Malden River Clean Up
Will Wright attended the first meeting of a group that’s working to clean up the Malden River. Where’ s the Malden river you ask, it runs from through the center of Malden, between Everett and Medford, and empties into the Mystic river
This river is in tough shape. It will take years of effort to clean it up. Decades of heavy industrial use has left a plethora of nasty chemicals and heavy metals in the river’s sediment. Arsenic, Barium, Cadmium, Chromium, Lead, Mercury, Selenium, and Zinc are just the start of the nasty soup that makes up the river. Throw in E. coli levels in 2012 that left the river safe for boating only 40% of the time and an even worse 25% of the time safe for swimming. The bacteria levels have been on the rides for the last few years. Why you ask, they have no idea. Leaking sewage is the likely culprit, but no one has the funds to find out right now so the polluting continues unchecked.
The banks of the river are another story. Decades of dumping, filling in wet lands, and basically doing anything the big companies that lined the river wanted to do has left many areas in big trouble.
I was just introduced to the whole situation last night, but I plan to do a little investigating and will bring you my findings as well as updates on the progress of the clean up. There are many people in the community who want to see the river cleaned up and use it the way any community who has a nice river running through it would. Lots of work ahead. It looks a little daunting to me.
