A letter rebuking the MWRA for its shock plans to take 2.3 acres of the Magazine Beach park went out Friday from Cambridge city manager Yi-An Huang.
The letter to Stephen Estes-Smargiassi, executive director of the Massachusetts Water Resources Authority, followed a Monday meeting in which MWRA staff presented to the nonprofit Magazine Beach Partners and Cambridgeport Neighborhood Association, with city staff looking on in surprise.
“Despite the fact that we have been working collaboratively with the MWRA over the past five years, we had not been notified of these plans prior to the meeting,” Huang said in the letter, which was shared with The Cambridge Somerville Independent.
City councillor Cathie Zusy said she worked for several months to bring together the meeting about putting a 10.1-million-gallon storage tank under the soccer, baseball and other fields at Magazine Beach – infrastructure to stop sewage from flowing into public waterways during storms. It’s a continuation of her work before running for office as the “Magazine Beach lady” of leading a $10 million-plus, 16-year restoration project at the Cambridgeport park.
Yet Zusy was also taken by surprise by what the MWRA said Monday while she was at a council meeting. “What was presented to us was different from the presentation Monday,” Zusy said, referring to herself and Ken Carson, who followed her as president of Magazine Beach Partners. “We were duped, we were given different information. And we were trying to be supportive because we understood it was a done deal [and] it looked as though this had to happen for the greater good.”
While the city expressed its alarm to the MWRA, state representative Mike Connolly – who has also been active in helping secure funds for Magazine Beach, which became part of his redrawn district Cambridge-Somerville district in 2022 – signaled his unhappiness to Rebecca Tepper, who oversees the state Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs and chairs the MWRA.
Tepper responded Thursday and agreed to meet to discuss the presentation, Connolly said.
There are many examples of storage tanks built with active, accessible and open spaces above them, Huang said, including in Cambridge, where a 300,0000-gallon stormwater holding tank has been installed under the 3-acre open space at Joan Lorentz Park. “Prior to Monday, there were no indications that a similar approach would not be taken at Magazine Beach,” Huang said, and city staff suggested several alternatives that would reduce combined sewer overflows while “minimizing the impacts and supporting the primary function of Magazine Beach as a critical open space for the community.”
The storage was proposed for a spot between the BU Bridge and the Grand Junction Railroad Bridge, or machinery needed to support the storage at Magazine Beach could be hidden inside an existing Cottage Farm building.
“Instead of engaging in a thoughtful discussion,” Huang said, the authority proposed something that “would result in a significant impact at Magazine Beach and are actions that we as project partners were not aware of. This is not an appropriate approach to planning and design of such a facility.”
“And to be clear, the city does not support and does not believe that DCR or the Legislature” would ever support permanently closing off 2.3 acres of Magazine Beach … We firmly believe this simply is not a viable proposal,” Huang said.
