Black Lagoon: Strain on damaged dam drained

BULLWORK OF DEMOCRACY EXCLUSIVE COVERAGE: The Black Lagoon is a contaminated man-made pond near the corner of Maple and Walker streets in Marlborough, Mass. For more than a century, petroleum-product spills have plagued properties on a mile-long stretch of Maple Street. Toxins from those spills now rest uneasily in The Black Lagoon, mingled in massive silt deposits that pose a threat to the nearby Sudbury Reservoir.

RELIEVING PRESSURE: The water level at The Black Lagoon has lowered at least a foot since state workers removed the floodgate from the putrid pond's damaged dam on Feb. 19. /Christopher Cheney photo

In a move apparently prompted by the dilapidated condition of The Black Lagoon's concrete-and earthen dam, state workers removed the floodgate from the damaged structure on Friday.

On Thursday, Bullwork of Democracy reported that an architect and an engineer believe natural forces and years of neglect have structurally compromised the dam. Also on Thursday, Bullwork Editor Christopher Cheney called the Office of Dam Safety at the Department of Conservation and Recreation, the state agency responsible for maintaining the dam and surrounding property. A voice mail message, which raised concern about the condition of the dam and requested comment, was left at the safety office. The message was not returned, and DCR officials have not responded to several other requests for comment.

On Friday, two DCR trucks with at least five workers were at The Black Lagoon for about 30 minutes, a neighboring property owner said. The workers spent most of their time at the dam but also walked along the pond's shoreline, the homeowner said.

LET LOOSE: Water gushes over The Black Lagoon's floodgate on Feb. 20. /Christopher Cheney photo

The concrete portion of the dam shows several signs of wear and tear, including a destroyed wooden-plank gate in the floodgate's spillway as well as cracking and chipping of the main spillway dam, which is the largest concrete element of the structure. The structural integrity of the earthen portion of the dam is clearly in doubt.

In addition to heavy tree growth in the packed-earth portion of The Black Lagoon's dam, there is a washout at least four-feet-wide on the back side of the dam. The washout, which has exposed the top of the earthen dam's steel pilings, extends at least eight feet down the side of the dam's western stone-and-mortar abutment.

PHOTO GALLERY: Dam observations on Feb. 20 include washout on the earthen portion of the structure and oil slick in main spillway

EROSIVE FORCE: Water has evidently washed over the earthen portion of The Black Lagoon's dam in the past, eroding a gash in the back of the structure along the western abutment of the main spillway. Steel pilings at the center of the earthen dam's crown appear to have held off a more serious washout. "It could be catastrophic. It certainly needs to be addressed as soon as possible," says a longtime Connecticut highway engineer who reviewed these images. /Christopher Cheney photos and bullworkofdemocracy illustration

CONTAMINATION: With The Black Lagoon's floodgate removed, the main spillway is dry, with the exception of an oily ooze leaking from the floodgate spillway. /Christopher Cheney photos and bullworkofdemocracy illustration

PETROLEUM-BASED: In photo below, a six-foot-long slick of oily ooze flows down the middle of the main spillway at The Black Lagoon's dam.

INFILTRATED: The earthen portion of The Black Lagoon's dam is overrun with trees and brush on both sides of the structure. /Christopher Cheney photo

Black Lagoon: 'Sleeping giant' threatens reservoir

BULLWORK OF DEMOCRACY EXCLUSIVE COVERAGE: The Black Lagoon is a contaminated man-made pond near the corner of Maple and Walker streets in Marlborough, Mass. For more than a century, petroleum-product spills have plagued properties on a mile-long stretch of Maple Street. Toxins from those spills including lead now rest uneasily in The Black Lagoon, mingled in massive silt deposits that pose a threat to the nearby Sudbury Reservoir.

LAND OF THE DAMMED: A large meadow dominates the terrain immediately downstream from The Black Lagoon. If the man-made pond's dam fails during a storm, the floodgate spillway drainage ditch in the foreground of this photo and the field in the background would be covered with contaminated silt. The Sudbury Reservoir, which is a backup water supply for 2.2 million people in Greater Boston, is about a quarter-mile downstream. /Christopher Cheney photo

The dam holding back tons of contaminated silt at The Black Lagoon is structurally compromised and could fail catastrophically, according to a pair of engineers.

