Boston Harbor
Boston Harbor is a natural harbor in Boston, Massachusetts. It is home to the Port of Boston, a major shipping port in the northeastern United States. Since its discovery by the adventurer John Smith in 1614 Boston Harbor is one of the most important ports in the history of the United States. In the period to 1660, he served as the main port of entry for the English merchant shipping, it was the site of the Boston Tea Party and live up to the 19th century a continuous replenishment for the purpose of land reclamation.
Geography
Boston Harbor is a large natural harbor which forms the extreme west of the Massachusetts Bay. Thanks Winthrop Peninsula and Deer Iceland in the north, Nantasket Peninsula and Point Allerton to the south and the harbor islands in the middle of the harbor from the Massachusetts Bay and the Atlantic Ocean is shielded. Geographically, leaves the area into an outer and an inner harbor divide.
Harbor Islands
Boston Harbor includes a considerable number of islands, of which 34 belong to the recreation area Boston Harbor Islands National Recreation Area. The following islands are located within the harbor:
- Bumpkin Iceland, Iceland Button
- Castle Iceland
- Calf Iceland
- Gallops Iceland, Iceland Georges, Grape Iceland, Great Brewster Iceland, Iceland Green
- Hangman Iceland
- Langlee Iceland, Little Brewster Iceland, Little Calf Iceland, Long Iceland, Iceland Lovells
- Middle Brewster Iceland
- Moon Iceland, Nixes Mate
- Outer Brewster Iceland
- Peddocks Iceland
- Raccoon Iceland, Iceland Ragged, Rainsford Iceland
- Sarah Iceland, Shag Rocks, Sheep Iceland, Iceland Slate, Snake Iceland, Iceland Spectacle, spinnaker Iceland
- The Graves, Thompson Iceland
Castle Deer Iceland and Iceland, still exist in the form of recognizable and carry the designation "island", but are not as such be considered. Castle Iceland was connected by land reclamation to the mainland and Deer Iceland is no longer an island, has filled the channel since the New England hurricane in 1938 that has separated them from the mainland. Groove Iceland, a small island in Boston Harbor, was connected in the 1940s by filling in the Hough's - Neck Peninsula and it built a sewage treatment plant. Two other islands, Apple Iceland and Iceland Governors were heaped for the construction of the airport Logan International Airport.
Environmental and health problems
The intensive use of the area by industry and commerce had some kind of pollution of the environment with impact on public health consequence. The first U.S. law to protect the environment was adopted in 1656 in Boston. It forbade butchers to dispose of their slaughter waste and other refuse into the harbor waters. The outbreak of typhoid fever in 1796 was because also attributed to the polluted harbor waters. In 1850 the first comprehensive draft law was written to protect public health. He led the high mortality rate among immigrants back to the poor hygienic conditions. He also made recommendations for the use of organic waste as fertilizer in agriculture, one of the early examples of recycling and recovery of waste.
Early attempts at improvement
In the second half of the 19th century imposed for fear of ulcers, a bathing prohibition on the Boston Harbor because the harbor was still a sewer. Following a cholera epidemic in 1863 votes from the public were loud, demanding an improved sewage system. 1889, the first steam-powered sewage pumping station was built in East Boston, a second in 1899 taken on Deer Iceland in operation. A significant improvement in water quality was hoped that through these systems, however, only large objects filtered out and the remaining wastewater virtually untreated introduced back into the pool.
Metropolitan District Commission
The Metropolitan District Commission ( MDC) in 1919 was set up to manage the waste water and sewage systems in the region. The state-funded Commission was responsible for the three pumping stations East Boston, Deer Iceland and Iceland groove, but had too few resources to fulfill the mandate. 1939 published the legislature a report on the catastrophic state of the harbor basin and recommended a $ 24 million expensive project to combat environmental problems in Hingham Bay and Quincy Bay.
The MDC built in 1968 a wastewater treatment plant on Deer Iceland, which stood until the beginning of the Boston Harbor Project 1995 into operation. The plants circulated daily at about 1.3 billion liters of water, but only ten percent of the contaminants were actually filtered out. The resulting sludge was pumped through a digester directly into the harbor, as it was felt, the flow would carry all residues into the sea.
The Clean Water Act
The Water Protection Ordinance adopted in 1972 ( Clean Water Act ) required a second clarifying sequence solely for all wastewater treated by municipal treatment plants. Regulation granted exemptions from coastal towns and Boston filed a motion, which was rejected. At this time, the Boston Harbor was in the worst state of all time and would actually require additional clarification is required, but Environmental Protection Agency and City Council ignored Boston's environmental problems.
Governor Dukakis
Michael Dukakis served two terms as governor of Massachusetts. On the question of the Boston Harbor environmental issues Dukakis told each that he was not the one who did the dirty Harbor, but the one who wanted to clean it. However, this argument was contrary to the request of Boston for an exemption to the Clean Water Act of 1972.
Court cases
Unhappy with the fact that no steps for cleaning up and clarifying the Boston Harbor had been taken from public side, individuals and organizations were legal case against those responsible. The lawsuit against the city of Quincy, the MDC because of water pollution eventually followed a breakthrough judgment, the U.S. federal government against the state of Boston, after which the Boston Harbor had to be subjected to a comprehensive cleansing and purification. This court decision forced the then Governor Michael Dukakis in 1985 to outsource the areas of waste water and sewage from the MDC and to transfer the newly created Water Authority Massachusetts. The cleaning project continues to this day.
Boston Harbor as a campaign issue
The court-ordered cleaning project with its sluggish progress even became a campaign issue during the presidential elections in 1988, when George HW Bush. partly because of his campaign speeches, doubted the Dukakis ' environmental program, was able to beat its competitors.
Pop culture
The garage rock band The Standells in 1966 wrote the song Dirty Water, which denounced the miserable water quality of the Charles River. The song is by Red Sox fans to be popular and is played at Fenway Park Stadium regularly.
The water quality of both Harbor and Charles River has since improved significantly. The project has made Boston Harbor from one of the dirtiest coastal regions of the United States to one of the cleanest.