Boston Horror

Clean it up, a judge demands

After more than a year of pleas, threats, deadlines and back-room bargaining with the Massachusetts state legislature, Superior Court Judge Paul Garrity decided enough was enough. Last week the judge took drastic steps to force the legislature to clean up polluted, malodorous Boston Harbor or risk ending a $500 million-a-year building boom in the Boston metropolitan area. Garrity declared a moratorium on almost all new developments that would be connected to the ancient sewer system that serves Boston and 42 other cities and towns. The order covers all building applications dating back to June 13,1983.

Garrity will also begin hearings this week to decide whether the sewer division should be turned over to a court-administered receiver. The judge will rescind his order only if the legislature passes a bill creating a water and waste authority to clean up the harbor before the end of the receivership hearings. Receivership is nothing new in Boston: Garrity placed the Boston housing authority into receivership five years ago because of mismanagement.

Garrity concedes that his harbor order was "draconian" but adds that it was also essential. Says he: "Because of human and toxic waste, the condition of the harbor is in violation of both state and federal law. It is unsafe, unsanitary and totally indecent. It is a condition profoundly inconsistent with the public interest." Massachusetts Attorney General Francis Bellotti plans to call for a stay of the order this week so its impact can be assessed.

The judge's decision was an official response to a two-year-old suit brought by the city of Quincy against the metropolitan district commission and the Boston water and sewage commission. During the past six years, 70 of the Environmental Protection Agency's 129 so-called priority pollutants have been detected in the harbor. In the first five months of 1983 alone, some 700 million gal. of raw sewage was dumped into the murky waters. The state senate and, particularly, the house have dragged their feet on measures to solve the crisis. After the legislature last week postponed consideration of a bill intended to create a newly independent, more effective sewer authority. Garrity decided to raise the political ante with his sweeping decision.

For legislators, the clean-up of Boston Harbor will be a major task, costing as much as $2 billion and taking five years to complete. But the building ban imperils some $2.3 billion in new construction in the city of Boston alone. "If the legislature doesn't act, there will be an awful lot of activity in the courts," says James Sullivan, president of the Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce. "The economy of the entire Greater Boston area could be on the line."