Boston Harbor

Boston Police report a lobsterman helped rescue some boaters swamped by the onslaught of yesterday afternoon's driving thunderstorm.

According to police, waves whipped up by the storm capsized the boat around 5:45 p.m. at the Reserve Channel by the Conley Terminal, as it was on its way to India Wharf. The lobsterman, not identified by police, took on the soaked mariners while a Boston Police harbor-unit boat pulled the sodden boat to the nearest dock.

David Chau was in the right place and time to capture a lightning bolt hitting the East Boston waterfront during yesterday afternoon's storm.

More lightning over Boston.

I happened to be walking by Long Wharf yesterday when I looked out at the harbor and saw this huge ship heading toward the Tobin. LNG tanker! They're kind of amazing to see, so I started walking at a good pace down Long Wharf. It was moving faster than I was, so about two-thirds of the way down, I stopped and took a couple of photos. Then I got closer to the plaza at the end of the wharf and took a couple more, including this one.

See the police car? When I got to the waterfront, I'd just raised the camera to my face when the cop told me no pictures. He was nice about it, said something about orders from above, told me this wasn't even one of the big tankers, but, no, I didn't press the point, which is probably why I'm typing this at home, rather than from a bench at Boston Municipal Court (about a minute later, he told somebody else to put their camera down).

Yet, obviously, I was able to get pictures without being stopped, just a bit further up the wharf. As could have anybody else in the throngs of tourists enjoying a nice day on the water, some no doubt with way better zoom lenses on their cameras. Meanwhile, on my other side at the end of Long Wharf was a couple closely examining a map on their smartphone. Or were they secretly taking photos? No, probably she really was a local and he really was a visitor and they were just figuring out where to go next.

Obviously, security for giant containers of flammable gas is a good thing, and maybe it does make sense to station officers at every vantage point along the harbor. But is it just security theater when any yutz can just stand a few yards back and do whatever it was they were going to do at the water's edge?

The Boston Fire Department reports two BFD divers recovered a body from Fort Point Channel by the Congress Street bridge tonight. Boston Police report the body appears to be that of a male in his early 40s and that a preliminary investigation shows no visible signs of trauma.

Greg MacKay captured the Mexican Navy's Cuauhtemoc at the World Trade Center. The training vessel is docked there through Thursday; tours are available.

Copyright Greg MacKay. Tagged as universalhub on Flickr.

Divers spray the fire from below. Photo by BFD. More photos.

Post updated at 12:30 p.m.

A stubborn wharf fire that erupted around 5 a.m. sent five firefighters to the hospital and did an estimated $3 million in damage to the two-story Sarrouf Law building at 95 Commercial Wharf, the Boston Fire Department reports.

Imagine this with windows and tables and steaming bowls of chowder.

A lawsuit by North End residents has tied up a proposed restaurant at the end of Long Wharf for so long the Boston Licensing Board held a hearing today to help decide whether to revoke the proposed eatery's liquor license.

The board votes Thursday on whether to continue to give the proposed operator of Doc's Long Wharf enough time to await a Suffolk Superior Court decision on the suit and to turn what is now a largely ornamental structure into a restaurant or to rescind his liquor license and award it to somebody else.

The Boston Public Library has put up more than 300 Harbor Island photos and drawings from the 19th and 20th centuries, including a photo of some nurses and babies on Long Island, back in 1930, when it had a hospital and a Civil War-era photo of Ft. Warren on Georges Island, when it still had live cannons.

Posted under this Creative Commons license.

Vikas Anand stopped by Carlton Wharf in East Boston today.

Copyright Vikas Anand. Tagged as universalhub on Flickr.

Boston Police report arresting three men on charges they tried to abscond with copper wire from a public-health facility on Long Island.

Mike Zampitella, 43, of Quincy, Jarrod Hurley, 36, of Abington and Scott Otto, 44, of Boston, were arrested around 8:30 a.m. on Monday after, police say, they were unable to account for all the copper wiring in the back of their pickup truck. Police found the alleged bright bulbs at the island's security gate, where Boston Public Health commission guards had stopped them. Police charged them with receiving stolen property.

Innocent, etc.

The good burghers of Boston have been using Deer Island for stuff they didn't really want near them since colonial days. In 1849, Boston built its alms house there. The image is from the Library of Congress's prints and photographs collection.

Boston Police report the body of a 36-year-old man was pulled out of the Reserve Channel by Summer Street and Pappas Way around noon today. A preliminary investigation found no obvious signs of trauma on the body, police say.

Photo by Boston Fire Department.

The Boston Fire Department reports a cabin cruiser docked at Commercial Wharf sank this afternoon. Divers went in to make sure nobody was aboard (nobody was). EMS, police, the Coast Guard and state Environmental Police also responded.

Paul Levy, who oversaw the creation of the MWRA, explains why it makes no sense not to dump snow in the harbor, instead of using all that fuel to truck it to snow farms or melt it.

