Stormwater – Page 3 – Belmont Citizens Forum

Mugar Wetlands Project Stalled—For Now

Air Quality, Bicycles and bike paths, Construction and Housing, Environment, Historic Preservation, March 2017, Newsletter, Open Space, Parking, Stormwater, Traffic, Water Quality Comments Off

Mar 152017

Neighborhood Fears Water Displacement by John DiCocco The Mugar Wetlands in East Arlington is a triangular parcel that borders Route 2 westbound, adjacent to the Thorndike Park playing fields, and just across Route 2 from the Vox on Two apartments and Lanes & Games Bowling. The Mugar family, owners for more than 50 years, wants to develop it with townhouses and an apartment building. Residents in the town of Arlington, led by the Coalition to Save the Mugar Wetlands (CSMW) are opposed. In dispute is whether the land can handle the water displacement, whether the neighborhood can handle more people, [READ MORE]

MyRWA Measures Belmont’s Water Quality

Environment, March 2017, Newsletter, Stormwater, Water Quality Comments Off

Mar 152017

Volunteers Monitor Every Month by Anne-Marie Lambert Almost every month for more than 16 years, Mystic River Watershed Association (MyRWA) volunteers have been monitoring water quality at the location where the Winn’s Brook culvert flows into Little Pond. In the early morning of August 17, 2016, I walked to the end of a public path off Brighton Street, near the intersection with Hoitt Road. I watched as Roger Wrubel and Doug Matson took out their MyRWA sampling gear and carefully scooped water samples into test tubes. They were measuring dissolved oxygen, turbidity (a measure of suspended particles), nutrients [READ MORE]

Belmont Staycation Postcard from a Tuesday

Bike Paths, Environment, Open Space, Staycation, Stormwater Comments Off

Aug 122016

Belmont Staycation Postcard from a Tuesday

Hi, On the Tuesday of my trial Staycation, I went to several favorites I hadn’t visited in a while, including Belmont Acres Farm and Fresh Pond, where Shodai also went on his Staycation (see his Facebook postcard below): I took the 74 bus down Concord Avenue to Smith Place in order to get to Black’s Nook, a part of Fresh Pond which was part of Belmont between 1859 and 1880. Another hot day, there was welcome shade from the trees, and lovely butterflies to enjoy. In the pond, I saw small fish, not sure what they were. I also walked some of the [READ MORE]

Drought-Resistant Gardens Are Within Reach

March 2016, Newsletter, Stormwater Comments Off

Mar 152016

Drought-Resistant Gardens Are Within Reach

By Irene Fairley When I moved to Winn Street in the early 1970s, the property was mostly covered in lawn, especially the back yard. This neighborhood has a high water table as the Winn Brook goes underground here and weaves over to Little Pond. I think everyone on the street has at least one sump pump. It was not unusual to have water in basements with heavy rainfall or to see water standing above ground. My goal was to replace a large portion of the lawn with plantings that would absorb more of the rainwater and enhance habitat for birds [READ MORE]

Globe Critique Spurs Town Sewerage Review

March 2016, Stormwater Comments Off

Mar 142016

Globe Critique Spurs Town Sewerage Review

By Anne-Marie Lambert and Frank Frazier Have you seen the sewer today? This past summer, a Boston Globe editorial (“Belmont Needs to Clean Up Its Act,” August 14, 2015) caused the Belmont selectmen to request a presentation on the town’s sewer and storm drain systems. Belmont’s director of community development Glenn Clancy welcomed the opportunity. He took issue with Globe author Alan Wirzbicki’s comparison of Belmont’s $8 million in sewer expenditures dating from a 1998 Notice of Violation from the EPA. He cited the expenditures of Cambridge and Revere, both of which have much more significant pollution issues than Belmont. [READ MORE]

