ALEWIFE, Mass. (WBZ NewsRadio) — It’s a plentiful year for River Herring in Massachusetts.

Daria Santollani is the senior engagement manager at the Mystic Watershed Association, the organization that tracks herring population and migration every year since 2012.

She told WBZ NewsRadio that this year, volunteers reported the highest number of herring passing through the Boston Harbor into the Mystic River, at nearly 815,000.

“It’s just amazing that the largest migration of herring in Massachusetts happens in the most urban watershed,” she said.

In the past, overfishing depleted the herring population. In 2012, the association reported the herring population was only around 21,052.

“Because of interventions like fish ladders at the Mystic Lake dams, we’re starting to see that population come back,” she said.

By 2019, the herring population had grown to nearly 789,000. However, there was a dramatic dip in 2020 with only around 378,000 herrings reported.

According to the association, the state’s Division of Marine Fisheries attributed the decline to the statewide drought in 2016 that caused lower reproduction of the fish.

Despite that setback, the herring population continued to grow every year since, with more than 550,000 reported in 2021, and jumped to nearly 640,000 in 2024.

River herrings are not only an important food source for indigenous people but also play an ecologically significant role in both freshwater and marine food webs.

“The Alewife T station is named Alewife because of this fish,” Santollani added.

She credited the hundreds of volunteers who spend every day counting the herrings passing by during migration season.

“From April through June, seven days a week, 7 a.m. to 7 p.m., [each volunteer] going for an hour to count how many herrings they’re seeing passing the dam,” she continued.

WBZ NewsRadio’s Emma Friedman (@EmmaFriedmanWBZ) reports.

Food insecurity is on the mind of many across the Massachusetts, after the 43-day government shutdown and its brief pause in SNAP food aid funding

The crisis sent ripple effects throughout the food benefits system and put a strain on supply.

“My confidence is shaken,” said Andrew Morehouse, with the Food Bank of Western Massachusetts.

He said the organization “has had to dip into private funding,” and that about a third of its food comes from the state.

“With the rising need and SNAP disaster, we’ve realized we need to do more,” said Rachel Albert with Food Link.

People in Massachusetts who rely on SNAP food payments will get the payment that had been missed in November amid the government shutdown had the funds released, Gov. Maura Healey said.

Gov. Maura Healey on Monday discussed the “continuing need across” Massachusetts for food.

Previously, the federal government had funded SNAP benefits during government shutdowns, and she said, “I sure hope that, as we go forward, human beings, people, aren’t used as political pawns.”

Political calculations that only add to growing uncertainty.

“During the great recession and pandemic, the federal government had our backs,” said Morehouse, “That was not the case during the government shutdown.”

SNAP benefits have been extended through September 2026 as part of the agreement to reopen the government.

The Massachusetts Water Resources Authority may have been caught loving that dirty water a little too much, as its board has halted a proposal that clean water advocates fear would dump sewage into the Charles River forever.

The MWRA Board of Directors has tabled its upcoming vote, scheduled for Wednesday, on whether to reclassify the Charles as a water body that allows for maximum sewage overflows.

This comes after the Charles River Watershed Association and other clean-water advocates slammed the MWRA for considering the option to address a decades-old problem of combined sewer overflows, or CSOs.

These systems collect stormwater and household and industrial waste in the same pipes, destined for treatment plants. But it allows rain to overwhelm the system and dump sewage contamination out through overflows. The CRWA says CSOs have proven to be a “key source of pathogen and bacteria contamination.”

“The public has responded loud and clear. No amount of sewage is acceptable to be dumped in our beloved Charles River,” CRWA Executive Director Emily Norton said in a statement. “We are glad to hear that MWRA is finally listening to public input and postponing a decision on this terrible proposal.”

MWRA spokesperson Sean Navin said that officials need to address questions and comments before the plan is reconsidered at a future meeting.

The MWRA says it has invested more than $900 million to eliminate 90% of CSOs in its service area over the past few decades.

The problem remains, though, with outfalls located in the lower Charles River and in the Alewife Brook/Upper Mystic River Basin. Advocates argue that climate change is exacerbating the issue, as CSOs struggle to handle excess polluted water from heavy rainstorms.

“This is the generational decision that we need to make,” MWRA executive director Frederick A. Laskey said at last month’s meeting. “But we do have to move forward with a responsible plan that we can defend, and that’s continuously, at the end of the day, financial stability.”

The Charles River Watershed Association has long been pressuring the MWRA to stop polluting the Charles with sewage. Most recently, in April, the organization launched a campaign in which nearly 800 people have signed petitions or sent emails to the MWRA, urging the association to “cut the crap.”

The CRWA also says the proposal is “at odds” with how the Healey administration’s so-called “biodiversity plan” has a goal of “dramatically” reducing water pollution.

“Significantly reduce or eliminate combined-sewer overflows (CSOs),” the plan states, “sanitary sewer overflows (SSOs), stormwater runoff, and septic pollution through sewer separation, treatment plant upgrades, sewer expansion, aquatic habitat buffers, and green infrastructure to protect biodiversity, shellfish beds, and public health. Increase investment and technical assistance for curbing stormwater pollution to ensure waters are swimmable and fishable.”

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