The Boston Conservation Commission this evening is scheduled to review state plans to turn what is now a large grass field and poison-ivy-infested woods along the Neponset near the Shops at Riverwood into a new park with trails, a river observation platform and a performance area. Read more.
The Neponset River Greenway Council reports the Greenway Trail in the Cedar Grove/Granite Avenue area could flood at high tide around 11 a.m. on Sunday, Monday at noon and Tuesday around 1 p.m.
This egret had been standing in the marsh along the Dorchester side of the Neponset River, near the bridges, when either it realized there just wasn't anything to eat there or got tired of the small black birds that kept flying right over him, so it took off and didn't stop until it got all the way to the other side of the river.
The Dorchester Reporter reports on today's official designation of the 3.7-mile stretch from the Mother Brook in Hyde Park to Boston Harbor, due to elevated levels of polychlorinated biphenyls from decades of the river's former use as a dumping ground for a variety of factories along its banks. Read more.
There were a couple of interesting mushrooms yesterday on the path to the canoe launch on the Neponset River at Paul's Bridge on the Milton/Hyde Park line, one looking like it was trying to detect alien radio signals, the other like it had been designed as a piece of folk-art tableware. Read more.
The State House News Service reports the federal EPA yesterday formally proposed making the Neponset River, from Dana Avenue in Hyde Park to Dorchester Lower Mills a designated Superfund hazardous-waste and cleanup site due to the large volume of PCBs in river silt and the difficulties of trying to recoup costs from dozens of sites responsible for the contamination on one of the nation's oldest industrial waterways.
In its proposal to designate the river, the EPA says: Read more.
Drew sent his camera aloft for views of the lower Neponset in Dorchester and Milton.
Shrimply Pibbles chronicled a flooded Tenean Beach, at the mouth of the Neponset River in Dorchester, early this morning.
Factories where the Mother Brook flows into the Neponset in 1890 (the large factory is now home to senior-citizen apartments). Source.
The federal EPA is considering whether to designate the Neponset River from Hyde Park to Lower Mills as a place so polluted it requires federal funds and expertise to help clean it up. Read more.
The Dorchester Reporter has some photos of a seal relaxing in the Neponset up by Lower Mills last week.
Paul Nutting Jr. forwards John Ryan's photo of a bald eagle on an old piling at Finnegan Park on the Dorchester side of the Neponset River.
A Winter Knight shows us the frozen Neponset River near its mouth this morning. Don't worry - he was wrapped in a warm inbound Red Line train on the bridge.
Baker's Chocolate ad card from the late 19th century.
The Dorchester Reporter recounts when the world of chocolate centered on Dorchester Lower Mills - and Walter Baker's chocolate works on the Neponset River.
Image from the BPL collection. Posted under this Creative Commons license.
The mouth of the Neponset was pretty icy along the rotting pilings near the Venezia in Port Norfolk today. There was still a fair amount of open water out in the center of the river.
The Bulletin reports the river has incredibly high levels of both the sort of bacteria usually found with human waste and toxic PCBs - which is why the owner of the shopping plaza on the Hyde Park/Mattapan line hasn't put in the riverside restaurant he once wanted to.
On Friday at 5 p.m., DCR opened the newest section of the Neponset Greenway, a 1.3-mile stretch from near Central Avenue into Mattapan that includes the new Harvest River Bridge crossing the river between Mattapan and Milton.
If you pull into the parking lot for the Ryan Playground, on River Street, sort of opposite Gladeside Avenue in Mattapan, follow the new path into the woods, which will take you to the Greenway. Turn left and you'll soon come to the bridge, the river and the path towards Lower Mills. Read more.
Mark Smith watched the snow come down on Paul's Bridge and the Neponset River at the Hyde Park/Milton line this afternoon.
Ben Franklin outside Old City Hall was looking good in the snow as well: Read more.
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