The Charles River has been getting cleaner for years, but that progress has stalled, according to the latest report card on its water quality.
Two stretches of the river took a step back between 2022 and 2023, according to Friday's announcement from the Charles River Watershed Association. Nevertheless, the organizations' director, Emily Norton, told NBC10 Boston that swimming in the Charles could still be a more regular occurrence.
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"Our standards show that there are areas of the river, even in Cambridge and Boston that would be safe for swimming now and we think the time is right to start opening up that conversation," Norton said.
The two parts of the river where water quality took a dip in the latest report, for 2023, were the lower basin, the part that runs by Boston, and the lower middle watershed further upriver.
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But only one stretch of the river got a grade below a B-. That would be the Muddy River branch, which runs through Fenway and by Brookline and Jamaica Plain, and has a C grade.
The Charles isn't regularly open for swimming, but Norton said that it's time to start talking about reopening the seven beaches that used to line the river.
"You take for granted you can't swim in your local river," she said. "That is crazy. We should demand, the public should be demanding, that we be allowed to swim in our river and the river be clean enough."
Also released Friday were report cards for the Mystic River and Neponset River watersheds. The grades are determined by bacteria levels in the water, often linked to sewage overflows and runoff from the urbanized area around the rivers.
The report cards are a collaboration with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
