Flowed Meadow Environmental - Water Quality Study
Brandeis University
Waltham, Massachusetts
Led follow-up initiative to the 1995, AIA Sustainable Design Charrette by partnering with the Environmental Sciences Department of Brandeis University under the direction of Attila Klein, former Dean of the University. A graduate level studies courses was created to assess the
environmental-water quality of the Charles River and surrounding Flowed Meadow neighborhoods of Waltham and Newton, Massachusetts.
Public forums were facilitated to envision higher and better-use development, renewed access and passive enjoyment of the Charles River. This vision, along with scientific data from Brandeis University, were presented by John Rossi and Attila Klein to the Waltham Conservation Commission. New programs and remediation methods to the Flowed Meadow area were unanimously adopted.
This flooded waterway was created by damming the once free-flowing Charles River at Moody Street in 1813 when the Boston Manufacturing Company built the first power loom. This textile technology was perfected by Francis Cabot Lowell and transformed the cities of Lawrence, Lowell, Fall River, and New Bedford.
Two-centuries of human intervention have impacted these waterways with dams, industry, a landfill, trash incinerator, and domestic pollutants—all having toll on the river and communities.
Many non-native species of plants in the waterways were also choking-off oxygen to native plants and fish, disrupting wildlife patterns, and causing waterways to slowly fill-in with biomass—a process known as eutrophication.
Scope of project: raise awareness of more sustainable economic development and reclamation of natural resource areas, assess water quality, sediment pollutants, and intervention methods to mitigate evasive plant species.
Scale of project: 400 flowed acres
2.5-miles of river
Study cost: n/a
Completion date: 1996
Image credits: Massachusetts Studies Projects