By Julia Hopkins For more than 400 years, the Charles River has been altered, controlled, and dammed to bend to the will of industry and profit.  The river we know today is not free. Instead, a river radically changed by the long history of human intervention. We dammed its waters to power industry, leaving a legacy of toxic pollution in our wake. We straightened its gentle meanders, buried its tributaries, and hardened its shores, constricting its natural flow. We drained and filled its wetlands to free up more land and let our parking lots sprawl right up to its banks.  [READ MORE]