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.