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 Memoir: Toxic Times Photo Gallery

Images from an environmental journalist's past

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

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

In 2013, construction runoff chokes Hodgson Brook off New Hampshire Avenue at Pease International Tradeport. /Christopher Cheney photo for seacoastonline.com

On the Charles River in July 1997, a couple fishes near a boat launch area in Millis, Mass. /Paul Kapteyn photo for Middlesex News

Two decades later, the former boat launch area in Millis is choked with vegetation and goes dry in summer months. /Google Earth images

Sherborn (Good) has protected The Charles from over-development. Medfield (Bad) has built to the riverbanks. /Google Earth image

Sediment has filled half of "The Lagoon" in Marlborough, Mass. For decades, oil-tainted water has flowed from the man-made pond's dam and spillway (lower right) into the Sudbury Reservoir. /Google Earth image

The Maple Street environmental damage hot-zone in Marlborough, Mass., including The Lagoon (lower right) /Google Earth image

"The Lagoon" (top left) is filled with petroleum-contaminated sediment and drains into a northern portion of the Sudbury Reservoir in Marlborough. 

Kellogg-Deering Well Field, Norwalk, Conn. /EPA image

An Environmental Protection Agency-led cleanup "cooked" tons of toxic-waste tainted soil at the Solvent Recovery Service of New England Superfund site in Southington, Conn. The cooking treatment included vacuum-equipped machinery to collect carcinogens that were among the deadliest byproducts of the underground heating process. /Image via srsnesite.com

The lagoon field, the most contaminated area of the SRS Superfund site, is prepped to be "cooked" in the fall 2013. /Image via srsnesite.com

It is hard for me to imagine that a nature trail will one day pass through the now rotted heart of the Solvent Recovery Service of New England Superfund site in Southington, Conn. /Image via Farmington Valley Trails Council

In a case of horrific local and state government negligence, the decision to shift the primary source of drinking water in Flint, Mich., from the Detroit water supply to the highly acidic Flint River is spotlighting a nationwide water-infrastructure nightmare. /Image via www.dogonews.com

Bullwork Report: Gun control reality check

This week's Bullwork Report focuses on many of the harsh realities of gun violence in America, including the difficulty of keeping guns out of the hands of criminals and the consequences of having 310 millions guns in private hands.

The answer to this week's Bullwork Know It Hall of Fall Challenge will post before midnight on Twitter @cccheney.

Bullwork Report premiere: Train-wreck training

Bullwork Report program notes:

- It can take a while for YouTube to process new videos, so the Bullwork Report production schedule is a work in progress. But we're still shooting for webcasting regularly on Wednesday nights.

- More magic is being added to the "Magic Wall."

- The answer to the inaugural Bullwork Know It Hall of Fame Challenge will be tweeted @cccheney before midnight on Monday, Jan. 21.

- And Jen still thinks I'm crazy.

Bullwork Report video feature premieres tonight

 

The Bullwork Report, a weekly webcast linked to the bullworkofdemocracy blog, is set to launch later tonight. Every week on the Bullwork Report, you will find the biggest stories in the world that get relatively little media attention. And these stories are being told in a way to be as accessible as possible to as many people as possible.

How the Bullwork Report works

With the exception of tonight's premiere, 10-minute Bullwork Reports will post to YouTube and the bullworkofdemocracy blog every Wednesday night. If there are technical difficulties, posting will be moved to Thursday night.

The Bullwork Report is presented in one, unedited, cut.

Bullwork Report webcasts are either going to dig deeper into a bullworkofdemocracy blog post or present stories researched and crafted specifically for the webcast.

Each Bullwork Report will conclude with a reading of the Angerometer, which counts each time I say "bullshit."

And each Bullwork Report will end with the Bullwork Know it Hall of Fame Challenge. If you can tweet the source of the Bullwork Report’s signoff quote to @cccheney, you’ll be among the charter members of the Bullwork Know it Hall of Fame to have their twitter account names memorialized on the bullworkofdemocracy blog this spring. The answer to the challenges will be tweeted @cccheney about 24 hours after every webcast.