Boston Harbor Cleanup Foul Job at Best

Boston Harbor is getting cleaner, but state officials say that’s despite of foot-dragging by the man who made its filth famous: George Bush.

Bush sailed in during the presidential campaign last September and accused Gov. Michael S. Dukakis of neglecting an important environmental issue in his own state.

Now, the governor and his top environmental aides are wondering when President Bush will put his money where his mouth was. They want the $59 million recommended for the harbor cleanup by Congress but which was deleted in Bush’s budget.

“It’s hypocritical of the President to come to New England in the heat of a campaign and fault the man who began the harbor cleanup for not doing enough and then, once safely ensconced in the White House, to pull the money off the table,” complained John DeVillars, state environmental secretary.

Bush last fall staged a bold raid into Dukakis territory aboard a boat and accused Dukakis of delays that left the harbor “dirtier and dirtier.” The governor and his supporters scrambled to line up testimonials about his efforts in 1984 to create the water authority and give it the clout to end the pollution. But as often happened in the campaign, Dukakis was put on the defensive.

By all accounts, the harbor is finally getting cleaner after 350 years of abuse, and decisions have been made on where to locate a new $6.1-billion sewage treatment plant, the biggest public works project in the region’s history.

Since February, the agency responsible for the cleanup, the Massachusetts Water Resources Authority, has eliminated discharge of “floating scum,” the grease, solids and buoyant plastics that figured in a Bush campaign commercial.

“Thousands of gallons a day were being discharged for the last hundred years. That has stopped for the first time in history,” said Paul Levy, head of the agency.

The federal judge overseeing the cleanup is satisfied with the pace, and even the Republican regional administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, Michael Deland, agrees. “Overall, I am delighted with the progress and am optimistic the dates are going to be met,” he said.

Still, the harbor water is so foul that, according to Levy, if you scoop up a bucketful and pour it back in, you would be violating the Clean Water Act.

Without federal funds, the full cost of the cleanup falls on the water authority’s 2.5 million customers, who have seen water and sewer bills rising by 20% a year.

“I think the thing that concerns us particularly is, after all the talk about Boston Harbor, the President eliminated funds the Congress had already appropriated for the harbor,” Dukakis said in an interview last week.

Deland defended the President’s budget decision, citing the deficit and claiming that Massachusetts congressmen were divided over whether to release the money because they cannot agree on where to put a sludge processing plant.

“In my view, from a national perspective, given the deficit situation, one has to raise a question, why a bonus for Boston?” Deland said. Besides, he argued, Massachusetts could have applied for aid years ago when federal funds were plentiful but chose to seek a pollution waiver instead.