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.