The dam has been poorly maintained over the past two decades, and the elements have taken their toll, says Joseph Landry, principal at San Francisco Bay Area-based Joseph Landry Architecture and Design. "It is easy to see that the structural integrity has been compromised from years of natural forces and maintenance neglect. The cracks in the concrete and the misalignment of the top stones will only further degrade at a more rapid speed because the foundation support is obviously deteriorated. Even by just viewing photos, one can see the severity of the situation."

A washout on the back side of The Black Lagoon's dam is at least 5-feet-wide and 10-feet long. The washout runs along the concrete portion of the structure's western abutment, which is constructed with carved stone and mortar. Poor maintenance over the past 20 years also has weakened the earthen portion of the the dam, below, which has trees growing along its entire surface. Tree roots compromise the structural integrity of packed-earth dams. /Christopher Cheney photos and bullworkofdemocracy illustrations

The damaged eastern abutment and tree growth on the earthen portion of the dam are serious structural problems that could lead to a collapse, says an engineer at the Connecticut Department of Transportation who also reviewed photographs of the site. "It is possible," he says of a dam failure at The Black Lagoon. "Like anything, it's not going to last forever. It has to be maintained."

The Black Lagoon, which is on state land managed by the Department of Conservation and Recreation (DCR), is filled with tons of contaminated silt from several properties upstream along Maple Street. Over the past three decades, at least 16 Maple Street properties have undergone state-supervised environmental cleanups, according to Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) records.

In an April 1996 story published in the Middlesex News, a state official called The Black Lagoon a major source of contamination for the Sudbury Reservoir, which is a key element of the backup water supply for 2.2 million Greater Boston residents and 5,500 businesses. In the time since I wrote that newspaper story, the environmental threat has mushroomed, with alarming growth of the contaminated silt deposits in The Black Lagoon and the man-made pond's dam in disrepair.

This week, an official at the city of Marlborough told Bullwork of Democracy that all of the known contamination along Maple Street has been removed or contained. "It's been cleaned up piece by piece," said Priscilla Ryder, the agent for the Marlborough Conservation Commission who has been monitoring Maple Street toxic waste sites for a quarter century. Some of the cleanup efforts have taken as long as 15 years to complete, she said.

There still could be contamination under the surface along Maple Street, in part because DEP denied requests from the city to conduct a comprehensive cleanup of the entire commercial strip. "They've cleaned up what we found," she said.

DCR bears responsibility for cleaning up The Black Lagoon, Ryder said. "I remember talking with DCR at the beginning [of the Maple Street cleanups in the late 1980s], and they said they were not going to clean up the pond until everything was cleaned up upstream."

DCR officials did not respond to email and phone requests for comment.

Most of The Black Lagoon is filled with contaminated silt. /Google Earth image and bullworkofdemocracy illustration

For more than a century, a mile-long stretch of Maple Street has been the scene of repeated oil and gasoline spills, according to DEP records. The Marlborough Fire Department headquarters, a $2.4 million facility completed in 1995, is located on one of the most notoriously polluted properties: 215 Maple St.

A 1986 subsurface exploration study of 215 Maple St. focuses on the environmental impact of a coal gasification plant that operated on the property from about 1900 to 1940. The Black Lagoon, which is about a half-mile south, is fed by the Sudbury Reservoir tributary that flows through the 215 Maple St. parcel. "Flow in the Metropolitan District Commission ditch which bisects the site is ... in a southerly direction, towards Sudbury Reservoir," the 1986 study says.

The study documents a thin layer of coal-gasification sludge "found at a depth of about 16 to 18 feet in one area of the site." The study also says the discovery of "an abandoned underground gasoline storage tank on the site constitutes a violation of the State Fire Marshals Regulations." Despite these toxic hazard discoveries, the study fatefully concludes "The volume of hazardous material (coal tar) buried on the site appears to be small."

