If there’s a silver lining to concerns that untreated stormwater runoff from the drug addiction detritus from Mass and Cass is polluting Boston Harbor, it’s this: perhaps now the city can get federal muscle and money to finally fix the crisis at Methadone Mile.
After all, now the environment is affected.
These days, climate change and environmental issues are the magic words to open up the floodgates of funding.
As the Herald reported, the city is applying for a grant from the CDC to monitor the Fort Point Channel for communicable diseases.
Catch basins in the Mass and Cass encampment drain into the Fort Point Channel where fishing and kayaking remain popular right across from the Children’s Museum.
“We have recently learned that catch basins in the area known as Mass & Cass dump right out into Boston Harbor via the Fort Point Channel without any filtration,” a group of lawmakers said in a letter sent to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
That letter, obtained by the Herald, adds: “Due to the public health concerns that illicit narcotics, including fentanyl, and infectious disease (pose) we believe this grant is an essential part of understanding how severe the public health and environmental impact and risks are.”
But it’s not just a Fort Point area concern. As sea levels are expected to rise, and more severe storms batter our coasts, the water in the channel becomes a stream flowing through the Seap, and beyond. Recall the storm several years back that sent Dumpsters sailing down Summer Street. Imagine if they were the cleanest things in the water.
Climate change is big with the Biden administration, so the threat of wilder weather spreading whatever the heck is in the Fort Point Channel should shoot the Mass and Cass problem to the priority spending pile.
If Mass and Cass were cleaned up, then the needles and other biohazards that flow into catch basins would be eliminated. It’s a roundabout way to get the job done, but at this point, we’ll take all the help we can get.
Despite efforts and innovative ideas – and money – Mass and Cass isn’t getting better. Mayor Michelle Wu said during a “Java with Jimmy” podcast that conditions in that area have reached “a new level of public safety alarm” over the past several weeks.
Wu said first responders, health professionals and outreach workers regularly encounter crowds of more than 200 people, an “untenable” situation exacerbated by the drug and human trafficking and violence that takes place there.
“All of the non-city teams have said in the last few weeks the situation has gotten so dangerous that we are pulling our people out — we cannot be in there.”
That’s saying something, because the men and women who work to help the homeless and drug-addicted denizens of Methadone Mile are not faint of heart.
Wu has faced pushback to her plans to house the Mass and Cass population, and a stunning amount of NIMBYism, but the city may yet have a card up its sleeve.
The Environmental Protection Agency should step in with funding to eliminate any water hazards in the Fort Point Channel caused by Mass and Cass runoff by helping Boston solve the relentless drug crisis at the source.