Yes, I know that snow on city streets picks up all kinds of chemicals and pollutants from the city environment, and I know it also picks up salt and chemical de-icers during its residence time.

But, instead of dumping this snow in the harbor, it gets trucked -- using thousands of gallons of fuel which create all kinds of air emissions -- to inland locations. What happens there? It melts, and those same pollutants enter the ground water system. Or they go into city storm drains, where they end up where? Boston Harbor.

Matt Conti posts some video of the New Year's fireworks over Boston Harbor.

The federal government wants to join a local environmental group's lawsuit against Boston for allegedly failing to keep crap out of rivers feeding into Boston Harbor.

In a motion filed in US District Court in Boston yesterday, the EPA said it agrees with the Conservation Law Foundation's suit that the Boston Water and Sewer Commission has failed to do enough to keep bacteria, oil and dissolved metals and chemicals out of Boston Harbor. The gunk comes from 201 "outfall" pipes that collect road runoff from nearly 20,000 catch basins - and from Brookline - and pours into the Mystic and Charles Rivers, from which they flow into the harbor.

H. Curtis Spalding, regional director of the federal EPA, said in a statement that the suit will help get the BWSC to fulfill its obligation to keep the Harbor clean after all the money spent to keep raw and partially treated sewage out of it.

State Police report arresting two people who allegedly motor-boated over to a Harbor island to strip copper out of a building there.

State Police say troopers from the Marine Unit got a call Friday afternoon about somebody being on Peddocks Island vandalizing property. According to State Police, when the troopers landed, they found an empty motorboat and began looking around:

Before long, the troopers heard loud thuds coming from Building #10 on the island's parade grounds. As they approached the building, Troopers Nunes and Bulis heard the sounds of power tools and hammering coming from inside. Then they spotted a man in a second floor window and ordered him out of the building, along with anyone else who was inside.

Charles Engren, 42, and Patricia Berry, 35, both of Quincy, were arrested - and their nail hammers, sledgehammers, and two reciprocating saws confiscated - State Police say. They were shipped over to the Norwell barracks for booking on charges of breaking and entering in the daytime with intent to commit a felony, malicious destruction of property worth over $250, trespassing, and possession of burglarious tools.

Innocent, etc.

By Nancy and Steve Ross. 9x12 photographic print. Framing available.

UPDATE: Body identified as that of Gene Losik.

A Boston Police boat recovered a body from the channel, near the Children's Museum, around 10 a.m. today. The body was first sighted in the harbor near Rowes Wharf, but winds and currents pushed it under the Northern Avenue and Moakley bridges and into Fort Point Channel.

The Northern Avenue bridge was opened to let police and Coast Guard boats into the channel to assist firefighters, themselves on scene in a Zodiac inflatable boat.

And not a one will end up on ice at some old wooden bar: The bivalves will be lowered into Boston Harbor as part of the Massachusetts Oyster Project's multi-year effort to help clean the harbor by re-establishing colonies of the amazing little filters.

Boston Police report the harbor patrol unit rescued the skipper and sole occupant of a 28-foot boot after it erupted in flames around 11 a.m. today between Long and Lovells islands. Police say he jumped into the water and that he was taken to Tufts Medical Center for observation.

The Boston Fire Department's marine unit also responded to the fire.

A couple celebrated their nuptials at the Boston Harbor Hotel Saturday night by hiring Atlas Fireworks to shoot off rockets over Boston Harbor.

Shutterscript took a cool photo from high above the city.

City officials gather on Long Island tomorrow morning to dedicate the addition of free-range chickens to the Serving Ourselves farm, which provides organic food - and job training - for the city's homeless. The Boston Public Health Commission, which oversees Serving Ourselves, says this is Boston's first free-range chicken farm.

The Environmental Protection Agency today sued the city of Revere, alleging its sewers often send raw human waste into storm drains that discharge into creeks leading into the harbor and Massachusetts Bay and that for more than a year, three residential sewers were illegally connected directly into a storm drain at Washburn Avenue:

Results from surface water quality samples taken from Belle Isle Inlet, Sales Creek, Trifone Brook, Central Drainage Ditch, and Mill Creek on multiple occasions from at least August 2004 through at least June 2010 demonstrate that Revere is discharging pollutants, including fecal coliform, E. coli, and Enterococcus bacteria, all indicative of sewage, biological materials, and municipal waste, from its [storm drain] outfalls.

The complaint also alleges the city failed to notify the EPA, as required, of storm-related overflows on 13 occasions over a two-year period.

The EPA is seeking fines that could run into the hundreds of thousands of dollars, according to a complaint filed in US District Court in Boston.

Complete complaint.

Wilhelmina: On the rocks. Photo by US Coast Guard.

The Coast Guard reports a 50-foot cabin cruiser out of Weymouth ran into Devil's Back off Deer Island shortly after 2:30 p.m. today.

The Massport Fire Department removed 18 people from the Wilhelmina, leaving two crew members aboard.

No injuries were reported.

On July 3, a tour boat ran into the rock.