| Wastewater | Deer Island, Boston Harbor - Page 16 |
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In July of 1985 the MWRA took over from the MDC the running of Boston’s metropolitan water and sewerage systems. Maintaining the existing systems was considerable work, accomplishing the court-ordered cleanup of Boston Harbor a seemingly impossible challenge. Until the recently appointed MWRA Advisory Board could meet, review candidates, and make an offer to one for the permanent position of executive director Governor Michael Dukakis picked someone to fill the role temporarily. Philip Shapiro had been the executive director of the MBTA Advisory Board — another state agency where the public expects much but is reluctant to provide the funding, and is always unhappy about fee increases. While he had no experience running a water or wastewater system, instead his expertise was in finance, it was a prescient selection by the governor and its wisdom was unfortunately missed by the new Advisory Board and their selection. |
| Shapiro in his short tenure as director from March through September of 1985 moved quickly leading the agency to make important decisions including the selection of Deer Island as the sole location for a new treatment plant and the rejection of another attempt for a 301(h1) waiver. He also began pressuring the city of Boston to remove the Deer Island House of Correction. When a permanent director was selected Shapiro stayed on as the financial director for the agency until 1993. |
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In September of 1985 the MWRA Advisory Board selected Michael Gritzuk to be the first Executive Director of the MWRA. A professional engineer he had most recently been the director of public utilities in Orlando, Fla. Before that he had been director in central New Jersey leading a buildout of three new sewage treatment facilities. To the board he seemed like the perfect choice to lead the construction of Boston’s bigger wastewater project, unfortunately It was a misread of who was needed. Possibly the board was thinking of earlier times when skilled engineers like Ellis Chesbrough, Moses Lane, or Howard Carson designed and built Boston’s first metropolitan sewage system. But that’s not who was needed to run the new MWRA even though building a massive sewage treatment plant was its first task. At this very early point in the project, long before a single shovel had dug into the ground at Deer Island, the MWRA first had to deal with a whole range of other issues and complications. |
| It would take less than two years before the Advisory Board, and Gritzuk himself, would conclude that he was not the right person for the job. Though Gritzuk made his own missteps when as the heir to the chronically underfunded MDC he failed to realize that he would be attacked by politicians and savaged by the press if they discovered any sign that he was exploiting the system. Outfitting the MWRA’s new offices with marble ashtrays, oak desks, and leather couches along with other “profligate spending” was not viewed favorably when the agency was also significantly raising water and sewer rates. Gritzuk’s contract would not be renewed. He would go on to serve successfully as the director of Phoenix, Ariz. water and sewer system. To run the MWRA at this point in time it would take somebody who knew the local players, was a skilled negotiator, and be able to get the project back on track. |
| That person would be Paul F. Levy, an MIT graduate with degrees in economics and city planning, not engineering. Governor Dukakis had tapped a 29-year-old Levy to be the state’s Chairman of the Public Utilities when he was elected in 1978, then again in 1983 when he was reelected. He earned the respect of the business community by cleaning up the rate process but challenged the industry when he limited their ability to charge in advance for future improvements. He also opposed the nuclear power plant in Seabrook, N.H. In July of 1987, with the approval of the MWRA Advisory Board, he became the new Executive Director. During his tenure at the MWRA he would earn a reputation for creative solutions, bold leadership. motivating the staff, and challenging the Advisory Board to make big decisions. That first big decision was made just a month later when in August of 1987 he cut through stalled negotiations over the use of a portion of the Fore River Shipyard for barging construction workers and materials to Deer Island and convinced the board to have the MWRA purchase the whole shipyard outright. It was a bold move and solved the problem of supplying Deer Island during construction, and while a six-year battle over what to do with the sludge would follow, to those who understood the problem, the Fore River shipyard was the solution. |
| What to do with the sludge? |
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| In January of 1986 James S. Hoyte, Chairman of the MWRA Board, a position he held as the Massachusetts Secretary of Environmental Affairs for Governor Dukakis, provided a perspective of the complexity of the problem of what to do with the sludge … |
| “The problem before the MWRA is one of unusual complexity. The residuals themselves are difficult to characterize and can be expected to change in both volume and quality during the planning period. Numerous technologies are available to condition, dewater, treat, and dispose of the residuals. Each technology is amenable to a broad range of mitigation measures to reduce potential Impacts. Numerous sites might be found for any of the technologies. Several methods are available to transport the residuals from their point of generation to the processing and disposal sites. And each combination of residuals, transport, processing, and site leads to a unique set of potential environmental effects. If all possible combinations of these elements were to be considered, the number of alternatives would overwhelm the analysis.” |
