The Charles River.

THE IMPENDING RETIREMENT of Fred Laskey as executive director of the Massachusetts Water Resources Authority presents an opportunity to reset the future direction for an agency critical to the future quality of life of Greater Boston.

To many, the MWRA may barely register and, if it does, it’s vaguely recognized as being responsible for serving their municipal water and sewer department. But the MWRA, which provides water and sewer services to 61 Greater Boston communities with a combined population of 3 million residents, has played a much bigger role than that. Most notably, it is the entity that successfully cleaned up Boston Harbor. In fact, it was created in 1985 expressly to tackle that decades-long failure of environmental mismanagement.

It’s easy to forget today, now that whales swim through its waters and shellfish beds are open to harvesting, but 40 years ago Boston Harbor was one of most polluted urban waterways in the country.

Unfortunately, we face a similar environmental challenge today, but this time the problem is MWRA’s timidity with regard to ending the pollution of the Charles and Mystic rivers, both of which flow into Boston Harbor. The issue is combined sewer overflows, which are caused by outdated infrastructure in which stormwater and household/industrial wastewater are collected in the same pipe and conveyed to a wastewater treatment plant. During intense rainstorms, the combined system cannot handle the excess polluted water and releases it into the river.

Charles River Conservancy was forced to cancel last year’s City Splash – their annual state-sanctioned swim – because of unsafe bacteria levels caused by heavy rainfall activating CSOs. Sewage discharges also resulted in the Charles being deemed unsafe for boating for 28 days in 2023, 20 days in 2024 and 14 days last year.

In hiring the next MWRA executive director, the MWRA board of directors — which is chaired by Rebecca Tepper, Gov. Healey’s secretary of energy and environment — should be seeking a leader who is committed to finishing the job of cleaning our major waterways from these polluting CSOs. We all deserve rivers that are free of sewage.

Those tasked with the hire should also seek a new MWRA leader who is committed to working with the Legislature and governor to expand the authority’s mission to include protecting our communities from flooding through regional water management. Currently, the MWRA is the only regional entity in the Commonwealth with authority over water management, but its statutory mission does not include stormwater or mitigation of flooding beyond its own properties.

That limited jurisdiction is a prescription for failure at a time when climate change is fueling ever stronger rainstorms with unprecedented flooding. As we know, water does not respect municipal boundaries. Without a regional approach, it is impossible to protect people and property from widespread flooding.

This is a fixable problem. In Wisconsin, the Milwaukee Metropolitan Sewerage District manages not only the wastewater from the over one million people who live in its service area, it is also responsible for flood protection.

How do they do this? They buy up undeveloped land to be permanently conserved as natural flood storage basins. Their “Green Schools” program converts asphalt-paved schoolyards into green spaces. They partner with area municipalities to install bioswales and rain gardens and with local nonprofits to plant trees to absorb stormwater. And their goals include zero combined sewer overflows, and zero homes in the 100-year floodplain.

This is truly an exciting time for the MWRA to choose a new leader, to eliminate the CSO pollution of the Charles and Mystic rivers, and to advocate for an expanded vision. The right person should be an excellent manager who will oversee skilled staff ranging from engineers to scientists to financial analysts to wastewater operators.

The new executive director must understand government finance, helping the MWRA issue bonds at the most favorable terms to support its mission at the lowest possible cost of borrowing. He or she must be an excellent communicator, helping the millions of MWRA ratepayers understand what their investments are securing for them. And, perhaps most importantly, the new leader must be a visionary who advocates for the expansion of the MWRA mission, in order to help it meet the urgent water-related challenges of our time.

Dozens of cities throughout the world have solved their river contamination problems, offering their citizens clean and accessible swimming, boating, and fishing. How long should we have to wait for these resources to be provided to our neighborhoods? In choosing a new executive director, our leaders will be answering that question.

Paul Levy was executive director of the MWRA from 1987 to 1992, He is president of the board of the Charles River Watershed Association. Emily Norton is the organization’s executive director.