While preparing the property for the new fire department headquarters on Nov. 15, 1993, excavation workers hit an abandoned pipe from the coal gasification plant, releasing more than 100 gallons of thick black coal tar into the soil, DEP documents say. "While performing construction activities at the new fire station, a pipe that was part of a former coal plant was ruptured, resulting in a release of 100-150 gallons of a tar-like substance," a DEP report on the spill says.

The day after the coal tar spill, a cleanup contractor estimated that 50 cubic yards of contaminated soil would have to be removed from the property and "approx 3000 gallons of coal sludge/water will be pumped out of the excavation," a DEP document says.

The Black Lagoon -- and the legacy of petroleum-product spills that it harbors in tons of contaminated silt -- is an environmental threat that has grown silently over time with no end in sight, Ryder says. "It's been a sleeping giant. Nobody's rattling the cage."

A recent photo of The Black Lagoon shows the largest contaminated silt deposits, which are located on the commercially zoned side of the man-made pond. A neighborhood with dozens of homes is on the eastern side of Marlborough's toxic waste "sleeping giant." /Christopher Cheney photo and bullworkofdemocracy illustration

DEP documents on Maple Street environmental cleanups:

Cleanup plan for former Texaco gas station, March 11, 1997

Cleanup report for 417 Maple St., April 1998

Cleanup report for 415 Maple St., June 1998

Cleanup report for gasoline spill, 146 Maple St., June 1999

Cleanup report for 146 Maple Street, July 2010

Waste oil cleanup report for 417 Maple St., August 2013

Black Lagoon: The monster's cage weakening

PHOTO GALLERY: The concrete, carved-stone and earthen dam off Walker Street in Marlborough, Mass., has been poorly maintained for the past 20 years. Several dams in Massachusetts are in similar disrepair; but none are like the bulwark at The Black Lagoon, which contains untold tonnage of contaminated silt. The man-made pond is contaminating the nearby Sudbury Reservoir, part of the MWRA water system's emergency water supply for 2.2 million Greater Boston residents and 5,500 businesses.

THE MONSTER'S CAGE: The primary features of the dam at The Black Lagoon include a rusty steel-and-plank walkway, a main spillway constructed of concrete several feet thick, and a 4-foot-wide flood gate. /Christopher Cheney photo

INFILTRATED: Many trees, which compromise the structural integrity of packed-earth dams, have taken root in the earthen structure at The Black Lagoon. /Christopher Cheney photo

ISLAND OF THE BLACK LAGOON: The largest silt deposit in The Black Lagoon has a tree-dotted section about 30 feet wide. The silt is mixed with chemicals from more than a century of gas and oil spills at commercial properties along nearby Maple Street. /Christopher Cheney photo

WORN TO THE BONE: A washout on the back side of The Black Lagoon's dam is at least 5-feet-wide and 10-feet long. The washout runs along the concrete portion of the structure's western abutment, which is constructed with carved stone and mortar. /Christopher Cheney

EROSIVE EFFECT: Water is the most erosive natural force on Earth. When I first saw floodgate spillway at The Black Lagoon in April 1996, there were boards between these concrete frame posts that created a de facto settling and holding basin for oil, heavy contaminants such as lead and silt that came over the floodgate, primarily during storm events. One of the missing boards (photo below) is snagged in brush along the spillway about 6 feet from the damaged concrete frame posts. /Christopher Cheney photos

SNOWFLAKES AND SLUDGE: In April 1996, the floodgate's spillway floor was slathered with an orange, iron-rich slime, primarily from construction sites upstream disturbing iron-rich soil, which is not a serious environmental threat. With fresh flakes of snow lining a hole in the ice this week, a thick black slime from The Black Lagoon is mixed into a coating that appears more noxious now. /Christopher Cheney photo

STAINED ICE: A 15-foot-wide patch of ice covers part of the main spillway at The Black Lagoon's dam. The main spillway and the floodgate spillway feed the final half-mile run of the Sudbury Reservoir tributary. Upstream, the creek flows past several Maple Street commercial properties that have undergone toxic waste cleanups. /Christopher Cheney photo

