The following editorial was published in The Brockton Enterprise on August 30th, 2006:

Taunton River comes alive

It was an extraordinary photograph in Sunday's Enterprise - 13-year-old Jeffrey Syed being towed on an inner tube past an old factory building on the Taunton River. Just a few years ago, that sight would have made some readers ill - never mind what it would have done to the teenager had he flipped over into the polluted river.

But in just a decade, the 40-mile long river has gone from being one of the dirtiest in the state to one of the cleanest. The EPA rated it among the most polluted waterways, third on a list of toxins from 1990-94. No one in his right mind then would have thought of the Taunton River as a "recreation area." 

Yet today, people go boating and fishing all along the river as neighbors recall the not-too-distant days when they wouldn't go near the river.

Who gets the credit for cleaning up the river and its watershed? Certainly state and federal governments have provided funding that allowed much of the cleanup, which involved not only treating the water, but also dealing with abandoned buildings whose properties were leaching dangerous chemicals into the water. Credit also goes to local organizations, including Save the Bay, the Taunton Conservation Commission and, perhaps foremost, the Taunton River Watershed Alliance. These groups have not only done their parts to help keep the river clean, but also to raise awareness about the river and the ongoing need to prevent pollution from everything from overflowing storm drains to leaking sewer pipes. It is a neverending battle.

Most of the herring that used to go upstream to spawn are gone and there is a dearth of fish, but the watershed remains home to more than 150 species of birds, 45 species of fish and more than 360 plant species. It is an ecosystem unrivaled in the region and important to the communities of Taunton, Raynham, Halifax, Middleboro, Bridgewater and Berkley.

The Taunton River's comeback is a testament to people who cared about the environment and to government officials who realized it would only cost much more later if they didn't start providing help under the EPA's Clean Water Act. Every fish that wriggles through the current, every canoeist who glides downstream is proof that polluted land and water can be reclaimed and used for both man and beast.