Belmont Driveways Can Soak Up Stormwater

January 2016, Newsletter, Stormwater Comments Off

Jan 132016

Belmont Driveways Can Soak Up Stormwater

By Anne-Marie Lambert Most Belmont driveways are impervious surfaces, and they make local flooding and water pollution worse—but that doesn’t have to be the case. When a driveway is made of asphalt or concrete, rainfall flows quickly to catch basins, erodes soil along the way, and increases pollution and flooding risks in downstream neighborhoods. Water that soaks into the soil doesn’t have any of these effects. More and more homeowners are taking advantage of today’s porous paver technologies in order to allow the soil to soak up rain before it reaches our catch basins and waterways. Plus, the pavers can [READ MORE]

Cambridge Redirects Runoff from 400 Acres

January 2016, Newsletter, Stormwater Comments Off

Jan 122016

Cambridge Redirects Runoff from 400 Acres

Cambridge Sewer Separation Makes Alewife Brook Cleaner By Anne-Marie Lambert On December 21, 2015, Cambridge celebrated a major milestone of the Alewife Sewer Separation project, a massive public works that separates sanitary sewers from storm sewers. When these two types of sewers are connected, heavy storms drive raw sewage into local waterways such as the Alewife Brook—as has been happening at the Brook for decades. As of December 21, the city will now provide water quality treatment of stormwater runoff from more than 400 acres of the urbanized Huron Avenue and Fresh Pond neighborhoods by directing it to the 3.4-acre [READ MORE]

Make a Garden in Your Sidewalk “Hell Strip”

Newsletter, November 2015, Stormwater Comments Off

Sep 162015

Make a Garden in Your Sidewalk "Hell Strip"

By Kate Bowen Hell strip. There. I wrote it, but I didn’t coin the phrase. That credit is given to Lauren Springer Ogden, a renowned gardener, who came up with the term “hell strip.” You know exactly what I am talking about: that evil zone between you and the road. It might be paved; it might have some weeds; it might have some tidy grass; or it might be bursting with life—a microcosm of annuals, perennials, and wildlife. Many Belmont streets have paved shoulders. The town does not formally encourage restoring paved hell strips, and open shoulders are often paved [READ MORE]

Winn’s Brook Gets “F” Grade for Health

Newsletter, November 2015, Stormwater Comments Off

Sep 162015

People who visit the Mystic River and its tributaries have a new, more precise way to find out how healthy the water is near them. Last summer, the Mystic River Watershed Association (MyRWA) worked with the Environmental Protection Agence (EPA) to create a new location-based “report card” for the Mystic River. The grades are based on bacteria counts. The state has maximum allowable bacteria counts for swimming and boating. High bacteria counts result from illicit sewer discharges to storm drain systems and urban stormwater runoff. A higher grade indicates that the waterway complies with state standards; a lower grade means [READ MORE]

How to Measure Belmont’s Stormwater

Newsletter, November 2015, Stormwater Comments Off

Sep 162015

By Sumner Brown Stormwater can be troublesome. Those drops of water add up, causing floods, overflowing sewers, and reduced water quality. Belmont is striving to remedy its stormwater problems, and we need to monitor the effects and measure the results. Water Flow in Alewife Brook Rain falls on the ground and finds its way into streams. We can measure the overflow from rainstorms by placing flow gauges where major streams leave Belmont, So far Belmont has only one such stream flow gauge, in Alewife Brook. The gauge is operated by the US Geologic Survey. It is shared with Arlington, Somerville [READ MORE]

EPA Proposes Expanded Stormwater Permit

Newsletter, November 2015, Stormwater Comments Off

Sep 162015

by Nancy Hammett Belmont, like other urban communities throughout the country, must obtain a “permit” under the Federal Clean Water Act in order to discharge water from its storm drains into local streams and ponds. This permit (the “Municipal Separate Storm Sewer System” or “MS4” permit) imposes a number of responsibilities on the town. These requirements have been in effect in Massachusetts since 2003 and a new version of the permit is in the offing. The federal Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) expects to issue the new regulations by the end of this year, and they will take effect six months [READ MORE]

