Does River flooding relate to sewage backups?
Yes, in a complex way. When there is a lot of rain, rain gets into the sewer system and raises water levels in the sewage system. This is what causes the system to overtop man holes and rise in peoples’ basements. High river water levels prevent the sewage system from overflowing into the rivers and force the backup higher. Question 5: What should we be doing about the problem near term? The top actionable priority is to make sure we have clear flow in the Alewife and the Mystic. The Department of Conservation and Recreation cleared tons of debris from the Alewife Brook last summer. That clean up may have helped to avoid the disaster of a clog on the Alewife in this storm. And the 2003 cleanup by DCR of debris at the Craddock Bridge in Medford probably kept the 2006 Mother’s day storm from being more serious. Some people disagree about how much the Craddock Bridge by itself affects flow, but no one can disagree that, as currently built, it has a tendency to become occluded, with seriou