The rounded crown of The Black Lagoon dam's main spillway is chipped and cracked. In addition, the dam's footbridge steel is heavily corroded at some junction points of the structure. /Christopher Cheney photo

WEIGHTY PRESSURE: Silt in The Black Lagoon rests uneasily, particularly during storm events, when new silt flows into the man-made pond and old silt is eroded and flows over the dam toward the Sudbury Reservoir. The channel of open water in The Black Lagoon is bigger than an Olympic Hockey rink, stretching from the dam to the man-made pond's inlet. /Christopher Cheney photo

'Rhapsody in Black' shines light on racism

Actor and writer LeLand Gantt recounts a life colored by racism in his one-man play, Rhapsody in Black. /Image via dutchesstourism.com

The capital of New Hampshire is a perfect place to awaken white people to the reality of growing up black in America.

In a stunning and revealing sharing of his life's story this weekend at the Capitol Center for the Arts, New York-based actor and playwright LeLand Gantt performed his theatrical masterpiece on race in America, Rhapsody in Black. From grammar school in Pennsylvania to his adulthood in New York, Gantt relives seemingly endless episodes of racially fueled alienation, injustice and self doubt.

For me, the most gut-wrenching moments of the night came after Gantt's performance, when the artist sat down with his legs dangling over the edge of the stage and fielded more than a dozen questions from the audience about the play and the legacy of racism in the United States.

One question cut into my heart like butcher knife.

A white woman in the front row of the predominantly white audience from the overwhelmingly white state of New Hampshire asked Gantt for guidance in helping one of her elementary school students. The woman teaches at a school in the N.H. North Country, where community demographics are as white as the driven snow on Mount Washington. One of the teacher's students is The Only Black Girl in the school.

Classmates accepted the black girl when they were all little children, the teacher said. But that changed in fifth-grade, when the ignorant brand of racism that is prevalent across The Granite State had infected many minds of the elementary school's fifth-graders. At age 10, The Only Black Girl was learning harsh lessons about being black in America, including how the color of your skin can tattoo a bull's-eye in the center of your back, making you a target for cruelty and abuse.

I was in the black section of the audience, with my wife, who is half African-American, and members of a black family who were seated in front of us.

My wife was raised on Barn Door Gap Road in a little New Hampshire town. When she was growing up, Jen was The Only Black Girl in most of her elementary and high school classes.

As I watched Gantt offering the teacher some consolation and advice for helping her Only Black Girl, I could not bear to look at my Only Black Girl. I knew what I would see in Jen's face because the pain and anger associated with her childhood experiences were oozing out of every pore of her light brown skin.

I knew the emotions I would see in my wife's face because I could feel them piercing deep into my heart.

During her school-age years, Jen Cheney was The Only Black Girl in most of her classes, which is where she learned many emotionally brutal lessons about racism in America. /Family photo 

Black Lagoon: Unheeded toxic-waste warning

In April 1996, The Black Lagoon in Marlborough, Mass., and contamination in the nearby Sudbury Reservoir were front-page news. Over the past two decades, the pollution threat in the Maple Street neighborhood of Marlborough has grown to monstrous proportions. /Ken McGagh photo for Middlesex News

Editor's Note: This story, which is available online exclusively at bullworkofdemocracy, was originally published in the Sunday Middlesex News on April 21, 1996.

'Sudbury Reservoir Unfit to Drink: Greater Boston's emergency water supply plagued by pollution' Sunday Middlesex News, published April 21, 1996, By Christopher Cheney

The Sudbury Reservoir, Greater Boston's main backup water supply, is unfit for human consumption because of isolated "hot spots" of pollution, state officials warn.

If the Massachusetts Water Resources Authority water supply system were to fail due to a drought, earthquake or sabotage, the 7.5 million gallon reservoir would have to be activated.

But state environmental officials now studying the reservoir in Southborough and Marlborough say pollution in the water exceeds safe drinking water standards.

