Providing Integrated Solutions to
MWRA

In a 1985 landmark case, the Commonwealth of Massachusetts was cited with non-compliance of Clean Water Act and court ordered to clean up Boston Harbor. When the Massachusetts Water Resources Authority (MWRA) was created and charged with the task of bringing Boston’s sewage treatment system up to federal standards, Battelle scientists were brought in as environmental experts. MWRA designed and built a state-of–the-art secondary treatment facility at Deer Island and a 9.5-mile ocean outfall that became operational in September 2000. Battelle has been involved with the project since the initial outfall siting studies of the late 1980s and was contracted to assist in the design and conduct of a monitoring program to document the environmental benefits of pollution abatement (i.e., recovery of Boston Harbor) and verify that discharge through the new offshore sewage outfall would not adversely impact Massachusetts Bay.

Battelle’s role in the monitoring program has included (1) water column studies of nutrient dynamics, and effects as related to eutrophication issues, (2) benthic studies to assess the response of soft- and hard-bottom benthic organisms to effluent discharges, (3) evaluation of benthic nutrient fluxes and denitrification, (4) chemical studies to assess the fate of effluent in sediments, (5) effluent characterization studies using state-of-the-art analytical methods to measure low levels of contaminants in the effluent, (6) fish and shellfish studies to determine the level of contaminants in important commercial and recreation species (lobster and flounder) as related to ecological and human health issues, (7) quality control/quality assurance, (8) data management, and (9) data interpretation and synthesis. Special studies conducted for the program include (1) an effluent plume dilution and transport certification study in Massachusetts Bay, (2) an offshore larval lobster settlement study, (3) development of a scope of work for building a Massachusetts Bay food web model, (4) combined sewer overflow (CSO) discharge evaluations in Boston Harbor, and (5) a comprehensive statistical analysis of the monitoring program and recommendations for optimization that enabled the MWRA to negotiate a 20% savings on their permit-required ocean monitoring. Battelle built and continues to oversee a team to offer all of these services, combining technical, project management, and environmental data management expertise from within its Duxbury, Massachusetts, center; other offices within Battelle; and a dedicated group of world-class academic and private sector scientists.

By providing this broad expanse of environmental science services, Battelle strives to deliver integrated solutions to MWRA. Since monitoring began in 1992, MWRA has relied upon Battelle to conduct more than 440 oceanographic surveys to accomplish the technical objectives of this project. Battelle has analyzed tens of thousands of samples gathered during the field studies, managed all aspects of the QA and reporting on more than two gigabytes of raw data that the program has generated, and prepared more than 90 major interpretive reports that describe and assess the fate, transport, and effects of past and current discharges to Boston Harbor and Massachusetts Bay, respectively.

For additional information, please contact Dr. Carlton D. Hunt at (781) 952-5374, huntc@battelle.org.