. One Alewife resident said her area gets storage only, no sewer separation.

Dez's take: one Somerville resident said it best: spend two decades chasing the perfect plan and "we will have an extra two decades of poop in the water." Both things are true. The cheap plan isn't good enough, and the perfect plan might never get built. If you've got an opinion, today's the day.

What we still don't know: which option the state and the EPA sign off on. A final plan is expected in 2027.