My Connection with a River
Growing up in suburban Massachusetts, I learned to appreciate the quiet places by the water. Just out of sight from all the cars and sprawling McMansions lay the Sudbury River. Thanks to its designation as a “wild and scenic” river, the Sudbury feels like another world at points.

A scenic stretch of the Sudbury. Flickr photo by Liz West.
A Murky Past…
It was only years later that I understood why the fish were allowed to swim away. As the signs around the Sudbury River still warn, the fish contain mercury and are not safe to eat. Almost a hundred years ago the Nyanza chemical plant was built alongside the Sudbury River. From 1917 to 1978 the plant produced textile dyes and a host of other products, and as a consequence created vast quantities of chemical sludge as well. More than 45,000 tons of waste were simply buried on the Nyanza site and left in the area. The rest of this polluted material was lightly treated and then dumped in a small stream aptly named Chemical Brook. Seeping up from the ground and flowing down Chemical Brook, it didn’t take too long for mercury and other chemicals to pollute the Sudbury River. Fortunately our story does not end there.…And a Cleaner Future
Thanks to the Clean Water Act, the Nyanza site’s pollution was stopped, and the plant closed in 1978. Added to the Superfund cleanup list, the Environmental Protection Agency began the long process of cleaning up the river and surrounding area in the early 1980’s. The buried pollutants were removed and destroyed, and a plan was developed to heal the river. This plan didn’t just look at the Nyanza site, but instead all of the wetlands and even smaller tributaries around the river as well. Thanks to this kind of comprehensive, scientific approach the Sudbury has been slowly nursed back to health.

I fell in here once. Photo by Liz West.
You can help us with that. Between December 16-18, the EPA is reviewing a sound scientific report of what our upstream wetlands and streams mean for the health of our rivers and bays like the Sudbury.
Take a moment to let your voice be heard, tell the White House to use sound science to protect our nation’s waters!