Boston celebrates 50th anniversary of Clean Water Act, looks back on harbor cleanup – The Boston Globe

The fiftieth anniversary of the Clear Water Act was celebrated Friday on the East Boston waterfront, the place public officers and college youngsters gathered to mirror on the federal legislation that led to 5 a long time of enchancment to town’s harbor.

The landmark legislation is extensively credited with remodeling Boston Harbor from a wasteland of uncooked sewage and untreated industrial waste into one of many nation’s most improved waterways.

“We dumped waste, we dumped chemical substances, all kinds of issues into the water,” Radhika Fox, the EPA’s assistant administrator for water, stated as she stood in Piers Park, town’s skyline gleaming in solar behind her. “And it wasn’t uncommon to Boston Harbor, that’s what communities all throughout the nation had been like 50 years in the past. Rivers ran in coloration.”

Handed by Congress in 1972, the act established nationwide wastewater requirements and requires polluters to acquire permits earlier than dumping into navigable waters. It goals to make public waters fishable and swimmable.

Fox known as that purpose the “North Star” that guides the company’s insurance policies throughout the nation. Key to its success is the EPA’s partnerships with native governments and organizations, she stated.

Nonetheless, regardless of enhancements in water high quality general, Fox stated, there are nonetheless parts of the nation with out entry to secure water. She stated the Biden administration is dedicated to bettering water high quality, highlighting $50 billion earmarked for water infrastructure as a part of the Bipartisan Infrastructure Regulation.

Mayor Michelle Wu cited nationwide enhancements in water high quality because the act handed, however stated there may be nonetheless an extended method to go.

“We all know that communities of coloration, who are likely to have much less entry to recent air and clear water, are the residents who stand to lose most,” Wu stated. “We stand right here at the moment united and able to struggle for the subsequent 50 years and past.”

“That is an unbelievable day, we’re celebrating an unbelievable victory,” Markey stated. “We wish to be the greenest, cleanest metropolis within the historical past of the world, and we’re on our method to undertaking that purpose due to the nice management right here.”

However he additionally warned that the Clear Water Act is below menace, citing a case pending earlier than the US Supreme Court docket, Sackett v. EPA, which goals to settle a longstanding dispute over whether or not the EPA controls wetlands.

The Supreme Court docket “is poised to roll again protections for the waters of the USA” Markey stated.

Additionally in attendance Friday morning had been Consultant Ayanna Pressley; David Money, regional administrator for the EPA; Lisa Wieland, CEO of MassPort; Martin Suuberg, commissioner of the Massachusetts Division of Environmental Safety; and Magdalena Ayed, government director of nonprofit The Harborkeepers.

College students from the close by Donald McKay Okay-8 College attended the ceremony for a lesson on public advocacy.

Jordan Huynh, a trainer at McKay, stated his college students wrote letters to Wu, Markey, and Mariama White-Hammond, town’s chief of atmosphere, power, and open house, as a part of a lesson on advocacy — “our massive vocabulary phrase,” he stated.

“We had college students speak about advocating for wholesome snacks at school, we had college students advocate in opposition to deportations,” Huynh stated.

Because the ceremony closed, the scholars swarmed the rostrum — hand-delivering their letters and holding out notebooks for autographs from Markey and Wu.

Markey, who grew up in Malden, informed the category that, when he was in fifth grade, he was forbidden from swimming within the close by Malden River.

“That’s after I started to query environmental insurance policies,” Markey stated. “You’re the leaders, you’re who encourage us.”

Daniel Kool may be reached at daniel.kool@globe.com. Comply with him on Twitter @dekool01.