"If we needed to use that reservoir, a 'boil order' goes out from DEP," said Michael Mislin, manager of the Sudbury Reservoir for the state Metropolitan District Commission. "We know we have numerous sites that contain hazardous materials and those materials are leaching out."

A study soon to be released by the MWRA identifies several contamination problems that are compromising water quality in the reservoir.

According to Gretchen Roorbach, the project manager of the MWRA study, the biggest concern is that an ongoing buildup of algae will "kill" the reservoir by depleting oxygen in the water. She said two of the driving forces behind the algae growth are leaking septic systems and fertilizers being used on homeowners' lawns near the water.

Roorbach said the damage may be irreversible if the algae problem is not controlled. "Basically, it becomes a huge algae swamp," she said of the worst-case scenario.

Ten MetroWest communities use MWRA water services: Framingham, Waltham and Newton are totally reliant on the MWRA for drinking water and sewers. MWRA water is the main source of drinking water in Southborough and Weston. A limited number of neighborhoods in Marlborough, Northborough and Wellesley use MWRA drinking water. Ashland and Natick are on the MWRA's sewer system.

Another contamination issue raised in the upcoming MWRA report is the existence of hazardous waste "hot spots" that are polluting the reservoir, Misslin said.

The Middlesex News has learned hazardous waste leaching from contaminated properties along a half-mile stretch of Route 85 in Marlborough is polluting the reservoir.

A century of industrial pollution on Route 85, known locally as Maple Street, has left a legacy of petrochemical contamination.

The area was home to a number of different industries since the beginning of the 20th century, including a shoe factory, a coal gasification plant, and oil distribution facilities.

Over the past eight years, the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection has identified 10 confirmed or suspected hazardous waste sites stretching for a quarter mile north to south from 146 Maple St. down to 311 Maple St. A tributary of the Sudbury Reservoir, which is a half mile downstream, runs through the center of the contaminated area.

The affected area of Maple Street is about a half mile north of the Marlborough-Southborough border.

The contamination developed over so many years and is so widespread that officials say it may not be possible to determine who is responsible for the pollution. "It's pretty tough to figure out where the stuff came from," Misslin said.

The commission has documented spills of hazardous materials on Maple Street going back 90 years, he said. "Now what we're seeing is the gradual movement of these materials through the ground."

The Sudbury Reservoir study being conducted by the MWRA has identified the Maple Street hazardous waste sites as a significant source of contamination. "Maple Street jumps right out at you," Misslin said of the report's findings.

This April 1996 map shows the Maple Street neighborhood in Marlborough, which is a contamination hot spot that has polluted the Sudbury Reservoir for decades. /Middlesex News graphic and bullworkofdemocracy illustration

According to water officials, the Sudbury Reservoir would only be activated under emergency circumstances such as if an earthquake damaged the aqueducts carrying water from the massive, 412 billion gallon Quabbin Reservoir in central Massachusetts. "There is no immediate danger to anyone," MWRA spokesman David Gilmartin said of the Maple Street contamination.

Roorbach said a pond off Walker Street is functioning as a catch basin for the contamination flowing down from the Maple Street toxic waste sites. "That [pond] is a very serious source of contamination."

Testing of the Walker Street pond has revealed the presence of not only petrochemicals from oil and gasoline spills but also heavy metals such as lead, she said. "That is a real settling pond for contaminants and heavy metals."

Heavy metals such as lead are considered to be highly toxic if consumed by humans.

Roorbach said the reservoir has not been tested for heavy metals since 1978, when the presence of the materials was found to be "prominent" near the reservoir's dam. Drinking water would be pumped from the dam area if the reservoir was brought online.

Roorbach said it is unlikely heavy metals would get into drinking water if the reservoir was activated because they sink into the lake's sediment. "We of course worry about it; but, the way the Sudbury Reservoir is used, heavy metals would not be stirred up."

Misslin said the level of risk posed by heavy metals in the reservoir is an open question. "So far, we haven't found significant levels of metals," he said. "We haven't gone out actively looking for metals, either."

