11 



of advocacy for this designation paid off; however, we must follow through with our 

 commitment to protect this region and do all that is possible to prevent any degra- 

 dation or altering of this acknowledged significant ecosystem, home to many special 

 marine mammals and fish species. I regret that my schedule does not allow me to 

 remain to listen to the remainder of the proceedings today. However, I look forward 

 to reviewing a full transcript of the hearing held today and respectfully request of 

 Chairman Studds to receive this as soon as available. 



Mr. Studds. Thank you very much, Senator Kerry. I appreciate 

 it. I appreciate working with you and your staff on this matter. I 

 hope you will stay as long as your schedule will permit. Winter is 

 coming on the Cape, so they might find a villain or two. You never 

 know. 



We will return to the list as it is here with Mr. Doug MacDonald, 

 Executive Director, of all things, of the Massachusetts Water Re- 

 sources Authority. Mr. MacDonald, welcome. 



STATEMENT OF DOUGLAS B. MACDONALD, EXECUTIVE 

 DIRECTOR, MASSACHUSETTS WATER RESOURCES AUTHORITY 



Mr. MacDonald. Congressman Studds, Senator Kerry, ladies and 

 gentlemen, before I start, I would just like briefly to say to you and 

 Senator Kennedy and Chairman Moakley and other members of 

 our delegation in Washington, how much we appreciate your con- 

 tinuing assistance on a whole range of matters under the Clean 

 Water Act that are presented in connection with our project, and 

 particularly how much we appreciate your strenuous assistance on 

 behalf of additional funding for the project from the Federal Gov- 

 ernment. That is, of course, intimately tied in with some of the 

 issues that we see here today. I will go on with the rest of my pre- 

 pared testimony. I did not want both of you here without thanking 

 you for that and asking for your continued help and assistance. 



I am the Executive Director of the Massachusetts Water Re- 

 sources Authority. As you know, the MWRA was created to rebuild 

 the region's crumbling water and sewer infrastructure and to im- 

 plement the long delayed plan to restore water quality in Boston 

 Harbor and Massachusetts Bay. As such, we have welcomed the 

 recent biological assessment and the biological opinion. They essen- 

 tially confirm the compliance of the plan's secondary treatment fa- 

 cilities and the Massachusetts Bay Outfall Tunnel with the legal 

 requirements of the Endangered Species Act. 



When I first took over as the Executive Director of the MWRA, 

 very early on, I traveled to Cape Cod to confront what was then 

 and remains a top priority issue for the MWRA. For months prior 

 to that, the Agency had been at odds with interest groups on the 

 Cape and elsewhere about the potential impacts of the outfall 

 tunnel on Massachusetts Bay and Cape Cod Bay. We promised to 

 listen. We asked, in return, that we be listened to. We have tried to 

 take all of the concerns seriously and to answer them and address 

 them as honestly and as straight-forwardly as we could. Obviously, 

 not every question will ever be answered, but the overwhelming 

 weight of the evidence today suggests that there is no threat to the 

 Massachusetts Bay marine ecosystem, as presented by the outfall — 

 and to add to my prepared testimony here, I would like to already 

 take the words of the Conservation Law Foundation and to reiter- 



