Federal Government Announces Support To Clean Up Lower Neponset River
BOSTON (CBS) -- The federal government now has a plan to clean up a 3.7-mile stretch of the lower Neponset River. Lawmakers said Monday it's the first step toward making the river clean and safe.
"The federal government has officially recognized the dangerous pollution in the Neponset river," Senator Elizabeth Warren said at the announcement in Mattapan.
The stretch of water has been added to the Superfund National Priorities List by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
This select portion of the river, which runs through Hyde Park, Mattapan, Dorchester and Milton, contains elevated levels of PCBs, according to EPA studies.
"Decades of industrial dumping have polluted this water and transformed something joyful and beautiful into something dangerous," said Boston Mayor Michelle Wu.
The EPA's Superfund program was created to clean up contaminated sites across the country. Warren stressed the importance of federal money and resources to handle the massive project.
"It was important to get official recognition to begin to develop actual plans to clean up the river," she said.
Lawmakers will be looking to start the clean up as quickly as possible, but it will take years to undo decades of damage.
"We will seize on every bit of resource and opportunity to restore this river and return it to our residents as the treasure that it is," said Wu.
