Aberjona River
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42°29′17″N 71°7′24″W / 42.48806°N 71.12333°W
Aberjona River | |
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Mystic Lakes | |
• elevation | 7 ft (2.1 m) |
Basin size | 25 sq mi (65 km2) |
The Aberjona River is a 9.3-mile-long (15.0 km),[1] heavily urbanized river in the northwestern suburbs of Boston, Massachusetts. The name is from the Natick language and means "junction or confluence".[2]
The river rises in
The Aberjona River was first identified by Europeans shortly after 1631, when Captain Edward Johnson explored the area. The name Aberjona appears in the earliest colonial records, but its origins are unknown. By 1865 there were 21 tanneries and currying shops in Woburn, and by the 1870s pollution from tanneries in Woburn and Winchester was affecting both the river and the Upper Mystic Lake (then a public water supply). The Massachusetts Legislature banned the discharge of wastes into Horn Pond Brook (a tributary) in 1907 and into the Aberjona in 1911.
A 1995 study by Spliethoff and Hemond analyzed sediments of the
In the 1995 bestseller
From 1969 into the early 1980s, the Industri-plex site was developed along the river due to its proximity to the I-93 / I-95 junction. Industri-plex manufacturing plants contributed to the area's extensive contamination with chemicals used by the local paper, textile and leather industries, including lead-arsenic insecticides, acetic acid, benzene and toluene, and sulfuric acid. Industri-plex is now a "superfund" site, although substantially remediated.
References
- ^ U.S. Geological Survey. National Hydrography Dataset high-resolution flowline data. The National Map Archived 2012-03-29 at the Wayback Machine, accessed April 1, 2011
- ^ Huden, John C (1962). Indian place names of New England. New York: Museum of the American Indian, Heye Foundation. p. 15. Retrieved 16 May 2018.
Notes
This article includes a list of general references, but it lacks sufficient corresponding inline citations. (June 2009) |
- Harr, Jonathan (1995), A Civil Action, Vintage Press, pages 11–13; 18; 185-193
- USGS Aberjona River project
- EPA Aberjona River project
- NOAA Aberjona River photographs
- Mystic River Watershed Association
- Henry M. Spliethoff and Harold F. Hemond, "History of Toxic Metal Discharge to Surface Waters of the Aberjona Watershed", American Chemical Society