Last summer, Boston suffered more than 20 inches of rain. This record, set when the weather service began rainfall records in 1872, was only surpassed in 1955 when two hurricanes brought 25 inches of rain.
An estimated 1.5 billion gallons of water sluiced off the land, overwhelmed sewage treatment facilities, and surged raw sewage into the Merrimack River. This amount is three times more than untreated sewage that goes into the river in a typical year. The drinking water was polluted for 500,000 people living in Lowell, Methuen, Andover, Tewksbury, and Lawrence.
Drought depleted municipal water supplies, and rivers ran nearly dry during the summer of 2022. The damages were not due to climate change. The problem is that we have turned our verdant landscapes into hardscapes where water rushes instead of infiltrating the ground. We have lost soil that holds water, pumped out groundwater, and depleted aquifers. During dry summers, rivers are no longer recharged with cool groundwater, coldstream fish and smaller trees with shallow roots die.
Informed by our understanding of how ecosystems work, it’s high time for Massachusetts to act to restore the land by keeping water local for plants to grow and heal the land. Let’s begin at home with lawn care. We are told to spread one pound of fertilizer…