| For the MWRA, building what would be the second largest sewage treatment plant in the United States on 185 acres (less than one-third of a square mile) on a narrow isthmus extending into the Atlantic Ocean would be a major engineering, construction, and logistical challenge. This was not the case for what to do with the sludge the sewage treatment plant would produce. The problem facing the MWRA in mid-1985 was not technical, there were multiple methods for disposing of sludge in regular use at sewage treatment plants across the country. The problem was political. The noted environmental journalist Dianne Dumanoski in a September 20, 1987 Boston Globe Magazine article, "Who speaks for the harbor?," quoted an unnamed source as saying all the political quarrels between the MWRA, local communities, the state, the EPA, and Judge Mazzone had “little to do with engineering.” |
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Years of discharge into the harbor first of raw sewage and then later sludge from anaerobic digesters had led to a buildup of a layer on the bottom with a consistency of “black mayonnaise” up to two feet thick toxic to marine plants and animals. Proposed solutions date back to 1972 and the Havens and Emerson report with its recommendation to incinerate the sludge at whatever treatment plant it was produced. Not much changed in the EPA’s 1979 Final Environmental Impact Statement for the MDC’s Sludge Management Plan with the exception being that all incineration should take place on Deer Island, and that the ash instead of being stored in a vulnerable lagoon at the end of Deer Island would be barged to a terminal and then trucked to a landfill in either Amesbury, Randolph, or Plainville. |
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Now it was the MWRA’s problem on how to stop the discharge of sludge and it had to be done by the end of 1991 to meet the first major milestone in Judge Mazzone’s 13-year timetable for cleaning up Boston Harbor. The EPA still wanted incineration to be the primary method of disposal but was open to some composting as long as a landfill site was also available, and it all had to take place in cities served by the MWRA. This was the task the MWRA gave to the Kansas-based engineering firm Black & Veatch. It was no longer sludge management, it was residual management and the site, or sites, had to be found for combustion (the new term being used for incineration), composting, and landfill. Once selected the process would move on to the required Environmental Impact Statement. |
| Possible sites could be inland, on the coast, or on an island. The sludge itself could be from after primary or secondary treatment, or mixed; and be dewatered to different degrees. There had to be enough acreage available. Then there were ten screening criteria, soil conditions, noise environment, nearby land use, cultural resources, transportation and traffic, surface water, ground water, wetlands, ecology, and impacts on air quality. All factors that had to be considered when analyzing just under 300 candidate sites identified. Remarkably Black & Veatch came up with 12 possible sites for one or more of three phases of “residuals management” (combustion, composting, landfill) could take place. There might not be a better example of the NIMBY (not-in-my-back-yard) syndrome then the reaction a community exhibits with its selection to having anything to do with sewage treatment. Opposition was universal from focal officials and their state representatives. |
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The vote by the MWRA board in July 1985 approving the selection of Deer Island as the sole location for a new sewage treatment plant was 10-1, with only the representative from Winthrop voting no. The existing MDC sewage treatment plant, with its flaming smokestacks and regular sewage overflows, had not been a good neighbor. The MWRA promised they would be better and would mostly keep their word. Of greater importance to a decision on what to do with the sludge was a unanimous vote by the board that no handling of the sludge would take place on Deer Island. This was a problem because Deer Island was one of the sites on the Black & Veatch list. |
| An unfortunate coincidence |
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In an unfortunate coincidence, and to add more confusion to the situation, there was another incinerator being considered for the Boston area at that time. The closure of Boston’s South Bay incinerator in 1975 had forced the city to turn to landfills to dispose of its trash. By the mid-1980s the costs were going up as landfills began to fill up and become more restrictive on the trash they could take. With a similar attempt by officials to mask the term incinerator, the proposal supported by Boston Mayor Raymond Flynn and Governor Michael Dukakis was for the construction of a waste-to-energy plant at the site of the old South Bay incinerator. The plan almost made it through the Massachusetts Legislature before it ran into an unmovable force, William Bulger. As he had done 10 years earlier, now Senate President Bulger wielded his substantial political power to stymie the plan and protect his South Boston home. Reflective of his scrappy, combative style he presented two alternatives. He first suggested that a combined sludge and trash incinerator be built in an abandoned quarry in the affluent, wealthy suburb of Weston. As he surely expected, the proposal created an uproar He second alternative was similarly controversial, and this aimed at the EPA. |
