Political Waters: The Long, Dirty, Contentious, Incredibly Expensive but Eventually Triumphant History of Boston Harbor--A Unique Environmental Success Story (review)

In Political Waters, Eric Jay Dolin neatly summarizes the history of the Boston Harbor cleanup. This is a complicated story, but he has constructed a thorough narrative. Yet, because his book does not engage larger issues and historical events, Political Waters does not add as much as it might have to our understanding of the technological, political, social, and cultural contexts that shaped events in Boston.

Dolin begins with a well-researched history of Boston's sewage-disposal practices from the eighteenth century to the founding of the Metropolitan Sewage District (MSD) in 1877. Although the MSD dramatically improved sanitation in Boston and was widely emulated by cities around the country, it also concentrated pollution in the harbor. Its successor, the Metropolitan District Commission (MDC), responded to mounting harbor pollution during the 1950s and '60s by building two sewage-treatment plants. However, it did not have the staff, budget, or political capital to fix chronic problems that beset these plants. Harbor pollution continued unabated until the water-quality standards defined in the Clean Water Act of 1972 enabled the city of Quincy to sue the MDC for polluting the harbor.

The story of Quincy's lawsuit has become almost legendary. In Political Waters Dolin also explains key events such as the MDC's application for a waiver of secondary sewage treatment (which partially explains MDC inaction from 1972 to 1984), and the Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) 1985 lawsuit against the Massachusetts Water Resources Authority (MWRA), the new agency created to clean up the harbor. He clearly describes technological devices and systems, from the machinery that Boston used in the 1880s to dig trenches for new sewers to the MWRA's methods of cleanup. His early chapters include one of the best published explanations of the Massachusetts State Board of Health's role in Boston's sanitation reforms of the 1870s and '80s. Indeed, he is at his best when immersed in technical and legal detail.

That said, it must also be stated that there are real weaknesses in this work as a historical study. Dolin argues that the complexities of the American political system, changes in federal law, and the EPA's "enforcement posture" together delayed the Boston Harbor cleanup. But he does not introduce this argument until well into the book, and so does not use it to frame his narrative. While he notes that the American political system operates slowly because it allows many opportunities for popular input, he does not discuss public pressure for either the cleanup or containing the MDC's expenditures on sewerage improvements. More importantly, his main question, "Why did the cleanup take so long?" is not entirely appropriate. Boston actually acted swiftly compared to cities like San Diego, which recently celebrated the renewal of its secondary treatment waiver with yet another season of beach closings. The author does very little to place Boston's story within a national context. While Dolin consulted most of the relevant secondary literature, he fails to integrate this very well into his own work.

There are smaller irritations. Although the book is well documented, Dolin tends not to footnote concepts drawn from the work of others. He should perhaps have asked more questions about water-quality problems in Los Angeles, the biggest champion of waivers. He wrongly credits the New York–New Jersey Port Authority with inventing the semi-autonomous "metropolitan district." In all, Political Waters is not appropriate for a history classroom—but it needs to be added that this is not what Dolin intended. What his book does provide is a superior case study of policy implementation. It deserves wide readership among those interested in contemporary Massachusetts politics and, specifically, the history of Boston.