Today, The Black Lagoon is filled with uncounted tonnage of contaminated water and silt. /Google Earth image and bullworkofdemocracy illustration

Large amounts of contaminated silt from The Black Lagoon appear to have migrated to the nearby Sudbury Reservoir. /Google Earth image and bullworkofdemocracy illustration

Environmental Nightmare: Monster of Black Lagoon

Contaminated soil covers more than half of the surface area and fills most of the total volume of The Black Lagoon in Marlborough, Mass. An aging and poorly maintained dam is containing the silt deposits from reaching the Sudbury Reservoir, which is a half-mile downstream. /Google Earth image and bullworkofdemocracy illustration

For at least three decades, The Black Lagoon has fed a steady diet of toxic waste to a tributary stream of the Sudbury Reservoir. The stream that feeds the lagoon drains storm water from Maple Street, the scene of a century's worth of petroleum-product spills, according to Massachusetts officials. /Google Earth image and bullworkofdemocracy illustration

The Black Lagoon off Maple Street in Marlborough (photo below) has spread contaminated silt to the Sudbury Reservoir (photo above). A tributary stream a half-mile long links The Black Lagoon to the reservoir./Google Earth image and bullworkofdemocracy illustration

The concrete-and-earth dam at The Black Lagoon, which is state land, has been poorly maintained for at least two decades. /Christopher Cheney photo

The Black Lagoon is located in a mixed commercial and residential neighborhood. To the west and south, several small businesses line Maple Street, including at least 10 properties that are former or active toxic waste sites. To the north and east, houses dot the landscape. /Google Earth image

The largest silt deposit areas of The Black Lagoon are on the commercial-development side of the man-made pond, which is a resting place for tons of contaminated soil, according to state officials.

The Black Lagoon is in the rotted heart of this April 1996 map. /Middlesex News image

In 1996, the first Page 1 Sunday-edition newspaper story of my journalism career featured the Sudbury Reservoir and The Black Lagoon. /Ken McGagh photo for Middlesex News

Excerpt from 'Sudbury Reservoir: Unfit to Drink,' Sunday Middlesex News, April 21, 1996, by Christopher Cheney

Gretchen Roorbach, a scientist at the Massachusetts Water Resources Authority, said a pond off Walker Street is functioning as a catch basin for the contamination flowing down from the Maple Street sites. "That is a serious source of contamination," she said.
Roorbach said testing of the Walker Street pond had revealed the presence of not only petrochemicals from oil and gasoline spills but also heavy metals such as lead. "That is a real settling pond for contaminants and heavy metals," she said.

Environmental Nightmare: Black Lagoon Tributary

The Black Lagoon off Maple Street in Marlborough, Mass. (photo below) has spread contaminated silt to the Sudbury Reservoir (photo above). A half-mile-long tributary stream links The Black Lagoon to the reservoir (photo bottom)./Google Earth images

The Black Lagoon is filled with soiled silt from toxic waste sites along Maple Street, which is the scene of more than a century of petroleum-product spills, according to Massachusetts officials.

For at least three decades, The Black Lagoon has fed a steady diet of toxic waste to its tributary stream of the Sudbury Reservoir. 

The Black Lagoon is in the rotted heart of this April 1996 map. /Middlesex News image

Environmental Nightmare: The Black Lagoon

Contaminated soil covers more than half of the surface area and fills most of the total volume of The Black Lagoon in Marlborough, Mass. An aging and poorly maintained dam is containing the silt deposits from reaching the Sudbury Reservoir, which is a half-mile away. /Google Earth image and bullworkofdemocracy illustration

The first time I saw The Black Lagoon, there was a monstrous amount of silt lurking under the dark water's surface.

I saw The Black Lagoon this week, 20 years after my first unsettling encounter with this man-made monstrosity, Now, tons of silt, which is contaminated mostly with petroleum-based chemicals from toxic-waste sites upstream along Maple Street, are exposed like the gently curving head and tentacles of an enormous squid, with the bulk of the grainy grey monster hidden under water. In recent satellite images of The Black Lagoon, trees and brush that cling to the silt-deposit monster like swaths of green barnacles, providing testimony to years of neglect.

