Beaches We Can Be Proud Of
Metropolitan Beaches Commission, Boston, MA
A public plan for better beaches
The dramatic success of the Boston Harbor cleanup produced some of the cleanest water in urban America. The region’s 15 miles of public swimming beaches, however, have not shown the same progress. The state legislature established a commission to assess metro-Boston’s beaches and identify actions to enhance them. Goody Clancy assisted the commission developing a public process and report.
Impacting 14 beaches serving more than a million residents in nine communities, the effort:
- Drew hundreds of residents and beachgoers to public meetings in each community
- Leveraged additional investment in metro-Boston’s public beaches, including more than $30 million in capital investments between 2008 and 2012
- Fueled an infusion of maintenance staff and a new model for beach management replicated across the Commonwealth