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The alternative location to Weston that Bulger proposed was to place an incinerator on a platform built 10 miles out into the Massachusetts Bay and then burn both sludge and Boston’s trash there. It sounded like a crazy idea; how could the EPA possibly allow an incinerator to operate in the open ocean? Well in truth the EPA had approved in the mid-1970s the use of special German incinerator ship named the Vulcanus to burn the chemical Agent Orange leftover from the Vietnam War near an island in the South Pacific. Then in the mid-1980s the EPA was exploring the use of the sister ship Vulcanus II to burn PCBs in the Gulf of Mexico. A company had suggested a ship could be used to incinerate Boston’s sludge. While it is unlikely that Bulger ever seriously considered that either plan would ever be adopted, throughout his career he would do everything he could no matter who the perceived antagonist to protect his South Boston district. |
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With the likelihood that incineration would not be a quick solution to what to do with the sludge, the MWRA had to look for a short-term answer before the 1991 court deadline. State and federal laws prevented Boston from dumping sludge into Massachusetts Bay. New York City, on the other hand, had since the 1920s been dumping into the ocean at an area known as the “New York Bight,” a geological term for triangular indentation in a coastline between the New Jersey shore and Long Island. By the mid-1980s the EPA stepped in and ordered New York to stop the dumping there. To ease the transition an area 106 miles off Cape May, N.J. near the continental shelf was designated as a temporary location for the dumping. MWRA officials saw an opportunity for their temporary need, barge Boston’s sludge to the same 106-mile site. The EPA was skeptical but need not have worried. National politics killed the idea. Boston was in the planning stages for the “Big Dig” project, the depression of the Central Artery through the city, and was looking for Federal funding to cover most of the cost. New Jersey officials were not happy with the idea of Boston dumping its sludge off their shores, and they had leverage to do something about it. Rep. James Howard from New Jersey was the chairman of the House Public Works and Transportation Committee. If Boston wanted money for the Big Dig, they better withdraw their request to dump their sludge at the 106-mile site, which they did. Ocean dumping was not going to be even a temporary option for the MWRA. |
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The MWRA would never build a sludge incinerator at Fore River or anywhere else. State laws and local opposition would prevent that from ever happening. By the end of the 1987 the MWRA had negotiated a mitigation settlement with Quincy to build a temporary sludge-to-fertilizer plant at the site. Less than a year later, in March of 1988, the announcement of the company that would build the plant. Enviro-Gro Technologies had constructed similar facilities in Washington, Phoenix, Chicago, Georgia, Florida, Texas. It was not a new process or technology. The location for permanent sludge-to-fertilizer plant, which should not have been a surprise to anyone, announced in February 1989 was the Fore River Shipyard. It is difficult to believe that Quincy officials did not understand the idea that a permanent facility would likely replace the temporary one. There were the expected accusations of betrayal and threats of lawsuits, but Quincy officials quickly, after a generous mitigation was offered, replaced those with calls to have the MWRA locate its headquarters at the shipyard. |
There was a catch to the MWRA decision to use conversion to fertilizer as its solution for what to do with the sludge. The EPA wanted a backup. Not willing to go the route of incineration for the MWRA that meant another search for a landfill, and more controversy. The final recommendation of the 1989 Metcalf & Eddy Long-Term Residuals Management for Metropolitan Boston report was to build a landfill on state-owned land in Walpole abutting the MCI prison. Even with incineration off the table it did little to silence the critics. There were claims that a landfill would threaten the health and potential incite prisoners at nearby prison. A concern that had seldom been voiced for prisoners at the House of Correction on Deer Island next to the sewage treatment plant there.
The MWRA attempted to buy the Walpole site but was blocked by both a lawsuit and legislative action. To force a resolution in February 1991 Judge Mazzone stepped in and using the same power Judge Garrity had years before ordered a halt to sewer hookups. This time the standoff would last for three months until the state agreed to sell the land to the MWRA. That would not end the opposition. Even U.S. House Representative Barney Frank stepped in threatening a federal amendment that would revoke the selection process. |
| The MWRA attempted to buy the Walpole site but was blocked by both a lawsuit and legislative action. To force a resolution in February 1991 Judge Mazzone stepped in and using the same power Judge Garrity had years before ordered a halt to sewer hookups. This time the standoff would last for three months until the state agreed to sell the land to the MWRA. That would not end the opposition. Even U.S. House Representative Barney Frank stepped in threatening a federal amendment that would revoke the selection process. |
| The MWRA would never end up using the Walpole site, and the fight over a landfill in any MWRA community would become a non-issue. |
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