Yesterday, we celebrated the overall improving report card for the cleanliness of the Charles, Mystic and Neponset Rivers.
51 years ago, Congress passed the Clean Water Act, the landmark legislation that called for all waterways in America to be fishable and swimmable by 1983.
We’re not there yet, but we’re seeing improvement. In 2022, sections of the Charles, Mystic and Neponset rivers received A and B grades. The river at Magazine Beach received a B, however, down from a B+ in 2021 and 2020 and an A- in 2019, but up from a D in 1996!
Much of the bacterial contamination comes from Combined Sewer Overflows (CSOs), when waste water and storm water mix. For more information about The Charles River Initiative of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), click here.
Also keeping us from swimming in the river are heavy metals and PCBs in the sediment—waste from industry along the river long ago.
May we one day be bathing once again at Magazine Beach, once the Charles River’s most popular swimming beach!
Magazine Beach 
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