FRIDAY, OCTOBER 30, 2026

To: MWRA, et al.

Attn: Draft Updated CSO Control Plan

I am writing to offer my final comments on the Draft Updated Combined Sewer Overflow (CSO) Control Plan (Draft Plan) for the Charles River, the Upper Mystic River, and Alewife Brook.

These comments are intended to add to my comments on the Updated Results of Alternatives at the January 15, 2026 public meeting, the initial comments I submitted on the Draft Plan on October 6, 2026, the comments I made in the public meeting earlier this week on October 28, and my various other public statements on this matter, along with conversations I’ve had with Secretary Tepper and other members of the Healey-Driscoll Administration, MWRA staff, legislative colleagues, and officials and staff for the cities of Cambridge and Somerville, including Cambridge City Manager Yi-An Huang and Somerville Mayor Jake Wilson.

I appreciate everyone at the MWRA, the City of Cambridge, and the City of Somerville for engaging in this important work, and I am grateful to the many advocates, neighborhood leaders, and residents who have taken the time to learn about the Draft Plan and offer feedback. I am also grateful for the substantial progress the MWRA and our municipal and advocacy partners have made over the past several decades to reduce CSOs and improve water quality in the Charles River and the Mystic River.

In sum, my position is that we must do a lot more to keep our rivers clean by working to dramatically reduce and ultimately eliminate CSO activations in future years, especially as climate change brings more severe rainstorm and flooding events to our community. At the very same time, I strongly believe Magazine Beach cannot be sacrificed in this effort.

Our residents deserve cleaner rivers as a matter of public health, even as climate change makes this goal more challenging to achieve in future decades. We must work to fully eliminate CSO pollution while also prioritizing overall community well-being. We cannot sacrifice access to our precious open spaces or use of our Article 97 protected parklands in the process. We need policymakers and planners to adopt a broader vision with more ambitious solutions to keep toxins out of our waterways while minimizing negative impacts and costs on our constituents and residents.

On October 5, 2026, I attended a presentation by the MWRA and the City of Cambridge at the Morse School, where residents were shocked to see that MWRA staff were contemplating the permanent loss of a large portion of the park at Magazine Beach as part of the Draft Plan. In response to that meeting, I sounded the alarm, and in turn, I was pleased to see the Cambridge City Manager write to the MWRA to make it clear that what was discussed that evening was not a viable plan for our community. The Cambridge City Council also voted 9-0 to oppose what was discussed for Magazine Beach with regard to the Draft Plan.

Moreover, I am grateful that Secretary Tepper took time to have a one-on-one conversation with me to consider our community’s concerns with this concept, and I am also pleased that the MWRA and City of Cambridge staff returned to the Morse School earlier this week to once again meet with concerned residents, including the Cambridgeport Neighborhood Association and Magazine Beach Partners, Inc. In addition, I have been in touch with administrators at the Department of Conservation and Recreation (DCR) who have also indicated they are not on board with what was conceptualized for Magazine Beach in the Draft Plan. And I appreciate the fact that MWRA staff took time to meet with me and Senator Sal DiDomenico last week, on October 22, where the Senator expressed his strong objection to the Draft Plan’s conceptualized impacts on Magazine Beach Park as well.

To be clear, Magazine Beach is Cambridge’s second-largest park and open space. It directly abuts the Cambridgeport Neighborhood, which is recognized as an Environmental Justice community under state law. Other nearby neighborhoods are also designated as Environmental Justice communities. The neighborhoods of the 26th Middlesex District that I represent are some of the most densely-populated neighborhoods anywhere in the United States. Parts of my district also endure the heat-island effect, and planning is currently underway for a major redesign of the Reid Overpass that abuts Magazine Beach at the very challenging intersection of the BU Bridge, Memorial Drive, and several city streets.

Over the past decade, both the Commonwealth of Massachusetts and the City of Cambridge have poured millions of dollars into the revitalization of Magazine Beach, with help from Magazine Beach Partners and our community. For all these reasons, constructing a ten-million-gallon water storage tank — a truly massive construction project that could stretch out for many years — is simply a non-starter for everyone in our community. As this aspect of the Draft Plan has come into focus, it has been met with total opposition in our community. Frankly, the way the idea was presented did a disservice to our community and to this important public process because it distracted from the important policy questions at issue in the Draft Plan. That said, as discussed above, I appreciate that state and city leaders and staff have done a good job in recent days of assuring our community that what had been discussed for Magazine Beach was merely a concept and may not have been accurately or realistically presented.

