New Bedford Harbor Cleanup Gets Massive Funding Boost

NEW BEDFORD, MA — The New Bedford Harbor cleanup got a new $76.7 million funding boost Tuesday, Senator Edward Markey and a team from the Environmental Protection Agency announced.

The cleanup began in 1994 as part of the EPA's Superfund program. Contamination in the 18,000-acre area was mainly driven by at least two manufacturers that dumped industrial waste directly into the harbor from 1940 to the late 1970s.

The chemicals contained in the industrial waste are known to damage the environment and can cause health problems like skin irritation, cancer and damage to the reproductive system, the EPA says. By 1982, signs were posted around the bay to warn the public of the pollution.

Today, a large portion of the bay has been successfully dredged. Tuesday's new round of cash will fund a series of wind turbines, making New Bedford a center of the offshore wind industry.

"It's symbolic of how New Bedford has reinvented itself time, after time, after time," Mayor Jon Mitchell said at the announcement event.