I didn’t even realize it was Earth Day weekend when I
decided to take a field trip into the city on Friday. But I needed some information on the Boston
Harbor Islands for the piece I’m writing and the seasonal ferries to the islands
don’t start until one day after my
deadline. So I hopped on a commuter boat
to the city, knowing I’d get an amazing view of the Boston Harbor Islands
National Park area. Once my
boat docked in Boston, it was a short walk to a kiosk manned by a National Park
ranger. There I could get some
information to round off the piece that is mostly written. After that I’d head over to the outdoor
market at Haymarket, pick up some affordable produce, grab lunch and head home. Easy peasy.
And it was. I didn’t expect that
it would be so, well—remarkable.
Let me back track a little.
I grew up going into the city from the western suburbs. We took public transportation and landed in a
grimy metropolis. I worked in Boston
for several years, and let me tell you, Boston Harbor was about as polluted as
it gets. It was a pretty view, but you
sure wouldn’t touch the water. A long
time ago, my now husband and I went boating in the harbor with friends. I don’t want to horrify you by telling you what
we saw floating that afternoon— I’ll just tell you it used to be alive.
Fast forward a few years. My husband and I chose to live on the South
Shore, which offered the fun and convenience of taking a ferry ride into Boston. But all those raggedy looking islands we
passed along the way? Well, one housed a prison, another a homeless shelter and
one was a garbage dump. I ignored
them.
Thankfully, others did not.
Over the last twenty years, folks from all different venues have been
planning and implementing a cleanup. One
of the largest sewage treatment systems in the country was built where the
prison used to be, the harbor is now mostly swim-able clean. The 32 harbor islands, which were either
decaying military installations or receptacles for that which was not wanted by
the city of Boston, are now being turned into places of recreational, natural
and historical beauty. In the back of my
head, I knew all this was going on of course.
But now, I’m writing about it…and paying a heck of a lot more
attention.
As the ferry churned
along, we passed Peddock’s Island, which used to house Fort Andrew, built in
the early 1900’s and abandoned by the military after WWII, which is currently in the process of a major
reclamation. (Parts of the film Shutter
Island with Leonardi DiCaprio, was filmed there.) Spectacle Island, which hosted a rendering
plant and a dump, has been capped off, cleaned up, replanted. Folks who visit can utilize a beautiful
visitor center in addition to a lifeguard staffed beach. Yep, people go there to SWIM.
Oh there is so much more to tell you, but I’ll wait until
the article comes out. All I really want to say is that the day before Earth Day weekend, and I saw firsthand the
value of caring for our earth.
Oh what we can do when we put our minds to it.
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| Spectacle Island, Boston Harbor...it used to be a dump! |
13 comments:
That's wonderful that they were able to clean up that area!
Oh wow. What a brilliant brilliant brilliant project - hooorah to the good people of Boston Harbor for waking up and smelling the erm... pollution and sewage and then doing something amazing about it! I think Mother Earth puts up a lot from us - but when we help her - she just bounces right back! Take care
x
I know exactly what you mean. We grew up in Baltimore, and when we moved away in 1971, the harbor was polluted and smelly, and the area around it was unsafe, and filled with drunks, derelicts, hookers, and rats. Now, it's a regular jewel in the city's crown. Gorgeous. Pristine. And an enormous draw for tourists. The first time we went back up to visit after the Inner Harbor project was completed, we were utterly amazed to see all the tour buses in an area that was once so economically depressed. Sounds like Boston has enjoyed the very same kind of renewal.
That's a wonderful thing to do. Just think of the wildlife that would come back to those islands that used to be dumps or nothing but refuse.
I'm constantly amazed at how nature will reclaim the crappiest of locales if we give it a chance. I once worked on a multi-million dollar condo building on the Hudson that had at one point been a tipping floor for a garbage processing facility. Yeah. Now it's at the center of Piermont, NY's revitalization. Go figure.
I love hearing about efforts to improve and save our beautiful planet. Hope you tell us when your article comes out so we can read!
Great post, Liza. You've really got me intrigued. We're going to the NYC area for a wedding in early Sept. If we can swing it, a quick side trip might happen.
Yes, the weather in Louisiana is similar, but Vietnam is more humid. I rather like the humidity, actually, but I think a person not born into a humid climate might have problems there (and in Louisiana).
I'm a big environmentalist, took a lot of hits for being a 'screaming liberal hugging trees' but didn't care. It's great that Boston is doing so much. Except for NO, Louisiana is a red, red meat state with many afraid of the disappearing coastline but even more fearful of coming across as liberal. Actually, I don't think Mother Nature gives two frog hairs about politics. She's on a tear.
That is so cool you can take a ferry into the city! I grew up in Norwell and then the Cape so am somewhat familiar with the area but I never knew about a ferry. Boston is a fun city.
Yay that they decided to clean it up, Liza. It will be a wildlife bonanza! I hope you tell us when we can read your article. I know it will be wonderful. :-) (((hugs)))
It warms my heart to hear of landscapes improving instead of getting worse. This is a wonderful story.
I hope more of this kind of work happens across the globe.
I'm glad we've finally realized that caring for the earth is our responsibility.
Liza - what a wonderful story! I hope you give us a link or copy the one you're working on too. I live twenty minutes out of Halifax, Nova Scotia on Prospect Bay. They've been reclaiming the Halifax Harbour for a good number of years - not sure if it is swimable yet but well on its way. The weird thing is that I've been here for ten years and it took me until two years ago to realize I could walk down the road (two city blocks) to the rock beach and swim in our bay. For some reason I'd been holding it in my mind that it was dirty like the city harbour - only we've never dumped our sewage into it - being 'in the country' it has always been septic fields and so forth. Perfectly clean!
Thank you so much for being such a great visitor to my A to Zed challenge - I love that you and Margot come by every day. It has been too crazy a month for me to do anything but meet the challenge - I plan on a nice slow May where I get around to seeing all my friends and commenting!
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