Water Quality of Charles Declines

It’s a good thing this weekend’s weather forecast isn’t predicting rain, and not just because regattas and umbrellas don’t mix well.

According to the Charles River Watershed Association (CRWA), the water quality of the Charles River has declined for the second straight year, meeting state standards 83 percent of the time for boating—down from 90 percent last year. In wet weather, the number is even worse: the river meets Massachusetts state water quality standards for boating 72 percent of the time, down from 87 percent in 2000.

“The water quality for boating when it’s dry is fine,” said Bill Walsh-Rogalski, counsel for Special Projects for the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). “The water quality even meets swimming standards virtually all the time [when it is dry]. The real question is whether or not it is going to rain.”

Dry weather leading up to Head of the Charles tomorrow bodes well for the hundreds of top national and international crew teams that will race this weekend. According to the CRWA study, which was conducted on the 10-mile stretch of the river from Boston to Cambridge over the past 18 weeks, the river meets state boating standards 95 percent of the time in dry weather, down just two percentage points from 2000.

“The river quality seems good,” said Harvard men’s heavyweight crew coach Harry Parker. “Certainly we are concerned for the quality of the river overall, but we look at it from a rower’s perspective. Unless you are swimming, you don’t really get exposed to the water all that much.”

The goal of the EPA, however, is to make the Charles “swimmable by 2005,” and have stable, high water quality regardless of the weather. According to Walsh-Rogalski, that goal is still attainable and the CRWA’s statistics may be misleading.

“What we really see is a leveling off of the improvements we have made,” Walsh-Rogalski said. “We still think we are where we should be. We haven’t given up.”

Rogalski’s assertion is supported by the annual grading the EPA does of the river. In April, the Charles River earned a “B,” an acceptable quality for boating.

The river received the same grade in 2000—a vast improvement over the “D” received in 1996.

Though the condition of the river is still not ideal, the overwhelming consensus is that it is safe, and indisputably cleaner than in the not-so-distant past.

In 1995, the water quality met state standards for boating 38 percent of the time.

“Head of the Charles competitors can look forward to racing on a stretch of the river that is far safer than when the regatta was first held in the sixties,” said Kathy Baskin, CRWA’s project manager.