THE REDWOOD TREE

 

The Redwood Tree

In my early professional career I was a civilian employee of the Corps of Engineers out of the Boston office. It was not unusual to have Corps offices request personnel assistance when an emergency situation arose. That was the case in 1965 when the state of California experienced the worst flooding in the North part of the State. Whole communities were wiped away by the floods, thousands of cattle lost, acres of agricultural land gone, roads and bridges severely damaged, thousands of logs uprooted from the mills and worst of all 30 lives were lost. Governor Pat Brown called the floods ”the thousand year storm.”

Five of us volunteered to help assist in assessing the damage. We spent a week in San Francisco getting briefed and receiving our assignments. About 3 weeks into the survey my 2 member team got an unusual call. We were to go into the National Forest and find out if the tallest redwood tree in California (really the world) was still standing. We drove into the forest as far as we could, grabbed our snake bite kits and hiked our way in. We eventually found it and it was just fine. Standing 350 feet tall it was absolutely magnificent. How did we know we had the right tree---the Forest Service had a huge sign at its base saying so.

In 2006 a giant sequoia (redwood tree) was found to be taller measuring 380 feet high. In 2022 the Forest Service closed it down to hikers since degradation and erosion of the tree were evident. If found near the tree you will be fined 5000 dollars. If you are ever in San Francisco visit a redwood state park and see one for yourself. You won’t be disappointed

POST OFFICE

 

My first job with the US Government was with the Post Office. When I was in College in my freshman year I looked forward to Christmas break. Reading the Boston Globe I saw an ad from the Post Office looking for temporary help to deal with the extra influx of mail expected during the holidays. The job was in Southie so I applied. My instructions said I would be sorting mail which meant a good knowledge of the streets On arrival I was faced with a large stack of addressed mail which had to be placed in certain “pigeon holds.”  If I got it right I had the job.

I wasn’t worried. My strategy was to put the ones I knew quickly in place, those I didn’t know were set aside. Time was called and my work checked. !00 percent correct. The job was mine. I was told to come back and the Postmaster would assign me my location. When I returned I recognized him as my neighbor from when I lived on West Fifth Street. He didn’t remember me but he did know the family name. We chatted a while and he brought me up to date as to who still lived there and who had left.

He asked if I would like to deliver mail rather than sorting. That was fine with me. He gave me a route that ended at my home. In those days, the 1950’s there were 2 deliveries a day. I finished my morning route just in time for lunch. I killed a couple of hours and returned to finish the afternoon deliveries in time for dinner. It couldn’t be any better. The moral to this story is be kind to your neighbors because “you never know.”

 

BOSTON HARBOR CONTINUED

 Boston Harbor continued.

Once the lawsuit was filed planning began in earnest. Much had to be decided. The CWA allowed a waiver of Secondary treatment (a more advanced  biological treatment  ) to any coastal community if it could show that the discharge would not cause environmental harm. Should we allow it? Should there be two plants or one. How long should the outfall be? Where should it be located? How should the sludge produced be handled? How long should the design and construction take to complete? These questions and more had to be resolved. In a perfect world the parties involved would reach agreement quickly. In the real world planning took several years. Some of the more contentious issues were settled by Judge David Mazzone. In the case of the sludge it was settled by the politicians

In 1988 there was a Presidential campaign in full swing between President George H.W. Bush and Governor Michael Dukakis. The Vice President made an issue of the conditions in Boston Harbor. After a boat tour he held a press conference and declared that the Governor was derelict in his duties and that Boston Harbor was in deplorable condition. No mention that we were In the process of correcting the problem. The MWRA estimated the project would cost somewhere around three billion dollars.  It was obvious that we would need federal financial assistance if the project were to move forward. To his credit the President did support funding. It didn’t hurt that the Speaker of the House was Congressman “Tip” O’Neil.

The decision was to build a single waste water treatment plant on Deer Island. If we were to build the plant by conventional methods it would require filling in Boston Harbor. Fortunately it came to our attention that the cities of Tokyo and Osaka faced a similar land situation and built their plants not horizontally but vertically. So a group of us including the MWRA, Mass. DEP, members of MWRA Board and our engineer consultants headed to Japan. We were treated royally by the Japanese and gave us all of the technical information we needed. Because all of the arrangements were made by the State Dept. they must have thought we came straight from the oval office 

 

The project was completed in 2000 and cost 3.8 billion dollars. It is the second largest wastewater treatment plant in the U.S. On a daily basis 43 communities are served and some 360gpd of effluent is treated. It is capable of handling a peak flow of 850gpd. The sludge is pelletized and used as fertilizer. The twenty four foot diameter outfall discharges 9.5 miles off shore. More importantly the Harbor has been restored to near pristine condition.  I was proud  to play a part in it.

 

BOSTON HARBOR

 

Southie Blog

As a youngster I spent a great deal of my summers swimming off the coast at Carson Beach. In my teen years after my family moved to City Point I used the beaches more at M street and at the L St. Bath House.  Little did I know at that time I would play a major role in the cleanup of Boston Harbor. In the early 1960’s the country became fed up with its polluted rivers and lakes and its unhealthy air. Citizens demanded from the Government a plan to clean up the mess. In April of 1969 the first Earth Day was celebrated worldwide to move all Nations to improve the environment. In the U.S. President Nixon reacted and by Executive Order created the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). The Agency was made up of all the existing agencies dealing with the environment. At the time I was employed by the Federal Water Quality Administration and as a result began with the new Agency on day one.

Unfortunately at the beginning we only had weak legislation on the books so we were not too helpful. That all changed with passage of the Clean Water Act in 1972 and its subsequent amendments. The major components of the Act provided substantial construction grants to Municipalities to help defray the expensive costs of new waste water treatment plants. It established a national permit system (NPDS) to ensure that discharges met water quality standards. It also gave EPA enforcement capabilities to certify all conditions were met.

The states were to set the priority for construction. Unfortunately upgrade of the treatment plants at Deer and Nut Island were low on the list. This was about to change when the City of Quincy sued the Commonwealth ( MDC )  because of the frequent impacts of closures at Wollaston Beach. The Regional office in Boston joined suit. Things were about to move at a much faster pace. I was chosen by the Regional Administrator to be the focal point as Chief Engineer to oversee and coordinate with the newly formed Massachusetts Water Resource Agency ( MWRA ) on all planning, design and construction activities. I had to also coordinate with our own lawyers and the Department of Justice on matters dealing with the Court. This all happened in 1985. To be continued.