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
"We call that 'The Lagoon,'" the Massachusetts Water Resources Authority hydrologist told me.
She was the first state official I interviewed about Maple Street, and she had studied water quality in the nearby Sudbury Reservoir, The man-made lake is dammed at its southern shores in Framingham and stretches north into Marlborough, where several small streams help fill the reservoir. One of the tributaries, which meanders south along Maple and River streets then feeds The Lagoon, has a lengthy history of environmental damage.
MWRA researchers had known about The Lagoon for years, the state scientist told me. A week later, the senior water authority official in charge of monitoring the Sudbury Reservoir told me the water was not potable. He said the Sudbury Reservoir would require environmental remediation efforts and new treatment facilities to be of much use in an emergency such as loss of access to the far larger and far cleaner Quabbin Reservoir.
The Sudbury Reservoir is one of the largest emergency reserve sources of water for the Greater Boston area. For several decades, a small stream that meanders along a mile-long portion of Maple Street in Marlborough has been washing oil-tainted water into The Lagoon, a football-field-sized pond located at the corner of Maple and Walker streets. The Lagoon, which is unlined, is equipped with a concrete dam and spillway.
Beginning in the early 20th century, oil spills had plagued the densely developed drag of commercial properties along Maple Street, one of the main southern entryways into Marlborough, including a lengthy history of rail access. Two of the small business owners in the Maple Street contamination hot-zone told me there had been several railway oil spills very close (or on) their properties over the years. They were both resigned, but angry, about the oil spill damage to their land and property values.
In late spring 1996, I joined the reporting staff of the Framingham-based Middlesex News and spent the first couple weeks in the newspaper's Marlborough bureau. I was more-or-less on my own to find stories. In my first week on the Marlborough beat, I drove to the Worcester office of the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection to conduct a records check on contamination sites in Marlborough.
The list of DEP-monitored sites in Marlborough included about 10 properties along Maple Street, which caught my eye and prompted an afternoon walk up and down the road as soon as I drove back into town.
Along a quarter-mile stretch of Maple Street, every other small business property had either sustained petroleum-based contamination, including multiple oil and gasoline spills. One DEP-monitored site at the northern tip of the environmental-damage hot zone had been used a century ago to convert coal to a thick, molasses-like form of fuel oil. Records indicated early cleanup efforts removed a vein of dark black waste product from the coal conversion site. The vein of hard tar was found about eight feet below the ground's surface very close to the gully cut by the stream that feeds The Lagoon.
At an old gasoline station next to the coal conversion site, about a ton of contaminated soil had been stored in a pile near the edge of the stream gully. At least half of the tainted soil had mysteriously disappeared, according to DEP records, The guy in the station definitely did not want to talk about it. My best guess as I walked away from the station was the soil pile had either eroded into the stream or been raided for "midnight dumping" disposal at another location.
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Above, trees and light brush bound The Lagoon in Marlborough. The parking lot to the west of The Lagoon is behind a Maple Street business. Homes line the streets to the north and east of The Lagoon. Below, The Lagoon (upper left) drains into the Sudbury Reservoir. /Google Earth images
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