When this conversation came into focus, the thing I found most outrageous was the idea that a 10-million-gallon tank under Magazine Beach could result in the permanent loss of parkland above it — that notion defied our experiences locating tanks at Art Farm in Somerville, in the Port in Cambridge, and elsewhere.

At this point, my thinking has evolved — we've pushed for more clarity that if a tank were built at Magazine Beach, it could probably be done in a way that would allow us to recover the recreational and athletic space above it for future use. And yet, I am more convinced than ever that this park is simply not a good location for a large storage tank — the park is too vital a resource for our community. The state, the city, and the community have all invested too much money and time in enhancing and improving Magazine Beach to turn the central area of the park into an extended construction zone.

That said, I do think we should pursue options for enhancing our water storage capacity as one way to work toward the mitigation and elimination of CSOs in the future. Therefore, I am calling on the MWRA and the City of Cambridge to work with all concerned to identify alternative locations for enhancing water storage capacity. Several ideas were discussed at the October 5 meeting and in subsequent conversations — from nearby underutilized land that MIT owns to the Kimco property to Goose Park or other nearby locations.

As my constituent Steven Miller has pointed out in his excellent comments on the Draft Plan — it seems Magazine Beach was selected for the conceptual ten-million-gallon storage tank simply on the basis of technical efficiency — but as discussed above — that location is too precious and too sensitive to sacrifice. The City and the MWRA should work with all concerned to identify potential alternative sites for underground water storage, even if doing so would involve making a deal with MIT or other private property owners or incorporating additional water storage into future public projects.

I also think the concept of a water-storage tunnel should not be dismissed — it was noted in this week’s public meeting that the MWRA completed work on the South Boston CSO Storage Tunnel (also known as the North Dorchester Bay Storage Tunnel) in 2013 to eliminate CSOs and separate stormwater discharges up to the 25-year storm and the 5-year storm respectively. This tunnel has a capacity of up to 19 million gallons and cost about $225 million to build. The advantage of a tunnel option is that it could hold a lot more water than the proposed storage tank under Magazine Beach — it would just have to be designed and constructed in a way to minimize impacts on local residents and to ensure continued and ongoing access to vital open spaces such as Magazine Beach Park. Could a tunnel be designed with minimal construction impacts on our residents and our precious open spaces? I think it’s a worthy question.

Finally, some additional points:

• The MWRA’s mission should be broadened to take more responsibility for stormwater. As I have worked on this issue, I have been struck by the fact that the MWRA’s mission is focused on drinking water and wastewater, but not stormwater.

• The MWRA and the City of Cambridge should do more to complete sewer separation work that could help in these efforts. Indeed, the EPA has identified sewer-separation as the “ultimate answer to CSO control.”

• The Commonwealth of Massachusetts, and the legislature in particular, should be willing to provide more funding support for these efforts. For my part, I am constantly looking for ways to raise revenue by taxing the very wealthy and large corporations in order to make vital public investments.

• At the same time, the cost of the CSO control program should be shared equitably across the MWRA service area; the cost should not fall disproportionately on the residents of Cambridge and Somerville. We know that outfalls on the Boston side of the Charles River are permitted to the MWRA, with associated costs spread among the full 43-community service area, whereas several outfalls in Cambridge and Somerville are permitted to the cities directly. I support efforts to share the full costs of this plan across the MWRA service area, and I support legislative efforts to bring additional state-level funding to this work as well.

As always, I reject false choices. We shouldn't have to choose between having a clean river, a functional sewage system, and our precious parkland. We need better coordination among state agencies and city departments to consider not just how to deal with all the water that climate change is sending our way — but also to proactively look for the best locations to site the necessary infrastructure.

The CSO plan is incredibly complicated — it calls on us to make difficult decisions that balance climate change, stormwater and wastewater management, major neighborhood construction impacts, and significant long-term affordability concerns. In this analysis, we must also consider how these systems will perform during future storms, when significant flooding is unfortunately very possible. Community well-being should be the highest priority.

In conclusion, I call on the MWRA, the cities of Cambridge and Somerville, and the relevant environmental agencies to work together to eliminate CSOs, implement equitable funding and cost-sharing mechanisms, and above all, to reject the concept of a major construction project at Magazine Beach.

Very truly yours,

Rep. Mike Connolly