The mission of the Watershed Action Alliance (WAA) is to protect and restore the watersheds of Southeastern Massachusetts through strategic collaboration and grassroots efforts. The Alliance also serves to strengthen the individual and collective capacity of its member groups, enabling them to be more effective watershed advocates.

The Alliance focuses on accomplishing the following three goals via public education and public policy advocacy:

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Herring on the Nemasket

Download the
Southcoastal Watershed Action Plan:
Southcoastal.zip 27 MB

Latest News on Proposed Legislation and Regulations

New legislation introduced in 2009 to protect rivers

WAA’s major legislative priority this year is the adoption of state Representative Frank Smizik’s proposed Sustainable Water Resources Act (Bill H 834). The bill would mandate state adoption of “streamflow standards” in every Massachusetts watershed, which would include specific criteria for protecting fisheries, aquatic life and other “instream” uses such as recreation. The bill would also require the state Office of Dam Safety to consider dam removal as an option for dealing with unsafe dams (removal of obsolete dams is highly beneficial environmentally). Finally, it would authorize public water suppliers to implement “waterbanking,” under which they could charge a small fee for new and expanded service to be spent on measures that conserve water supplies or protect them from pollution. When and if this bill comes up for a vote, we will post it on this website and ask you to voice your support to your legislators. For more information on the bill see: http://massriversalliance.org/sustainablewateract.html.

MassDEP is poised to break new ground on controlling stormwater pollution

Stormwater coming off roads, parking lots, roofs and other “impervious” surfaces is responsible for 60% of our water pollution, according to the MA Department of Environmental Protection.
No matter where rain falls, if it doesn’t infiltrate into the ground it eventually gets into our surface waters, along with all the pollutants it has picked up along the way.

So why does the state of Massachusetts not require any stormwater management for developments in “upland” (as opposed to wetland) areas? And why does it not regulate stormwater coming off of land that is already developed (as opposed to new development and redevelopment), which accounts for the great majority of the stormwater runoff?

After decades of ignoring these problems, the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection (MassDEP) has recently proposed that existing private upland developments with 5 acres or more of impervious surface initiate basic common-sense stormwater management measures, like regularly sweeping parking lots; cleaning out catch basins; storing road salts and other dangerous products out of the weather; and in very limited circumstances, installing new stormwater treatment devices. New development and redevelopment would have to do more.

The public comment period for this proposal has now closed. A number of WAA member organizations submitted comments supporting the new rules but asking for a few changes to strengthen them. Nonetheless, much of the business community is still pushing MassDEP not to “promulgate” (finalize) the regulations at all. Therefore, additional support for the proposed stormwater rules from ordinary citizens is still important. If you can, please email a note of support to DEP.Waterpermitting@state.ma.us, and “cc” your state legislators Legislators’ contact information can be found at http://www.mass.gov/legis/. If you don’t know who your legislators are, you can look it up at: www.state.ma.us/legis/citytown.htm.

Calendar of Events

Herring Kiosk reservations - 2009

The herrring kiosk is currently with Steve Pearlman at NepRWA.
NepRWA has reserved the kiosk for June 11.
The kiosk is currently available for use on all other dates.