OWNERSHIP
CONDITIONS
CONTEXT
HISTORY
ENVIRONMENTAL ISSUES
DESIGN ISSUES
SOCIAL ISSUES
PLANNING PROCESSES
TESTIMONIES

OWNERSHIP:
-- The Massachusetts Water Resource Authority controls the brook within the Mass Audubon property. 
-- Boston Water and Sewer primarily manages the part of the Canterbury Brook that is underground. 
-- The Division of Capital Asset Management (DCAM) is involved with the management of the section of the Canterbury Brook that is above ground or "day lit," particularly the section that flows through the Boston State Hospital site, which DCAM is responsible for.
-- The Army Corps of Engineers may have authority over the decision of whether dredging of the Canterbury Brook is permitted.

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CONDITIONS:
The Canterbury Brook is a tributary of the Stony Brook. It is a partially culverted and partially exposed body of water that is fed by Scarborough Pond within Franklin Park, as well as by storm drains. The brook flows southwest through both sections of the Boston State Hospital site, along the edge of the Boston Nature Center, through part of the Canterbury Urban Wild on the edge of Greenleaf Composting, through part of St. Michaels Cemetery, and then along the northern side of American Legion Highway south of Walk Hill Street. The brook disappears and reappears at various points along its route, dropping underground south of Walk Hill Street and ultimately merging with the Stony Brook Conduit underground.

The Canterbury Brook is visible directly across the street from the Haley Elementary School on American Legion Highway just east of the New England Telephone industrial yard. It goes underground just north of the school, passes beneath a car wash business, and then flows above ground until it reaches Walk Hill Street.

The Canterbury Brook receives storm drainage from surrounding neighborhoods in Mattapan and Roslindale. The banks of the brook are strewn with trash. The book itself is contaminated (see below). In 2002, DCAM undertook a baseline study of the stream, looking primarily at hydraulics and sediment build-up to guide their clean-up efforts.

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CONTEXT:
Canterbury Brook connects the two campuses of the Boston State Hospital site and the Canterbury Urban Wild, which lies southwest of the Forest Hills Cemetery. The brook has the potential to promote understanding of riparian systems among school children who visit the Boston State Hospital site and among the children who attend the Haley School. The currently contaminated brook and its trashy banks also have the potential detract from the experience of visiting the Boston Nature Center and even potentially the health of those who play in or near it.

In other areas of Greater Boston, such as Wooster, the Massachusetts Audubon Society has had success in public education campaigns to reduce the amount of contaminated waste that residents dump in the vicinity of storm drains. Similar strategies could be used in this area.

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HISTORY:
According to Tom Daley, director of the St. Michaels Cemetery, authorities intended to culvert the Canterbury Brook entirely so that none of the water would see the light of day. The brook was also to be straightened out to follow the trunk line. However, this plan was never carried out due to limited funds.

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ENVIRONMENTAL ISSUES:
Contamination:
According to remediation expert John O'Donnell from the Division of Capital Asset Management (DCAM), there are elevated lead levels and elevated polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAH) levels in Canterbury Brook where it is daylit along American Legion Highway within the Boston State Hospital site. According to Julie Brandlin, Director of the Boston Nature Center, during big storm events, raw sewage flows into the brook. The sources of the contamination are unclear, but contaminated runoff contributes to the problem. DCAMM has not ruled out the possibility that the city compost facility, which is adjacent to the brook, could also be contributing to the contamination because people dump potentially hazardous waste materials into the compost area.

Trash and dumping:
There are several areas where trash and dumping are concentrated, creating environmental problems along the Canterbury Brook. Just before the brook flows under Morton Street from the East to the West Campus of the Boston State Hospital site, there is a large concentration of aluminum cans, plastic bottles, and other types of trash floating in the water and strewn around the banks of the brook.

Also, along American Legion Highway south of Walk Hill Street, the sides of the brook are strewn with trash as a result of periodic flooding, as well as large items that are a product of direct dumping. This section of the brook borders land behind Jamos Italian Restaurant. There is a flexible fence between the restaurant and the stream.

Flooding:
All the storm sewers in the surrounding area discharge into Canterbury Brook, which then merges with Stony Brook. There are already problems with flooding in Roslindale neighborhoods, particularly northwest of Mt. Hope Cemetery and along American Legion Highway. When Boston Water and Sewer put down a grate along a section of the Canterbury Brook to prevent the full flow of water from traveling through the pipe, the flooding problem was exacerbated, leading to more flooding of homes, yards, and streets.

Proposed developments, if realized, would further exacerbate these problems by decreasing the amount of permeable land surface in the neighborhood. In 2002, there is little coordination among property owners and potential developers to make sure that this problem is dealt with appropriately.

Lack of awareness:
There is a lack of awareness among local residents of how stormwater management works and how residents could be contributing to the contamination of streams. Few people are cognizant of the storm drains in their neighborhoods and may change their oil or dump other toxics where they will immediately be flushed into the stormwater system.

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DESIGN ISSUES:
Along the banks of the Canterbury Brook, where it flows between the Boston Nature Center and American Legion Highway there are two roughly-erected fenced enclosures. It is not clear what their purposes are, but there are chairs and other articles of leisure around them, and it is possible that people have used the square fenced enclosures as personal refuges.

Also, as mentioned above, design of this area as a whole should take the Canterubury Brook, and the need for permeable surfaces that can handle floodwaters, into account.

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SOCIAL ISSUES:
The Canterbury Brook is a source of much misunderstanding and confusion in this area. Even those who live and work right next to the brook are often unaware of its name, much less where it comes from and where it is going. As more development brings increasing stress on the capacity of the storm water system, as the redevelopment of the Boston State Hospital sites continues, and as flooding issues worsen, the need for information among citizens may become more acute.

The lack of information made available to the public is problematic in other ways. According to John O'Donnell of DCAM, people frequently do not realize that what they put onto the street -- particularly near storm drains -- ends up in their water supply. He says that some people in the area change the oil in their cars on the streets and allow the liquid to pour out of their cars onto the street, even when they are situated next to a storm drain.

Significant money and attention are likely to be invested in improving the water quality and appearance of the Canterbury Brook in the near future (see below). If awareness among community members and local business does not increase and dumping and contaminating practices continue, this investment will not be optimized.

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PLANNING PROCESSES:
The Division of Capital Asset Maintenance and Management (DCAMM) -- a State agency -- is the state steward of the Boston State Hospital site. It is undertaking a baseline study of the stream, looking primarily at hydrolics and sediment build-up. According to DCAMM manager John O'Connell, the State wants to clean up Canterbury Brook and make it viable. Tentative plans to dredge the stream have been discussed by DCAM, Boston Water and Sewer, and the Massachusetts Audubon Society, among others. Dredging would not only decontaminate the streambed, but also increase the capacity of the stream to carry water. Because most of the Canterbury Brook is lined by granite paving blocks, there is no danger that dredging will expose even more dangerous materials to the surface. Boston Water and Sewer does not have sufficient money or experience working in open channel streams to dredge the stream independently. Thus, these plans will rest on the MWRA and DCAM -- both State agencies.

O'Connell predicts that permission to dredge the stream would need to come from the Army Corps of Engineers, although it is not entirely clear that they have jurisdiction. DCAM will likely seek to accelerate the permitting process because the dredging is likely to improve quality of the water.

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TESTIMONIES:
"That brook used to be clean and beautiful. My kids went to school up on Walk Hill and they used to enjoy the brook all the time. Just to look at it going by" (owner of Walk Hill Florist at the corner of Walk Hill Street and American Legion Highway).

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