Homeowners Can Reduce Yard Runoff

Newsletter, November 2015, Stormwater Comments Off

Sep 162015

By Fred and Anne Paulsen We have lived for a long time with a cracked concrete driveway complete with weeds growing through the cracks. To the rear of our house, the driveway widens to include a large impervious parking area. As part of the Stormwater Working Group’s (SWG) efforts to reduce the pollution of runoff from streets and parking lots, all townspeople are urged to allow much of their rainwater and snow melt to infiltrate into the ground. Frank Frazier, a SWG member, wrote a handout for the Belmont Building Department with instructions for porous repaving and relevant web sites. [READ MORE]

Stormwater Forum Details Flooding, Pollution

Newsletter, November 2015, Stormwater Comments Off

Sep 142015

Stormwater Forum Details Flooding, Pollution

By Sumner Brown In 2010, the Environmental Protection Agency released a draft of stormwater regulations which would impose new and difficult requirements on towns. They are stringent enough that I wonder if any town with a development history similar to Belmont’s could meet them On September 10, The Belmont Citizens Forum hosted a stormwater forum titled “Water Trouble” featuring panelists familiar with the proposed regulations. They were Ralph Jones, managing director of Cadmus consultants; Wayne Chouinard, Arlington town engineer, and Matthew Shuman, Watertown town engineer; Julie Dyer Wood, director of projects at the Charles River Watershed Association; Patrick Herron, deputy [READ MORE]

10 Ways You Can Reduce Stormwater Pollution

Newsletter, November 2015, Stormwater Comments Off

Sep 102015

The Mystic River Watershed Association suggests these 10 simple things that you can do to help reduce water pollution in your municipality: 1. Don’t litter: litter ends up in sewers, or in rivers and streams. 2. Practice organic lawn care: minimize the use of fertilizers and pesticides, especially where run-off may occur. 3. Conserve water: excess water in the sewage system can lead to sewage overflows into our waterways. 4. Always pick up pet waste, especially along riverbanks. Pet waste contains harmful bacteria that contaminate the rivers. 5. Use rain barrels to capture rainfall to use on your lawn or garden. 6. Never dump [READ MORE]

Mugar Site Plans May Mean More Flooding

July 2015, Newsletter, Open Space, Stormwater Comments Off

May 122015

Along the north side of Route 2 in East Arlington lie seventeen acres of wetlands almost entirely in the 100-year floodplain. Despite its potential for flooding, this parcel has been the subject of various development proposals over the years. Recently Oaktree Development of Cambridge showed Arlington town officials a preliminary sketch of a proposed 219-unit housing development on the parcel owned by the Mugar family and adjacent to the Alewife Reservation. The Oaktree developer intends to invoke the state Chapter 40B statute to circumvent certain local permitting processes and bylaws by including a certain percentage of affordable housing in the [READ MORE]

Porous Pavement Can Drain Sloped Sites

May 2015, Newsletter, Stormwater Comments Off

May 122015

by Kristopher Houle, P.E. A longer version of this article, including several references, originally appeared on the Ecological Landscape Alliance’s blog. Many green infrastructure alternatives exist for reducing stormwater runoff. Porous asphalt is one that has clear benefits. In New England, porous asphalt has been used successfully in sidewalks, parking lots, subdivision roads, and highways. Research has demonstrated its function for stormwater attenuation, recharging local waterways, runoff treatment, and chloride source control. As an engineer and practitioner, I commonly see projects that would benefit from its use, but porous asphalt has been excluded from the final design for reasons relating [READ MORE]

Uplands Permit Issued for 298 Apartments

March 2015, Newsletter, Stormwater Comments Off

Mar 122015

Uplands Permit Issued for 298 Apartments

By Meg Muckenhoupt The e-mail that went out on Friday, March 6, was short and to the point: “Please be aware that today a building permit was issued for foundation work at the Belmont Uplands site,” wrote Glenn Clancy, Belmont’s Director of Community Development. “AP Cambridge Partners has fulfilled all requirements under the Zoning Board of Appeals Comprehensive Permit and the Massachusetts State Building Code necessary to secure a building permit.” The permit ends a decade-long struggle over the fate of the Uplands, a 13-acre site that straddles Belmont and Cambridge at the edge of the Alewife reservation. Now, the [READ MORE]

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