Public Hearing on the State of the Beaches in Lynn Set for May 30

The Metropolitan Beaches Commission (MBC) will hold a public hearing on the state of the beaches in Lynn, Swampscott, and Nahant on Tuesday evening, May 30 from 6:00 pm to 8:00pm at the Lynn Museum/LynnArts on 590 Washington St. in Lynn.

The hearing will begin with a report from Save the Harbor/EEA’s Beach Science Advisory Committee on planned improvements to water quality on King’s Beach in Lynn and Swampscott

There was also be important updates on:

DCR’s current plans to remove algae from these beaches this summer

The FY2018 DCR Budget for the Metropolitan Beaches

The Friends of Lynn and Nahant Beach’s summer program expansion

Following the updates, MBC Co-Chairs Senator Thomas M. McGee of Lynn and Rep. RoseLee Vincent of Revere, representatives of DCR and EEA, and members of the Commission including Rep. Brendan Crighton and Robert Tucker of Lynn and Town Manager Jeff Chelgren and Mounzer Aylouche of Nahant, look forward to hearing from you.

About the Metropolitan Beaches Commission (MBC)

The Metropolitan Beaches Commission is comprised of elected officials and community, civic, nonprofit, and business leaders from Boston and the metropolitan region’s waterfront neighborhoods and beachfront communities. It is Co-Chaired by Senator Thomas McGee of Lynn, who has served on the Commission since its inception in 2007 and Representative RoseLee Vincent of Revere.

The MBC was created in 2006 by the Massachusetts Legislature to take an in-depth look at the metropolitan region’s public beaches in Nahant, Lynn, Revere, Winthrop, East Boston, South Boston, Dorchester, Quincy and Hull that are managed by the Department of Conservation and Recreation.

The Commission reconvened in 2013 to examine the impacts of the reforms and recommendations made in its first report  “Beaches We Can Be Proud Of” and issued additional findings and recommendations to better leverage these resources for residents in the future in their 2014 report “Waves of Change”. Today the MBC is a permanent Commission, which reports annually to the House and the Senate.

For more information about upcoming hearings, to learn more about the MBC’s history and accomplishments, or to download copies of the Commission’s 2007 and 2014 reports, visit www.savetheharbor.org/MBC

About The Beaches Science Advisory Committee (BSAC)

The Beaches Science Advisory Committee is a panel of independent scientists, engineers, and experts whose goal is to increase understanding and evaluate proposed solutions to water quality problems on the region’s public beaches from Nahant to Nantasket.

Save the Harbor/Save the Bay first convened the BSAC in 2003 to create a consensus on proposed solutions to persistent pollution which closed the South Boston’s beaches more than once every five days in a typical year. The BSAC’s 2004 report served as a blueprint for public investments that have transformed those beaches into the cleanest urban beaches in the nation.

In 2016, Energy and Environmental Affairs (EEA) Secretary Matthew Beaton asked Save the Harbor/Save the Bay to reconvene the BSAC in partnership with EEA and report on plans to improve water quality at King’s Beach in Lynn and Swampscott and at Tenean Beach in Dorchester, which are consistently the poorest performing public beaches in the metropolitan region.

Funded in part by a grant from EEA and Chaired by Save the Harbor board member Dr. Judy Pederson, the BSAC convened in January and asked Save the Harbor/Save the Bay to install rain gauges in Lynn and flow meters at Stacey Brook to gather additional water quality data at Kings Beach in Lynn and Swampscott to inform their inquiry.

For more information about the Metropolitan Beaches Commission or the Beaches Science Advisory Committee please contact Bruce Berman on his cell at 617-293-6243 or by email to [email protected]

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