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Overview
Boston Harbor served as a colonial gateway to the world, witnessed the Boston Tea Party, and helped the community transform itself from an outpost of a few hardy settlers into a bustling metropolis and self-proclaimed hub of the universe. Yet for hundreds of years Boston Harbor was also a cesspool. Long before Bostonians dumped tea into the harbor to protest English taxes, they dumped sewage there.As the Boston area grew and prospered, its sewage problems worsened, as did the harbor's health, to the point where in the 1980s it was considered the most polluted harbor in the country and ridiculed as the "harbor of shame." Then, in one of the most impressive environmental comebacks in American history, Boston Harbor was dramatically cleaned up. All it took was two lawsuits, two courts, dozens of lawyers, the creation of a powerful sewage authority, thousands of workers, millions of labor hours, and billions of dollars.
Boston's struggle to deal with its sewage is an epic story of failure and success, replete with colorful characters, political, bureaucratic, and legal twists and turns, engineering feats, and massive amounts of money. In the end, success hinged on the often overlooked yet monumentally important act of responsibly disposing of the waste people produce every day.
Synopsis
Traveling back to the founding of the city, but concentrating his story on the latter half of the 20th century, the author discusses the political battles that have raged over the sewer management in Boston and the pollution of Boston Harbor. Much of the narrative is concerned with the founding of the Massachusetts Water Resources Authority and its sewage management projects. Annotation © 2004 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR
Library Journal
"Boston Harbor is America's harbor," says environmental author Dolin (Smithsonian Book of National Wildlife Refuges) in this sprightly account of its history and cleanup. This tale of politicians, engineers, and money began in 1632 when the Puritans, in search of a clean water supply, settled on the Shawmut Peninsula. Within two years, Boston became the capital of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, and like all cities, it wrangled with its waste. After the Boston Board of Health was established in 1799 with Paul Revere as president, city fathers began tackling the job of building a sewer system that carried away human waste, sewage, and water runoff into Boston Harbor. By the 1980s, the harbor was a stagnant, putrid disgrace. Drawing on extensive quotes from a variety of primary sources, Dolin details how in one of the most impressive environmental cleanups in U.S. history, the harbor was restored. It took just two lawsuits, the creation of a sewage authority, billions of dollars, and many individuals, including Massachusetts Governor and 1988 Democratic presidential candidate Michael Dukakis and Republican candidate George Bush, who exchanged jibes over the harbor. Recommended for libraries with environmental, law, and urban history collections.-Patricia Ann Owens, Wabash Valley Coll., Mt. Carmel, IL Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.