Hub Harbor Woes Mount As Sewer Flow Continues

From the outhouse to the State House to the court house, the biggest issue in Massachusetts these days is feces--tons of it.

No one knows what to do with it.

At least 12 billion gallons a year of human waste and toxic chemicals flow into Boston Harbor, polluting the beaches, turning the Harbor's fish into swimming carcinogens, and creating a health hazard for residents of the North and South Shore.

The Metropolitan District Commission (MDC), which is responsible for the aging and byzantine sewage system that serves two million people in Boston, Cambridge, and dozens of neighboring communities, has been unable to handle the waste that flows into the MDC's two treatment plants.

Some days, especially during rainfall, the MDC must allow the sewage, untreated, to flow directly into the already stinking, polluted harbor.

In past years, a number of groups have pressured the commission to act on the Harbor pollution problem. But it was suits filed by the town of Quincy and later by the Environmental Protection Agency that brought the issue to a head.

The water around the Quincy beaches is so polluted that last August an engineering firm found coliform bacteria levels off the city's shore that were 50 times higher than the maximum acceptable levels for swimming water.

Superior Court Judge Paul W. Garrity last year appointed Brandeis Professor of Law Charles M. Haar as special master to study the problem and propose a solution.

Haar, with the subsequent endorsement of Garrity, the Bank of Boston and Gov. Michael S. Dukakis, put forth a proposal for a sewer authority independent of the MDC and the State, which would be specifically responsible for handling the area's sewage and cleaning up the harbor.

The plan, if implemented, would greatly increase chances for improvements in harbor cleanup and sewage treatment, said Metropolitan District Commission executive assistant Stephen P. Burgay.

Unlike the MDC, which is responsible to and funded by the Commonwealth, a new sewer commission would have the authority to finance itself through bond issues and levies on all users of the sewage system.

"The crucial thing is to have the financing," Haar explained yesterday.

Burgay said the proposed sewer authority would be able to raise the more than $1 billion needed over the next 20 years to completely overhaul the system and clean the harbor. Under the proposed legislation, the state would assume nearly all the commission's liabilities.

Dukakis filed legislation earlier this year to include a sewer authority in a broader water and waste treatment package. Though the Dukakis bill received discussion in the State House over the summer, neither the Senate not the House acted on the proposal.

Reenter Judge Garrity, Last week, the judge declared a moratorium on all new sewer connections in Boston and its suburbs. He also announced hearings set for today to decide whether he will place the MDC's sewer division under court receivership.

The move by Garrity apparently budged the Legislature--which tomorrow will discuss a sewage authority proposal sent from the ways and means committee--and prompted outrage from the attorney general and local home building groups.

The attorney general's office yesterday appealed the Garrity moratorium before a state Supreme Court judge, according to spokesman David A. Wood. Attorney General Francis X. Bellotti said in a statement, "The concept of a receivership for a state agency is repugnant to the doctrine of separation of power in the state constitution."

A home building group said yesterday the moratorium order would threaten $77 million in new housing construction started in the past three months in MDC communities, according to The Associated Press.

The Metropolitan District Commission's Burgay called the receivership threat "wholly unwarranted," and said that the MDC should not be placed in receivership because it has fulfilled all obligations to the state.

Burgay termed the bill discharged yesterday to the floor by the Ways and Means Committee "an excellent, excellent bill," and said that Garrity should allow the Legislative to discuss the sewer authority bill.

"Some things take a little time for the 't's to be crossed and the 'I's to be dotted," he said "This legislation runs between 100 and 200 pages."

But supporters of Garrity said the foot dragging by the Legislature is at best laziness and at worst a concerted attempt to maintain the status quo

Said one top official who asked not to be identified. "The present situation and the patronage is very much to their liking."

Several calls yesterday to Ways and Means Chairman Michael Creedon (D Brockton) went unreturned.

Though Haar said Garrity would go ahead with his threat to place the MDC sewer division under his receivership, he added that the court will accept any legislation that creates a separate authority.

But he said, "The bill wouldn't have gotten out of Ways and Means if it weren't for the court."

Garrity could not be reached for comment.The harbor viewed from one of Boston's piers. A state judge who is hearing a pollution lawsuit against the Metropolitan District Commission may decide to place the Hub's sewer authority in receivership this afternoon.