In 1996, a state official I interviewed described this putrid pond near the corner of Maple and Walker streets as a known repository of contaminated silt from several polluted properties upstream. MWRA scientists who monitored water quality in the nearby Sudbury Reservoir called the site "The Lagoon," the state official said.

The documented record of petroleum-product spills on Maple Street commercial properties stretches back to at least the very early 1900s, Michael Misslin, Sudbury Reservoir manager for the state Metropolitan District Commission, told me in 1996

After returning to the site this week and witnessing the festering environmental damage from a century of environmental abuse and neglect, I now call this place The Black Lagoon.

The largest silt deposit area of The Black Lagoon is on the commercial-development side of the man-made pond, which is a resting place for tons of contaminated soil. In an April 1996 Page 1 story I wrote for the Sunday Middlesex News, a state official described the pond as "a serious source of contamination." Based on observations during a recent Bullwork of Democracy site visit, including comments from a homeowner who lives on the residential side of the pond, no environmental remediation efforts have occurred at The Black Lagoon over the past two decades. /Christopher Cheney photo

In 1964, Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart defined hard-core pornography with one of the greatest understatements of all time: "I know it when I see it."

The first story I ever wrote about toxic waste contamination was about the near-dozen polluted properties along Maple Street in Marlborough. After reporting and writing about environmental damage for the past 20 years, I know environmental damage when I see it.

There is significant environmental damage at The Black Lagoon such as leaching of contaminants into the groundwater under and around the pond. The biggest nightmare scenario for the toxic waste site is a catastrophic failure of the concrete dam during a storm event, which would spew tons of contaminated silt into the nearby Sudbury Reservoir.

"It's a mess down there," a homeowner who has lived next to The Black Lagoon for 30 years told me this week.

The concrete-and-earth dam at The Black Lagoon has been poorly maintained for at least two decades. Over the past 20 years, more than a dozen trees have taken root in the earthen portion of the dam. /Christopher Cheney photo

In 1996, the first Page 1 Sunday-edition newspaper story of my journalism career featured The Black Lagoon. /Ken McGagh photo for Middlesex News

Excerpt from 'Sudbury Reservoir: Unfit to Drink,' Sunday Middlesex News, April 21, 1996

Gretchen Roorbach, a scientist at the Massachusetts Water Resources Authority, said a pond off Walker Street is functioning as a catch basin for the contamination flowing down from the Maple Street sites. "That is a serious source of contamination," she said.
Roorbach said testing of the Walker Street pond had revealed the presence of not only petrochemicals from oil and gasoline spills but also heavy metals such as lead. "That is a real settling pond for contaminants and heavy metals," she said.

Environmental Memoir: Cape Cod's war wounds

Military ordnance discovered at Marconi Beach on Cape Cod is destroyed in a controlled explosion. /Cape Cod Times image

America's war legacy spread environmental damage to Cape Cod.

Artifacts of war litter the Cape and Islands: bombs dropped and lost in the sandy depths of time from long-forgotten training flights over the beaches, lead bullets and other military refuse penetrating deep in the soil at the former Massachusetts Military Reservation, tainting the groundwater and the Cape's only aquifer, and health complaints against a top-secret radar station.

Abandoned military ordnance discovered at a beach on Martha's Vineyard. /Image via therealcape.com

The U.S. Air Force PAVE PAWS station in Bourne, Mass., is capable of providing early warnings for ballistic missiles. /Cape Cod Times image

Environmental Memoir: Saving Hodgson Brook

Hodgson Brook at the former Pease Air Force Base in Portsmouth, N.H., was an oily mess for decades, mainly from airport operations-linked chemical contamination. /Hodgson Brook Watershed Restoration Plan image

I helped save a brook that the Air Force nearly destroyed.

I first became aware of groundwater pollution at Pease Air Force Base while working as night editor at the Concord Monitor at the turn of the century.

The last time I was aware of groundwater contamination at Pease was in 2013, when I was the first to see the damage.